Therapeutic Reasoning in Teacher Professional Discourse: Revisiting Prevailing Critiques

• In Event: Approaches to Student and Teacher Classroom Interactions

Abstract

The rise of therapeutic governance has led to a therapeutic turn in education. This turn has been roundly criticized from a critical sociological perspective for positioning students as diminished subjects lacking agency and teachers as focused on student well-being rather than learning. These studies tend to examine curricular and policy documents, and not teacher talk-in-interaction. Drawing parallels between therapeutic reasoning and pedagogical reasoning, and bringing micro-analytic methods to bear upon a focal episode from an in-school teacher team meeting, the current study elaborates on how teachers operate with psychological discourse in school situations. It adopts a more nuanced approach to the affordances and constraints of therapeutic discourse for teacher learning opportunities, challenging simplistic representations of its “dangerous” implications for education.

Authors

• Aliza Segal, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Galia Plotkin-Amrami, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev