Based on empirical research with working-class students studying in Australian universities, this article frames class as a structuring relation, but also as a series of affective events, through which we emphasise capacities. Putting the concept of class in conversation with two analytics of affect, we show how class is a relational site of…

This paper draws on the concept of affective atmospheres to theorize how democracy and democratic education take hold and circulate in classrooms and schools. The paper asks under which circumstances affective atmospheres are experienced or even 'engineered', encompassing affective and material features that (de)legitimate democracy, democratic…

How does a world of rival victimhoods disrupt our understandings of the educational subject? In which ways do competing claims of victimhood and their connections with justice have an impact on everyday educational practices? These questions are at the heart of this essay. The analysis conceptualizes the affective logic of victimhood as a terrain…

Research framed by evolving sociocultural theories have been fundamental in advancing the study of early childhood literacies. More recently the field has been enriched by posthumanist theories that have shifted the analytic gaze from children's participation in literacy practices and events, to the fluid relationality of literacies. Concurrently,…

This autoethnographic study explores disruptive moments in a multiliteracies English-as-an-Additional Language (EAL) classroom with young adult students. Using a lens of affect theory, the study presents three strategic sketches (vignettes) to shine a light on unexpected intensities in the learning assemblage, initially assumed to be learner…

Engaging young children in sustainability challenges poses a pedagogical dilemma to the field of early childhood education. Using species extinction as an exemplary sustainability challenge, this study explores the pedagogical possibilities to engage young children with the potentially cataclysmic death of the bee. The study is framed within a…

This essay draws on the concept of "agonistic emotions" and "affects" to think with some of the arguments of Chantal Mouffe's political theory and discusses what this means pedagogically in handling far right rhetoric in the classroom. To show the possibilities of this theorization of agonistic emotions and affects, the essay…

The central argument of this essay is that critical literacy with a rationalistic bent may not enable us to cope with ethical dilemmas in our responsiveness to human sufferings. I argue that critical literacy education would benefit from turning to the recent scholarship on affect/emotion studies. I draw upon the works of Sara Ahmed--one of the…

This article draws attention to the uses of affect to produce specific subjectivities and moralities in educational policies. It highlights the connections between specific ideas of the educated subject, the family role presented in governmental educational policies in Chile, and the ways these ideas are linked to the subjectivities and…

This paper discusses teacher resistance to recognizing some perspectives of difficult histories. The paper focuses on the following question: How does affect contribute not only to the formation of teacher resistance, but also to its disruption in ways that enable the productive reclaiming of teachers' engagement with traumatic histories? To…

While it has proved a useful concept during the past 20 years, the notion of "critical digital literacy" requires rethinking in light of the fast-changing nature of young people's digital practices. This paper contrasts long-established notions of "critical digital literacy" (based primarily around the critical consumption of…

This paper engages with the early childhood-school relationship. The relationship has a long-standing history of being defined by a series of divisions and separations. Research has identified the divisions and separations to be largely determined by differences around concepts of learning and pedagogy. Discursive analyses of these differences…

This paper focuses on the educative role of the farm in the development of relationships between young people and the homeplace they grew up on. The paper is based on qualitative interviews with a cohort of 30 Irish university students (15 men and 15 women) brought up on Irish family farms who would not become full-time farmers. The farm acts as…

In this paper we combine the thinking of Deleuze and Guattari (1984, 1987) with Judith Butler's (1990, 1993, 2004, 2009) work to follow the rhizomatic becomings of young people's affective relations in a range of on- and off-line school spaces. In particular we explore how events that may be designated as sexual cyberbullying are constituted and…

This article examines qualitative data from a two family case study in New South Wales. Both families are from South America and have recently moved to Australia. This study demonstrates that an understanding of the ways that the families are becoming literate in Australia necessitates moving beyond linguistic analyses of the changes that are…