Captures and Ruptures in the Power Dispositive of Socio-emotional Education

Abstract

It is necessary to think about current educational institutions in light of how power is organized
in society. This requires a critical perspective on how the social sphere is understood. The aim of this article is to examine philosophically the social field and the notion of dispositive from the Deleuzian
reading of Foucault, opening an analysis of power in education strained by its classic plot of capture
versus a potential critical transformative path via escape. Using a situated theoretical-philosophical
method, these tensions are exemplified with the results of an ethnographic research on the device around Socioemotional Learning and its educational interventions. There are two findings. First,
the classic reception of the dispositive as a capture mechanism establishes standardized and
normalized relationships centered on emotional self-management. Second, fractures and escapes of
the dispositive in socio-emotional education are investigated in light of affective flows, reinventing
other conceptions of the social and educational practices. It is concluded that this analysis of the device strains the lines of force that run through it, potentially reconfiguring the social field. So, the
education-emotions binomial opens up other “educational cartographies” for considering knowledge and ways of intervening in the emotional sphere, examining the management of emotions, their mechanisms of power, and also their critical ethical and political openings.