Who Cares for Teachers? Operationalizing an Ethic of Care in Professional Development

• In Event: Sustaining an Ethic of Care: The Primacy of Teacher Relationship

Abstract

During a study of a four-day, intensive, teacher-led professional development (PD) institute, we studied a group of educators approaching PD from a holistic mindset, one that considered mental, physical, and emotional wellness. Guided by ethics of care theory and the research question, “How did this professional development operationalize an ethic of care through its attention to teachers’ needs?,” we explore the moments throughout the PD that created a community of learners by developing a system of care. This work builds on the understanding that care and emotions are critical to PD environments (Oleson, 2011; Yoo & Carter, 2017) and contributes to the field of PD by analyzing the roles that caring and emotion played in the institute.

Authors

• Gretchen S. Goode, University of Southern Mississippi

• Leslee Bailey-Tarbett, Western Kentucky University

• Laurie MacGillivray, University of Memphis