Dehumanised and objectified: How student evaluations of teaching become neoliberal technologies to control lecturers

Ea Høg Utoft; Anuja Anil Pradhan

doi:10.5117/TVGN2024.2-3.004.UTOF

ISSN: 1388-3186
E-ISSN: 2352-2437

oa Dehumanised and objectified

How student evaluations of teaching become neoliberal technologies to control lecturers
Authors: Ea Høg Utoft¹ & Anuja Anil Pradhan²
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Affiliations: ¹ Radboud University ² University of Southern Denmark
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Source: Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, Volume 27, Issue 2/3, Sep 2024, p. 151 - 170
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGN2024.2-3.004.UTOF
Language: English
- Published online: 01 Sep 2024

Abstract

We argue that neoliberal universities implement student evaluations of teaching (SETs) as governing technologies to impose control on lecturers, resulting in their dehumanisation and objectification. Through ‘story work’ we weave together empirical quotes in existing literature, tweets, and our own experiences, to reveal that SETs employ animalistic and mechanistic dehumanisation, enhancing existing systemic inequalities such as gender and race. As a result, biased SETs induce negative affect that causes undue distress, especially among marginalised lecturers who are expected to act constructively on discriminatory or abusive ‘feedback’. By ignoring lecturers’ calls to revise or abolish the use of SETs, we uncover that universities effectively gaslight and neglect lecturers – further denying our humanity. We end by highlighting acts of solidarity and resistance that show how alternatives to SETs, rooted in feminist pedagogies and care ethics, can be grassroots mo(ve)ments towards structural change.

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