4. DEMANDANTES DE EMPLEO PARADOS
4.4. A NTIGÜEDAD EN LA DEMANDA Y PARO DE LARGA DURACIÓN (PLD)
Fenwick called for a return to “passion” for learning rather than the “deficit discourse” that had driven lifelong learning policies (2006:10). She argued that caring relationships needed to be at the heart of pedagogic encounters shifting perception, within HEIs, from caring teachers being “at risk” to them having the “audacity to hope”. Caring teachers need not be idealised as heroic or charismatic gurus. If the “bounded location of
pedagogy” (ibid p12) changed, away from the individual teacher toward the institutional structures, cultural practices and the moral purposes that configure the complex
relationships into which pedagogy was woven, there would be a risk of “evacuating the human relationship at the heart of pedagogy” (ibid p13).
New teachers’ interpretations of their vocation often included social justice, cultural and empathetic responsiveness tinged with paradoxical awareness of perceived burdens of the caring role. (Walker et al. 2006). Caring behaviours in HEIs were marginalised despite indications that balanced caring enhanced retention and performance (ibid p359). A systematic review of student experiences in HEIs identified
underacknowledged, mis-theorised accounts of emotions (Beard et al. 2007:235) and called for re-engagement with attitudes such as Rogers’ (1969) realness, genuineness and empathy. Beard at al., (2007:239) concluded that explicit understanding of
learners and teachers. Like Mortibouys (2005), they advocated the development of an emotionally intelligent workforce.
Alternative stances on emotionality within instructional interactions acknowledge expression, identification, and re-conceptualization of relational caring as pivotal to enhancement of teacher motivation and relationships (Mayer and Turner, 2006:377-79). For instance emotional markers, such as laughter, could signify positive emotional climates conducive for the appraisal of situations (ibid) but may require a workforce with capacities to generate such climates and manage positive affect. Developing educator capacities to build and sustain authentic relationships might in turn have reduced the need for emotional labour and the in-authenticity evident in environments characterised by non-display rules.
Emotions were prevalent in learner accounts of risk-taking behaviours and pedagogic relationships influence student willingness to take risks (Meyer and Turner 2006:380). Bored, non-engaged learners felt limited pride in accomplishments and experience
emotional states that reduced motivation to learn. This was because emotion and agency worked interactively with motivation such that teachers’ own emotions appeared integral to the quality of their teaching (ibid p388).
Sustaining affective pedagogical behaviours within contexts characterised by
doubleduties may require staff development programmes to provide educators with relational caring strategies and capacities to manage emotional labour. Enabling educators to value their capacity to perform emotional labour, as an expressive behaviour, may increase their sense of self-actualization and provide intrinsic rewards that enhance motivation.
Such strategies might address expert practitioners concerns that:
“. . . traditional academics can’t hack the pink and fluffy ……. the emotional element of learning and the consequences of forming and ending relationships. A range of emotions from frustration, loss, pleasure and satisfaction when students complete and move on ... Developing empathy and care for the well-being of learners was mentioned by a majority of the sample. Yet only four reported strategies to handle the personal consequences of caring or self-care” (Jones 2007:34).
Expert teachers, who arguably practised formative pedagogy, deliberately utilised authentic emotional responses and explicitly seek strategies for managing the impact of double-duties and supercomplexities on their professional role, identity and motivation for example lack of formal recognition for effort (ibid).
GENDERED CONCEPTIONS OF RELATIONAL CARING
Kantian concepts of social justice resulted in professional expectations of affect-neutral relationships requiring educators to adopt
“
a stand point of disinterested and disengaged moral actors beyond the world of emotions and feelings and not shaped by local customs or habits” (Smeyers 1999:245).Noddings influenced a sub-genre of gendered conceptualisation of pedagogy where caring, defined as “a desire for the well-being of others” needed to be relational. It was deemed “a connection or encounter between two human beings, a carer and a recipient of care” (Noddings 1992 in Shacklock 2008:182) and the foundation of effective
pedagogy (Noddings online accessed March 2010). Noddings has significantly influenced a range of writers who argue in favour of emotionally informed rather than rational conceptions of teacher effectiveness. Effective teachers were care-givers who signaled “engrossment”, empathetically perceived what learners felt or needed to express (Noddings, 1984; 1995:366) and through reciprocity developed sustainable caring dispositions in students. Such attention and monitoring was not unconditional but required an affirmative response from the cared-for (English 2003:300). Noddings’ ethics-of-care promoted learning contracts underpinned by 3R’s of reciprocity,
relatedness and responsiveness (Sumsion 2000:168) where the cared-for had shared responsibility.
Post-feminist perceptions and shaping of caring pedagogies emerged throughout the literature search. For instance, Barber (2002) and Illeris (2002:237) acknowledged that under-recognition of emotional conditions might be due to male preference for abstract and structural approaches. Critical feminists, for example Guthro
(
2002:3),
maintained that the dominant masculine orientations of HEIs have resulted in non-recognition of and silencing women from speaking of “the incredible amount of labour, time andcommitment in activities such as mother-work, then this labour becomes invisible within the academy”.
Gendered perception of teaching quality, by medical students, showed role-model status ascribed to 27/46 (male doctors based on knowledge, professional power and authority) compared to 19/46 female medics valued for “human attributes: tolerance, integrity, respectfulness, and support towards students” (Lemmp and Seale 2004:771). Women educators were often described as caring, expected to nurture, evaluated differently from men, and assessed on perceived rather than actual availability to students (Massoni 2004:3).