“The teacher didn't really care about my wellbeing or academic success”: Students’ experiences of unkindness in higher education

Abstract

Kindness can be conceived as a transformational power that can reconfigure higher education institutions away from reductionist, performative, and corporate sensibilities. However, an absence of kindness can also play a significant role within a student’s tertiary experience, leaving students who receive unkindness with a diminished sense of self, belonging, and achievement. Underpinned by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and positioning theory, our article explores students’ experiences of the absence of kindness during interactions with lecturers in the higher education context, and the impact of such interactions on students’ academic success and personal wellbeing. Survey data of 23 students from a larger study who described an absence of kindness from lecturers were analysed via reflexive thematic analysis. Using the metaphor of dance, findings revealed several themes about the impacts of the absence of kindness on students, including Out of Step, Side-Stepping, Stepping on Toes, Walking on Tiptoes and Bowing Out. These findings have significant implications for higher education institutions.