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- Convenor:
-
Mikateko Mathebula
(University of the Free State)
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- Format:
- Thematic Panel
- Theme:
- Education, rights, equalities and capabilities
Short Abstract:
This panel supports the case made by Cameron (2024) and others, for the greater inclusion of emotional factors in the capability approach. The panel asks how we can situate emotions in our work as capability scholars in the field of higher education, to examine how emotional illbeing manifests as a crises in times of turbulence, but also how it impacts everyday teaching and learning encounters.
Long Abstract:
Traditional research discourses tend to present academic work as rational, detached, objective and free from emotion (Laugran & Mannay, 2018). These discourses not only present research as ‘objective’ but conceal the subject positionalities of researchers, and the emotional imperatives that can inspire research (Laugran & Mannay, 2018). To counter these views, as Laugran and Mannay (2018) do, this panel engages with the emotional experiences of researchers working in different contexts and sites, and demonstrates the importance of emotions in research processes and practices. The panel also supports the case made by Cameron (2024) and others, for the greater inclusion of emotional factors in the capability approach. In particular, the panel asks how we can situate and understand emotions in our work as capability scholars in the field of higher education, not only by acknowledging emotional balance (Walker et al. 2022) as a dimension of wellbeing, but also by considering different ways that:
• Emotions influence research processes and interactions in different higher education research settings and contexts;
• Emotional illbeing manifests during times of crises and turbulence in higher education spaces, but also in the everyday experience of being a university staff member, student, or research participant;
• Emotions are uncritically regarded as detrimental to, and therefore rendered (in)visible in, the interpretation of data gathered through higher education research projects.
The panel offers contributions from scholars based in South Africa and the United States of America, whose papers collectively situate emotions in capabilities research, and individually address different ways in which this can be done. The presenters also reflect on their own emotions as capability scholars working in the higher education space, bringing into sharp relief the joys, worries, doubts, and frustrations that accompany research. The presenters are work in a range of disciplines across the social sciences and STEM, which provides a valuable opportunity for reflection across disciplinary boundaries, and sheds light on common challenges and opportunities brought about by emotion in research.
We are aware that making emotions an explicit part of researching capabilities in higher education raises ethical issues, especially when the emotions expressed by a research participant cause so much distress that the researcher is compelled or tempted to take a therapeutic and/or prescriptive role (Cameron, 2024). Most researchers follow the advice to acknowledge our professional limitations and as Cameron (2024) explains, to ‘step back gently to create a space for reflection on how to proceed’. This usually entails referring research participants to university counselling services, so that we might exit the research space without damage to the research participant or process (Cameron, 2024). However, the rational and the emotional do not function separately; instead higher education research is suffused with positive and negative emotions (Walker et al. 2022) for research participants, who may be students, lecturers, or other members of the university community but also for researchers – all experience fear, worry, anger, impatience, powerlessness, grief, happiness, joy, gratitude and so forth (Mendzheritskaya & Hansen 2019). As Nussbaum (2001: 1) reminds us, emotions ‘shape the landscape of our mental and social lives’ and are integral to our reasoning about our lives in society. Featured in her list of ten central human capabilities, Nussbaum (2010) argues that supporting this capability means developing forms of human association that are crucial for balanced emotional development. In the higher education space, this means, for example, acknowledging that students have personal lives which affect their learning: 'feelings of not belonging at university; feelings that no one shares the same worries, anxieties or experiences so that there is no one with whom to talk; and, feelings that it is shameful to be worried or failing’ (Walker et al. 2022).
However, we are often ill-equipped to acknowledge, address or alleviate our own, let alone the emotional distress of others, during processes of teaching, learning and research. For example, as researchers we seldom acknowledge how we feel when engaging with sensitive data; that is, we seldom acknowledge that we are not passive listeners and that we too are affected by our interactions with research participants, and indeed the emotions they express during interviews for example. Given this limitation: How can we interact in these processes without causing unnecessary damage, and at the same time ensure that our emotional development is not blighted by anxiety or diminished by taking too distanced a stance towards each other? How can emotions be supported to strengthen rather than weaken forms of human association and interaction that are crucial for meaningful research? Finally, what possibilities exist for us to assess emotional balance as a valued capability?
