The Question of Morale: Managing Happiness and Unhappiness in University Life

Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-335-23560-5
Verlag: McGraw-Hill Education

Buch, Englisch, 192 Seiten, Format (B × H): 137 mm x 218 mm, Gewicht: 254 g

There is a comforting tale that heads of higher education institutions (HEIs) like to tell each other. "Go around your university or college," they say, "and ask the first ten people who you meet how their morale is. The response will always be 'rock-bottom.' Then ask them what they are working on. The responses will be full of life, of optimism and of enthusiasm for the task in hand." The moral of the story is that the two sets of responses don't compute; that the first is somehow unthinking and ideological, and the second unguarded and sincere.The thesis of this book is that the contradictory answers may well compute more effectively than is acknowledged: that the culture of higher education and the mesh of psychological contracts, or "deals," that make it up make much of the current discourse about happiness and unhappiness in contemporary life look simplistic and banal. In particular, the much-vaunted "science of happiness" may not have much to say to us. There is also a potential link between the Manichean discourse about morale and our wider culture's approach to happiness. Both normally deal in extremes, and much more rarely in graduations.Why is so much discourse about contemporary higher education structured around (real and imagined) unhappiness? How does this connect with the realities of life within (and just outside) the institutions? Does it matter, and, if so, what should we be doing about it? Based on historical, sociological and philosophical analysis, this book offers some answers to these questions.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Watson, David

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword by Professor Sir Peter Scott
List of figures and tables
List of acronyms

Introduction: Why Morale?
Higher Education and Our Present Condition
Unhappy Students
Unhappy Staff
Unhappy Stakeholders
Managing Morale
Coda
References
List of websites
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Watson, David
Maria Slowey is the Professor of and Director of Adult and Continuing Education at the University of Glasgow. David Watson is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Brighton.

David Watson is Professor of Higher Education Management at the Institute of Education, University of London.