Globalized Mobilities of Educational Well-being

• In Event: A South Asia exploration of shadow education, decolonization concepts in libraries and curriculum, and transformational leadership

Proposal

Objectives and Significance
As a worldwide public concern, student well-being has become critical for education policy. Policymakers and teachers see inclusion of student well-being as an act of conscientious response to the crisis of youth and student well-being. Informed by trajectories of work in critical policy and policy sociology within and outside education (Ball, 1997; McCann, 2011; Ozga, 1987, 2021; Peck & Theodore, 2010; Rizvi & Lingard, 2009), this paper engages with the research on policy mobilities in the field of educational well-being. By taking the example of a subnational policy in India, I explore policy movements at play, that helps understand policy as multiply scaled, gaining significance from as well as reifying existing scales of local, national, and global.
Educational well-being provides an excellent case to study policy mobilities, given their strong reliance on modern contemplative practices that have been studies as global movements (Jain, 2015; Mallinson & Singleton, 2017). Scholars are beginning to capture the transnational nature of the rapidly growing interest in well-being, especially as manifest in interventions around social-emotional learning or SEL (Bates, 2021; Williamson, 2021). However, an investigation of the mobilities of educational well-being policies remains less explored. I ask two key questions: One, how do we begin to map India’s position in the larger mobilities of educational well-being? Two, what techniques are adopted to bring into action a specific educational well-being policy in a complex context (like India)?
Highlighting the case of a subnational educational well-being policy in India, this paper’s significance is threefold. First, it adds to the conceptual bandwidth of policy mobilities work in education, by illuminating specific discursive infrastructures that enables policy to be mobile, relatively stable, and multiply scaled at the same time. Second, it extends the empirical reach of educational policy mobilities, by taking the case of a relatively less explored context in the global south. Third, given the widespread adoption of educational well-being in schools and higher education, this paper begins to map some of the mobilities afforded by the extensive use of contemplative practices in such programs.
Policy Site and Methods
Delhi is one of the largest, populous urban areas in India and the world. For the last seven years Delhi has been under the administration of a young political party called the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that positions itself as an alternative to the mainstream large political parties. Access to quality public education has been one of their top priorities. Launched in July 2018, the Happiness Class is targeted specifically to improve student’s well-being and SEL (SCERT-Delhi & DoE, 2019). A compulsory daily period for students in grades 1-8, the Happiness class includes practicing mindfulness, discussing stories and other activities with students around values such as peace, harmony, and respect.
This paper draws from a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1995) conducted between April 2019 and October 2020 that explored the policy and pedagogical constructions of educational well-being in parts of India and the US. The current paper specifically draws on an analysis of interviews with teachers (n=18), teacher trainers (n=4) and bureaucrats (n=5) in Delhi, participation in select teacher trainings (3-days long), as well as policy documents (n=6) and related social media (Twitter accounts). Data analysis was an ongoing activity. I open coded the materials, informed both by data and theory (Miles et al., 2014) to find emergent themes.
Preliminary Findings
I show two specific elements in a preliminary mapping of the larger landscape, especially India’s position, in the mobilities of educational well-being within K-12 educational context. One, even though it might seem that contemplative practices for educational purposes bring together the ‘ancient’ and the ‘modern’, they rely on the language of ‘science’ to be justified for the aims of well-being. This is most visible in the growing importance of contemplative practices (e.g., modern yoga, mindfulness) in UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals as well as setting up of its first and only Category 1 research institute (MGIEP) with an explicit focus on SEL. Central to MGIEP’s vision of SEL is inclusion of mindfulness and bringing together “scientific research” and “ancient wisdom” (UNESCO-MGIEP, 2020). Two, relatedly, despite such policy’s secular commitments, they remain mired in the overcasts of religious concerns. In the last decade, the exchanges, collaborations, and partnerships between organizations in India and other countries (especially the US) have seen a burgeoning interest. I highlight a specific example of a center at the Emory University to elucidate this. I unpack how the commitment to the secular, in these collaborations is used as a shield to protect their engagement with traditional/ religious ideas.
My analysis reveals the framing of Happiness class in Delhi by AAP is certainly not a straightforward import of SEL from elsewhere. It is presented with local inspirations and foundations, propounded by the late Indian thinker, A. Nagraj (SCERT-Delhi & DoE, 2019). The Happiness curriculum framework also looks to global sources to legitimate its solutions, making direct references to research in the US, UK, France, and Australia. Mindfulness is introduced citing latest research from neuroscience. While no direct references are made, the Happiness class’s aims are much aligned with CASEL framework. At the same time the positioning of Happiness class in Delhi stands against and maintains its opposition to how the current central (or federal) government frames such issues. Led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the national government in its policy primarily frames educational well-being in a more religious and nationalist stance. In Happiness class, however, there is a conscious distancing from practices associated with Hindu religion. Strong dissociations are also made with any moralistic instruction.
Building on this empirical case, I highlight the discursive infrastructures created to align or mis-align, articulate, or disarticulate a certain policy with respect to other similar policies/ ideas in its relative scalar context. I underscore the ongoing labor, for instance trainings, presentations in conferences etc., to keep these infrastructures alive. Finally, I note the implications, limitations and possibilities of well-being movement from a global policy perspective.

Author

• Neha Miglani, University of Humanistic Studies