Caring Well for Children in Education: The Role of Moral Imagination

• In Event: Care and Compassion in Educational Settings: Cultural-Historical Perspectives

Abstract

In this theoretical paper I propose a new cultural-historical wholeness approach to the central topic of care and caring well in education. Care is increasingly marginalized in Early Years Education in Denmark as policy in the neo-liberal era of education prioritizes learning outcomes (i.e. learning figures 89 times in the Danish National curriculum of early years education whereas the term caring figures only one time). In the CHAT tradition this same bias can be identified; as it provides a much more fine-grained vocabulary to address and theorize learning, and is almost silent on the topic of caring well for children (author). This bias is unwarranted since well-being, learning and development rest on a foundation of caring, which also corresponds well with the radical social ontology of this tradition.

I suggest articulating a new approach to caring for children in educational settings as a matter of moral imagination (Vadeboncoeur & Vellos 2016). Through a combination of insights from an ethics of inter-dependence as found in the moral philosophy of Tronto (1993), Løgstrup (1956), with CHAT approach of Hedegaard (2012), Vygotsky (1998), and Lisina (1985), I find that caring well for children requires imagination directed towards the individual child as well as the whole group, attending to both immediate and developmental needs. These caring needs correspond to two shapes of moral imagination, however since caring is often conflictual the teachers need to use moral imagination in a third way, in order to develop a shared sense of goals, values and professional identity to lean on in critical decision making.

1) Responsive caring regards attending to children’s immediate needs for well-being. Moral imagination plays a role mainly in the shape of empathetic identification.

2) Proactive caring is targeted child development, where the educators attend to the child’s motives, engagements and projects, collaborating with the child on transforming and expanding his/her participation possibilities in relationships and activities. Moral imagination involves here more extended anticipatory goals.

3) Moral imagination guiding the formation of shared goals, high standards and a sense of confident decision-making.

I illustrate these points by analyzing two examples from an empirical observational study conducted in a Danish kindergarten setting.

Author

• Ditte A. Winther-Lindqvist, Aarhus University