Incorporating care and compassion into the neoliberal academy

UK policymakers advocate compassionate pedagogical processes. However, the longstanding commitment to neoliberal higher education principles have produced, and indeed necessitate, inequality, conflict, and a lack of interpersonal care. We argue that compassionate academic processes demand holistic structural and discursive shifts that decentre competitive individualism and foreground care of oneself and others. To do this, we advocate recognition of and resistance to ‘care-less’ neoliberal discourses, with a ‘care-full’ co-production of relational learning environments that are psychologically safe, culturally and emotionally responsive, and structurally accessible.