Three papers address these questions and consider how we might situate and understand emotions in our work as capability scholars, using empirical examples from diverse higher education contexts.
References
Cameron, J. 2024. Incorporating an emotional dimension in the capability approach. In Flavio Comim, P. B. Anand & Shailaja Fennell (eds). Social Choice, Agency, Inclusiveness and Capabilities, Cambridge University Press, PP. 202-221.
Loughran, T. & Mannay, D. 2018. Emotion and the Researcher: Sites, Subjectivities, and Relationships, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Nussbaum, M. 2010. Not for Profit: Why democracy needs the humanities, Princeton University Press.
Nussbaum, M. 2001. Upheavals of Thought, Cambridge University Press.
Mendzheritskaya, J. & Hansen, M. 2019. The role of emotions in higher education teaching and learning processes, Studies in Higher Education 44(10): 1709–1711.
Nussbaum, M. 2001. Upheavals of Thought, Cambridge University Press.
Walker,M., McLean, M., Mathebula,M. & Mukwambo, P. 2022. Low-Income Students, Human Development and Higher Education in South Africa: Opportunities, obstacles and outcomes, African Minds.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
This paper paper analyses students' experiences of emotional distress and illbeing that emerged in their narrated experiences of university life, where unequal access to resources disrupt emotional wellbeing.
Paper long abstract:
In this first paper of the panel, entitled ‘Navigating emotional illbeing and distress: a capability analysis of first-generation South African university student narratives’, Talita Calitz explores how students process emotional illbeing in their experiences of university access and participation, within the context of economically and politically precarious environments. The first part of the paper is an analysis of emotions that emerged in students’ narrated experiences of university life, and in particular, how individuals work through emotions such as shame and fear. While academic and financial stressors are recognised as part of the first-generation student experience (Lincoln & Kearney 2019; Mendzheritskaya & Hansen 2019), less is known about the emotional dimension of students who navigate university life with comparatively fewer financial and psychosocial resources. This paper draws on narrative interviews conducted between 2019 and 2022 with South African students during their undergraduate university trajectory, and into their first years of employment or postgraduate study.
Emotions signal relationships, hierarchies and systemic arrangements that constrain and enable individual freedoms. Emotional distress and illbeing foreground spaces within social structures, including universities, where unequal access to resources and opportunities disrupt emotional wellbeing. Even though emotions may be sidelined as less important than academic freedoms and functionings within an educational setting, the second part of the paper suggests that opening analytical space for emotions within capability research could expand our understanding of structural conditions that impact on individual freedoms. Emotional distress and illbeing are significant indicators of inequality in education, while the freedom to achieve the capability for emotional balance is a valued achievement for university students (Walker et al. 2022). Paying attention to student experiences of emotional distress and illbeing within the research process, and finding ways to ethically engage with emotional vulnerability, could deepen our capability-informed response to multidimensional vulnerabilities. The emotional component of student experiences is analysed within the process of conducting the research interview and data analysis. The paper is concluded with some reflections on how capability researchers could ethically navigate their own and their participants’ emotions during the research process.
Key words: emotional lives; educational inequality; first-generation university students
Paper short abstract:
Rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst college students have created a need for approaches that acknowledge the impact that students' emotional well-being has on their ability to learn. This paper utilizes grounded theory methods to generate an assessment tool to evaluate emotional balance.
