Diagnosed threats and preventions in schools’ wellbeing pedagogies

This paper contributes knowledge on how inclusion of diagnosed students in
schools is affected by the focus on wellbeing of all students in Danish schools. Based on an ethnographic inspired interview study, including specialized teachers called Behavior, Contact and Wellbeing-teachers (AKT-lærere), I show how diagnosed students are seen as a threat to the class’ wellbeing, while the solution of making the nondiagnosed children become empathetic towards diagnosed students contributes to othering of diagnosed children. The analyses are carried out with a poststructural and affect theoretical framework from Michel Foucault and Sara Ahmed. Here I especially draw on the concepts of
subjectification and affective economies to show how the diagnosis becomes a point of concern for which non-diagnosed students should take responsibility through affective mobilization. This paper thus contributes to a pedagogical field with discussions of how affect theory becomes relevant in studying pedagogical issues of wellbeing and dis/ability.