Teaching and wellbeing: Supporting student wellbeing through humanizing pedagogies

University students encounter a range of stressors, such as study pressures and challenges managing the study-work-life balance, that may impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Furthermore, students from marginalized groups may be particularly susceptible to experiencing mental distress. While university-based counselling centres play an important role in supporting students, individuals often access these services at a point when they are already struggling to cope. Therefore, more proactive efforts are also needed, and a whole-university approach to student wellbeing emphasizes the role of students’ learning environment. In this chapter, we outline how humanizing pedagogies, which centre the learner and their experience, can be used to attend to the individual needs of an increasingly diverse student body. We then highlight some of the challenges academics might experience when adapting to these new approaches, and we also argue that structures within the neoliberal university can impede efforts to enact such pedagogies. We end by putting the spotlight on pathways education as an exemplar of dialogic, student-centred, humanizing pedagogies that can aid communication, inclusivity, and belonging, all of which are essential for positive wellbeing. We make a case for more attention and resources being directed to pathways education to encourage academics across all areas of higher education to embrace humanizing pedagogies, and make the embedding of wellbeing support within teaching and learning business as usual.