Reflexivity, as internal conversation, enables autistic university graduates to develop agency, recognise structural influences, and ultimately shape their life projects. This study uses a biographical-narrative methodology to develop polyphonic life histories which uncover the dialogic and the reflexive processes autistic graduates engage in alongside their support networks and researchers. In total, three autistic graduates from Spanish universities participated in individual semi-structured interviews as well as dyadic interviews with 11 supporters. These were then supplemented with written narratives, and a researcher’s diary. The study draws on Margaret Archer to offer a theorised perspective on how reflexivity mediates structural constraints and enablements in their university experiences positioning autistic graduates as active agents in their own narratives. At a methodological level, researchers extend the use of reflexivity to acknowledge their own reflexive standpoints in the interpretive process and use these – alongside reflections from the graduates - to problematise hierarchical epistemic structures in the field of autism research.
This paper reckons with the educator's role in modern education systems by using the ideas of complicity and resistance to explore the challenge of working equitably within inequitable systems. I argue that viewing complicity and resistance on a spectrum and actions in their wider social and political context helps us to understand, as educators, not only our own complicity with the oppression that modern educational systems generate but also the degree to which we are constrained in our own actions. Further, I suggest that educators work within constraints that make an individualistic view of subjectification as an educational purpose impossible and that pursuit of this may not, in turn, serve students well when they encounter constraints to freedom outside the classroom. Given this, I suggest that it is still possible to practice a form of pastoral pedagogy that prioritises engagement with the individual and uses a non-coercive approach to support autonomy for students but that this form of pedagogy additionally allows for consideration of the constraints the teacher and the student may be subject to. I use the film Woman in the Dunes (Suna No Onna, 1964) as a thinking tool for this discussion and suggest that engaging with the film allows for a form of thinking aloud on the topic of complicity, resistance and pastoral pedagogy by presenting a 'meaningful world' that is not reducible to simple classification nor is purely illustrative (Gibbs, 2017a; Gibbs, 2017b, p278). Encountering, via film, a completely new world and considering the parallels with more familiar educational contexts, allows for a consideration of wider ethical questions about education and the role of educators (Laugier, 2021).
Bella, in Gray's 1992 novel Poor Things, fell into the Clyde attempting to end her life. She was pulled up from the Thames in Lanthimos' 2023 film adaptation. Bella can be argued to represent Scottish Nationalism, but resetting the film omits this, recasting the source to be more palatable to a global audience. Similarly, Scottish education has been recast over centuries. This paper will problematise the drive to distinguish Scottish education from English, and the conflict between policy designed to play well on the local and international stages in the "global education race" (Sellar et al., 2017). Using a body schema, the paper is introduced via the Extremities: necessary information about the texts, Derrida's hauntology (Derrida, 1994) and Lacan's signifiers (Jacques Lacan, 2007), and how these are used to grasp at the argument being presented. The Limbs looks at Scotland's first steps towards maturation through exploring the power dynamics of key education acts and the location of the Scotch Education Department. The Throat explores language's importance and the impact of Scotland's assimilation of English on its indigenous languages and their connections to Education. The Mind looks at Scottish education in present day in which, after successfully fighting for their own parliament, education has become a top priority, aiming to recreate a cherished (and mythologised) system, although it would appear that it finds itself dredging many of its foundational ideas from the Thames, or perhaps the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, the Whole concludes the piece. As Poor Things is a rewriting of Frankenstein, Scotland's current education system is equally too a mishmash of recast myths, attempted fixes for past hauntings, and attempts to step into modernity. This work uses the comparison of the film and novel to generate fresh insights into Scottish Educational policy.
This article outlines, by means of a critique of film criticism, the processes of self-formation and subject-formation as affected by unconscious education. The basic definition of the unconscious used is: something that happens to someone without them being consciously aware of it happening, unless their attention to it is actively drawn. This is a functional definition used to develop a critical argument specific to the filmic and theoretical texts used in the article and is not an attempt to capture other definitions of the unconscious within its scope except where explicitly mentioned. While Freud is engaged indirectly through more recently theoretical work, including my own, the deep relationship to Freud's thought is beyond the scope of this article and is therefore - consciously - only gestured towards. Unconscious education, as defined in the context of this article, is as much about what in our experience might be out of focus, which, in aural terms might be heard without listening. As such, this article charts a theoretical and practical movement from hearing to listening and passive inattention to active attention in the context of film and film criticism, with a specific focus on film music. This specific focus, though, is principally a means of illustrating (note the visual metaphors) a theoretical position that can be considered across the full range of educational experiences and practices, including research and criticism.
In this introduction to the special issue on "Utopias and Science Fictions in Education Theory and Philosophy", we explore the points of departure that brought these contributions together, including our Summer School in the coastal town of Gdynia (generously supported by PESGB and the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk) where participants were given the opportunity to enact in real time utopian and speculative modes of thinking and writing on the present state of education. The Summer School was a culmination of several years of thinking together about the role, the actuality, or indeed the (im)possibility of utopias and science fictions in theorising about education, which we briefly summarise in the text. This special issue showcases how science fiction and educational theory, when placed in dialogue, can reanimate the utopian dimension of education. By experimenting with axioms, reassembling everyday utopias, and engaging in speculative fabulation, the essays collected here suggest that utopia remains vital for charting the horizons of educational thought. Within these horizons, utopian thought may no longer appear as the grand projection of modernity but persist as practices and forms of thinking and theory production, offering, just like science fiction, a mode of imagination and a way of inhabiting the present otherwise. To affirm this is not to indulge in mere fantasy, but to recognize that education itself consists in and educational theory could become an invitation to think beyond what is.
