Fragile Learning

'This fascinating collection of essays makes important links between the fields of higher education studies and psychoanalysis. At the heart of the book is a compassionate engagement with the fragile learner - someone who is "close to giving up at any point, close to breaking". This book makes a very helpful contribution to the way we understand such learners, and indeed our own fragility, in the face of a fast and fragmented digital learning environment.'- Elizabeth Chapman Hoult, Birkbeck, University of London, author of Adult Learning and la Recherche Feminine'Fragile Learning is a fascinating exploration from a psychoanalytic viewpoint of the nature of both learner and educator anxiety, in the context of a variety of higher education, education management, and community workplaces. The author considers problems of projective identification, retreat or claustrum situations, basic assumption and work groups, the impact of physical illness, and how to engage in productive conflict whilst acknowledging the anxieties of all parties. The book gains insights from original research into these matters, not only as applied to traditional educational environments, but also in relation to the particular forms they may take in distance and e-learning, where both students and teachers are often equally fragile learners, seeking to adapt humanistically to the new technological tools they are acquiring.'- Meg Harris Williams, writer and artist