When care becomes compliance: the new etiquette of Scottish higher education

This paper explores the rise of a new ‘etiquette’ in Scottish higher education—a governance-infused code of conduct that fuses a rhetoric of care, inclusion, and wellbeing with the logics of performance management. Rooted in Scotland’s publicly funded civic ethos, this etiquette emerges from the interplay of devolved policy priorities, sector-wide performance metrics, and reputational incentives. Through an analysis of Scottish Government initiatives, national funding agreements, accreditation schemes, and institutional strategies, the paper traces how progressive policy commitments are translated into emotional norms and embedded in everyday academic practice.

While recognising the sincerity of inclusion and wellbeing agendas, the paper argues that the codification of care as compliance signals a broader transformation: from the epistemic to the affective, from the primacy of thinking to the regulation of feeling. In this shift, dissent risks being redefined as harm, fragility is anticipated, and affective conformity is valorised, narrowing the democratic and intellectual functions of the university. The paper calls for a renewed commitment to pluralism, contestation, and intellectual risk, contending that lasting wellbeing arises not from the avoidance of difficulty but from active engagement with challenge, nuance, and the open exchange of ideas.