Killing me softly: the 'making up' of the educational leader

Abstract

This paper examines how emotional literacy works as a ‘new humanist’ knowledge object, with particular emphasis on its capacity to shape pedagogical processes and their outcomes. It does so in three parts. First, it explores the dimensions of emotional literacy as a knowledge object, showing how the take-up of EQ may be understood to represent the triumph of self-stylisation-as-substance. Second, it indicates how it is located in a larger pedagogical agenda focused on human development and change. Finally, it considers the risks of endorsing and adopting this new knowledge object unproblematically into the work of universities and schools.