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‘Too Busy for Thoughts’: Stress, Tiredness and Finding a Home in the University

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Educational Research: Discourses of Change and Changes of Discourse

Part of the book series: Educational Research ((EDRE,volume 9))

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Abstract

In the focus on research and innovation in current European policy two changes of discourse are identified; one, which relates specifically to the activity of the university, is the change from speaking about academics and scholarship to researchers and research; the other is a more general change affecting the self-understanding of the individual today, the governmental shift from learning to research. Focusing primarily on the former of these changes, this analysis takes the language and practices of psychology in the support material for researchers as a starting point for a critique of the way in which the researcher is asked to understand herself. The critique takes the figure of the studier as a figure characteristic of the university in its specificity and as a way of responding differently to experiences that seem to characterise the university as it is today: namely, of tiredness, stress, and not feeling at home. The concluding section relates the analysis of this first change of discourse to the second change identified, from learner to researcher as the subject position required of us all.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/lisbonstrategy.htm

  2. 2.

    https://www.vitae.ac.uk/vitae-publications/guides-briefings-and-information/vitae-researcher-booklets

  3. 3.

    http://eyeleo.com/

  4. 4.

    https://jawbone.com/up

  5. 5.

    http://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2014/03/08/get-better-sleep-need-less-every-night

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Education and Society, KU Leuven, Vesaliusstraat 2, Leuven, Belgium

    Naomi Hodgson

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  1. Naomi Hodgson
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Correspondence to Naomi Hodgson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sc, Ghent University and Katholieke Universi, Westmeerbeek, Belgium

    Paul Smeyers

  2. Subfaculteit Psychologie en Pedagogische, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kortrijk, Belgium

    Marc Depaepe

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Hodgson, N. (2016). ‘Too Busy for Thoughts’: Stress, Tiredness and Finding a Home in the University. In: Smeyers, P., Depaepe, M. (eds) Educational Research: Discourses of Change and Changes of Discourse. Educational Research, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30456-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30456-4_5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30455-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30456-4

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