My PhD research, 'Teacher subjectification in higher education: a linguistic exploration', aims to explore, conceptualize, and empirically identify the notion of 'teacher subjectification' in the teaching practice of higher education.
Subjectification is an educational-philosophical concept that is oftentimes mostly discussed as an educational goal domain relating to students. Specifically, following the philosophical framework of Gert Biesta, it pertains to arousing the desire within students to exist as subjects of their own lives, such that they develop to exist as free, responsible and unique individuals. But how does this relate to the becoming and being-a-subject of teachers, in relation to and interaction with their students? What tensions, conceptual connections, and opportunities exist in the interplay between teacher subjectification and their socialization as teaching professionals? In addition to the philosophical exploration of these themes, my research will seek to identify this process of teacher subjectification within the talk-in-interaction (i.e. language exchanges) between teachers and students, particularly focusing on controversial themes in the classroom.
Before starting my PhD in Utrecht, I finished my BA in philosophy, my MA (research) in philosophy, and my MSc in pedagogical sciences at the University of Groningen (including an Erasmus exchange at Durham University).