Paper long abstract:
In the wake of COVID-19, student mental health has become a cause for concern in American universities, given rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst college-age youth. Faculty and administrators are beginning to take note of longstanding calls for a more holistic view of student life, acknowledging the impact that students’ emotional well-being has on their ability to learn. The capabilities approach is well suited to this challenge, offering a holistic account of opportunities and barriers students experience in college. Emotions are a prominent factor in many capabilities lists, including that of “emotional balance”, meaning the “ability to deal with challenges and stress”, or the “ability to be happy” (Walker et al. 2022:58). Education literature demonstrates that students’ ability to learn is significantly influenced by their emotional state (Immordino-Yang 2007, Phye et al. 2007). Positive emotions can stimulate students’ motivation to learn, while negative emotions such as anxiety or fear may cause students to withdraw. Emotional states are difficult to measure, which creates a need for assessment tools to evaluate students’ emotional capabilities in higher education.
In this second paper of the panel, we draw upon focus group outcomes and life-history interviews (n=24) with college seniors in an Electrical & Computer Engineering department in the United States to develop an assessment tool for emotional balance. We conducted a content analysis of the focus group and interview data, using qualitative codes that correspond with our capabilities list, material resources, and conversion factors. We then selected four case studies that demonstrate the importance of emotional balance, which were reviewed by the research team using consensus coding techniques (Stemler 2019, Harry et al. 2005). These case studies reveal the complex intersections between “emotional balance” and other higher education capabilities. Emotional imbalance may be exacerbated by a lack of structural support for emotional wellbeing on campus. However, in some cases, students may find more emotional support in campus environments than they find at home, making the university a place where emotional resilience is fostered.
From this qualitative data, we generated an assessment tool that can be adapted for use by higher education administration. The assessment tool includes a survey element for collecting responses from students, along with a structural analysis to understand whether adequate support exists to help students navigate moments of emotional distress. This research will help operationalize the capabilities approach to make it more easily adaptable to other universities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper describes how emotional illbeing manifests in the everyday experiences of low-income university students in South Africa. The paper also reflects on how being stoic during research processes can weaken forms of human association that are crucial for developing emotional balance.
Paper long abstract:
The final paper of this panel draws on work by Walker et al. (2022) who identify ‘emotional balance’ or ‘being free from fear or anxiety that constrains learning’, as a valued capability for inclusive learning outcomes for low-income university students in South Africa. Empirically, the paper is based on data (and personal experiences) from a series of life-history interviews (2016-2021) that were carried out in 'Miratho', a longitudinal project on the university access, participation and success journeys of 66 rural and township youth from low-income households in South Africa. The paper also draws on the follow-on project that explores through narrative inquiry, the post university trajectories of 34 rural youth (2021-2023).
The paper presents data that were gathered to construct one student’s (Anathi) higher education story, which contains poignant examples of emotional illbeing or imbalance. A source of this illbeing for Anathi, and many other low-income students, is related to finances, where lack of income produces worries about how to pay for university studies and how to assist family members who are in need (Walker et al., 2022). For example, Anathi used part of her scholarship funds to make financial transfers to family members whilst she was at university. The paper focuses on her story alone because she was a participant in both the Miratho and follow on projects, which has allowed a particularly rich and layered exploration into and the retelling of her university trajectory. The paper also focuses solely on her story because it most acutely captures the ‘relational, material and emotional dynamics’ (Mangoma & Wilson-Prangley, 2019: 455) of financially caring for family members whilst at university.
This paper thus situates emotions in the financial decisions made by low-income students. In doing so, it describes how emotional illbeing manifests as a crisis in the everyday experiences of being a low-income university student in South Africa. The paper also critically reflects on researchers being stoic during emotive life-history interviews and in the interpretation of emotive data, and questions whether this weakens forms of human association that are crucial for emotional balance. The paper thus argues that emotions can be valuable and meaningful in research not only for the sake of producing compelling accounts of student experiences that resonate with diverse audiences, but also to acknowledge and bring clarity to interpretive biases and thus encourage more authenticity in academic voice (Laugran & Mannay, 2018).