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

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.