Modes of Misbehavior: Pedagogy and Affect in 19th Century Schooling

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the production of the misbehaving student in 19th-century teacher manuals. In drawing upon Foucault and Ahmed, I explore how the intersection of student misbehavior with teacher pedagogy and disciplinary procedures enact “modes of subjection” (Foucault, 1995) and “affective orientations” (Ahmed, 2006) in the modernization of schooling. I argue that the archive demonstrates the entanglement of student subjectivity and affect with new regimes of governmentality and the marketplace. I equally argue that the modes of student misbehavior present in the archive provide avenues for thinking outside contemporary clinical framing of misbehavior. It is in rethinking misbehavior outside of contemporary frameworks that this paper provides space to reconsider the boundaries of contemporary schooling and school participation.

Author

• Tim Wells, Arizona State University