Notes on:
Cousin, G. (2006) 'Threshold concepts, troublesome
knowledge and emotional capital: an exploration
into learning about others'. In Meyer,
J.& Land, R. (Eds.) (2006) Overcoming
Barriers to Student Understanding (134-47).
London: Routledge.
Dave Harris
[The actual book looks a bit repetitive and mostly
focuses on teaching in things like biology and
accountancy.]
The focus is on the concept of Otherness in
Communication, Culture and Media Studies (CCM), a
strand in the ETL project. Interviews, focus
groups and observations were conducted across nine
universities, some old and some new, mixed
genders. CCM seems to be too broad and internally
disputed to have anything like essential threshold
concepts, but university teachers did agree that
the concept is useful to get them to think about
Otherness.
Otherness can be discussed in terms of Said and
Eurocentrism. It is a major theme in
feminism. The idea that otherness is
connected to identity is a major theme in
CCM. There is no agreement about the
concept, however, but the idea still has some of
the characteristics of the threshold
concept. For example ontological shifts and
transformations has been seen as a central theme,
although students react to the possibilities
differently, but in a characteristic way.
Irreversibility has arisen in some cases, although
concepts can be still modified or rejected, having
been understood. Integratedness arose when
discussing the concepts of Otherness as something
complex and problematic, with social identities
interconnected, and with a certain 'fluid
understanding of social differences,
representation and identity formation' (137).
Otherness almost certainly entails learner
discomfort, and thus troublesome knowledge.
It is not just that the language of CCM can be
difficult, but that the subject position of the
learner is itself an issue - white people might
not realize that 'white' is a particular
signifier, or that everyone can be located in an
ethnic group. Relations between sex,
sexuality and gender are 'slippery'. Thus
concepts appear more or less alien or counter
intuitive according to where people are placed in
the first place. Everyone in the class can
feel uncomfortable. Troublesomeness is not
just a matter of cognitive complexity, because
emotions and social positions are engaged.
We might need a notion of emotional capital to
develop this further. This is similar to
Bourdieu on cultural capital, and it also overlaps
with the notion of Goleman's emotional
intelligence [yech]. It involves a set of
assets, including the ability to disengage
emotionally and pursue an instrumental
technique. It is hard to predict how student
experience produces particular relations of
emotional capital: some students may have greater
'"experiential proximity"' (138) to the issues and
identities, according to family and other social
positions, and age. This can provide mature
students with greater confidence and emotional
capital. However, university classes can be
quite homogeneous in terms of social class and
skin colour. However, one teacher used this
homogeneity as the starting point, getting
students to deconstruct their own position.
Liminality was apparently in some cases, in the
form of both uncertainty, and the adoption of
techniques such as quasi plagiarism and
mimicry. These response can be functional
enough to get through exams, but also 'naive
because it does not lead to mastery' (139).
There seem to be four ideal type student
positions:
Spectator or voyeur, retaining distance and
gazing at the Other without following implications
for self. Sometimes, this involves exotic or
erotic content, often a superficial
understanding. This can result in 'a rather
formulaic understanding'(140), so that for example
a good press is tolerant of homosexuality and a
bad press not. Some teachers suspected
instrumental responses. Students can
certainly '"do sexism"'as they can any other
topic, without interrogating their own gender
positions. They can even get good marks in
their assignments, reminding us of the limits of
conventional testing [there is a strange link here
with the acquisition of cultural capital by
learning the appropriate terminology and
discourse]. These approaches also
domesticate.
The defended learner, students who are
resistant or hostile, or disaffected. This
can be because of a greater interest in the
practical aspects, say of Media Studies, and some
techy students saw the cultural studies side as
displaying politically correct obsessions, harping
on about oppression, tapping into the moral panic
about political correctness. Teachers taking
this on need to remember that pedagogy should not
marginalise such people, nor privilege the
marginalised. We must avoid 'the creation of
the league table of victimhood' (141). The
aim is to reduce the number of defended learners
by stressing that everyone has some kind of
experience of inclusion or exclusion. [This
avoids league tables, but risks banal
relativism]. Safe learning environments can
also help [and there are some pretty basic
recommendations in the Conclusion of the
book]. At the same time, discomfort can be
useful, as long as it does not provoke erection of
defences. Nor should we rely on those who
possess sufficient emotional capital to disclose
on behalf of everyone else - students do not have
to discuss their experience and sometimes it is
wise if they do not.
The victim - identified learner, where a
conversion rather than critical engagement takes
place, in a process of over identification,
possibly attracted by what Rushdie calls 'the
"clamor of oppression"' (142). Such people
can enjoy the moral high ground. This can
lead to a better understanding, however but if it
gets stuck it becomes '"wound- attached"' [quoting
Brown], and it can become pessimistic and
angry. There may be an over investment of
emotional capital to produce 'narratives of
personal injury', speaking on behalf of the
oppressed. Sometimes teachers appear to take
up the position of the victim, and sometimes, if
they have visible minority identities, they are
assumed to do so: some students even 'second
guessed what was required in assessed assignments'
(143). Teachers must be aware of provoking
mimicry. Lather is useful here, warning
against pressing students too hard to change,
inducing only vertigo, where students cling to
what they perceive to be the safe line.
Certainly, institutional and personal power, by
teachers and parents, must be taken into account.
Self reflexive learners are able to inquire
into their own biographies. Final year
students might be better at doing this.
Although it might be a widespread stance in
modernity, we still do not know enough about how
this affects academic life. Some students
clearly do seem to exhibit the ability to undergo
self examination, even to theorize about
themselves, and courses have been successful in
provoking this sort of self reflexivity, teachers
report - these courses might be particularly
suitable for such prompting. Students can
get engaged. However, connections with
experience is not predictable, and other factors
including teachers and how they deal with students
and their experience, how they are addressed, and
the pedagogy pursued can all be relevant.
Overall, affective factors are crucial.
Students might be seen as occupying four ideal
types as above, but that we should see these only
as a heuristic devices. At least it might
help us be non judgmental about defensive students
- some might just feel left out or
'exposed/affronted as an apparent
victim'(145). It is a complex matter to give
voice to those who have been injured, discourage
overidentification, and to give people the chance
to personally engage with Otherness without
excessive risk which might lead to mimicry.
[Lather is also cited in the conclusion on loss of
self and getting stuck. This particular
reference relates to summary by another
author. In the conclusion, the references Lather, P (1998)]
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