Our Own “Banks of Emotion”

Why am I so emotionally invested in academics? Why do I care about my grades or clubs that I am involved in? What is the true motivation behind this investment? These are the questions I found myself asking as I began to write my first research outline, thinking about which theories I could incorporate into our argument about social belonging in elite schools. Kenway, Fahey, and Koh’s study titled “The Libidinal Economy of the Globalising Elite School Market,” which discussed the roles of agency and emotion in elite schools, first sparked this question. More specifically, Kenway uses the term “bank of emotion” to explain the deep connection students seem to have to academics and to their schools, suggesting that the “global and transnational elite” hold the power to dictate the rules in this field of power. Perhaps a subconscious ethic build around power structures drives this emotional investment?

In other words, those who are emotionally invested have the power to decide what it is most important to care about, such as how elite status is maintained and advanced. If you have the financial safety net of the elite, then what is motivating you to be emotionally invested in academics? Does this emotional investment determine who will succeed in the long term, or is it unnecessary? It became evident that these questions were important to our study when we began writing our outline, and specifically our discussion section.

I have never written a research paper using qualitative data, so the narrative findings section was new to me. I felt like the structure of this section complimented my Type A tendencies, but I was challenged a bit more in the discussion section to think on a bigger scale, and bring together theory and finding. Relating the significance of these findings to the greater field of educational theory seems to be the meat of the paper, so when we read about Kenway’s term “banks of emotion” it was exciting to see how it could fit into our analysis.

We are studying an international elite school in Denmark, arguing that common differences in culture and a shared socioeconomic class are two of the biggest factors that facilitate a feeling of social belonging among the students, who, as children of highly mobile parents, do not often stay at the school for more than a few years. In thinking about social belonging theory in a somewhat post neoliberal society, I began wondering if elite schools could even exist in a truly post neoliberal space. Is this “bank of emotion” unique to students at elite schools? Or do students at different types of schools experience this same level of emotion, but with a socioeconomic motivation rather than a social one?

In thinking about the answers to these questions, I found it helpful to look back to our discussions on Bourdieu’s theories of capital and fields of power. Bourdieu’s argument that capital, in all of its forms (such as social, intellectual, cultural, and economic), is heavily tied to the preservation of the elite class, seems to be relevant in the case study of social belonging as well. For example, if social capital is more highly valued in an elite field of power such as a private international school, maybe capital is a key variable that facilitates emotional investment.

Bourdieu argues that people’s life choices are defined by their own definitions of their own capital. Along these lines, if elite prioritization of social capital causes emotional investment, and in some cases causes stress that emerges from this social pressure, how do we explain the positive sense of belonging that emerges from negative emotion (stress)?

The irony in researching theories to use in our paper is that the stress and pressure we experience during this process exemplifies our own emotional ties to academic success. With this thought, I think the research process comes full circle, and we are able to address our own possible biases in order to acknowledge limitations to theory application.

References:

Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002. The State Nobility : Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford, Calif :Stanford University Press, 1996. Print.