This edited collection investigates, from a sociological perspective, what it means to create an autonomous individual through a novel exploration of three central fields of sociology: education, mental health care, and parenting.
By linking these three aspects through their contribution to the building of an autonomous child, the volume analyses the intersecting roles of parent, teacher, and caregiver as well as the transformations in identities of child, pupil, and patient to understand the construction and repair of autonomy. Using a comparison of various case studies across Scandinavian, English-speaking, and French-speaking countries, chapters explore why personal autonomy is so important in many societies and demonstrate the conceptual and practical challenges the idea brings. Ultimately, the book provides an innovative contribution to the fields of educational sociology and the philosophy of education, as well as parenting studies and the sociology of mental health by making the case for taking autonomy, and its paradoxes, seriously.
This cross-disciplinary volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students working in sociology and the philosophy of education, parenting, mental health, and child development more broadly. Those with a focus on the study of individualistic societies will also find the volume of use.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
"Introduction: Puzzling Autonomy Part 1: Autonomy in the Brain? (Neuro)Cognitive Sciences and Changing Representations of the Child and the Pupil 1. Children as Individuals and Their Disorders in the Ages of Autonomy 2. Cognitive Science and the Building of an ""Autonomous Pupil"": Scientific Controversies Surrounding Autonomy in the Field of Education 3. Children's Well-Being and Teachers' Benevolence as the Road to Higher Performance?: Cognitive Neuroscience and Montessori in Preschools Part 2: Autonomy Under (Self-)Control?: Social and Emotional (In)Competencies 4. Theorising Strengthened Demands for Social Skills, Emotional Control, and Autonomy 5. Balanced Emotional Expressions: Learning to Be an Autonomous Social Being 6. Parental Coaching and the “Happy Medium” Between Laxism and Authoritarianism: Experts in Common Sense Part 3: Shaping Autonomy Makers?: Paradoxes in Institutional Guidance for Parents and Teachers 7. From Educating Mothers to Neuroparenting: Ideas and Controversies in Parenting Issues 8. Pregnancy After 'a Choice to Drink': Meanings of Autonomy in England’s Policies on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) 9. Doing Good Parenthood in Early Childhood Education and Care 10. How Education Demands Autonomy on the Part of Pupils: A Sociological Approach to a Paradox Part 4: Diagnosing the Effects of Autonomy?: Transformations of Mental Health Suffering in Liberal-Individualistic Societies 11. Antidepressant Medication as Identity Construction: And So What? 12. Empowerment, at the Heart of Psychedelic Care: To Be or Not to Be, That Is Not the Question 13. Mental Health, Higher Education and Regulatory Capitalism: Steering not Rowing 14. Voice-Hearers and Highly Sensitive People Reversing the Stigma of Madness: Dissolving, Stating or Valuing the Difference? Afterword: Beyond Autonomy?"
Nicolas Marquis is an ERC Starting Grantee and Professor in Sociology and Methodology, Université UCLouvain Saint-Louis Brussels, Belgium.
