Toward collective care as pedagogy: Facilitating pedagogies of discomfort through Lewis Deep Democracy in higher education

• In Event: Teaching and Learning: Strategies and Lessons for Student Development

Proposal

This presentation builds on the author’s recently published theoretical framework on collective care as pedagogy in higher education, advancing that foundation by sharing initial findings and critical reflections from an ongoing participatory action research (PAR) project involving a community of practice of postsecondary educators. Together, this work aims to operationalize collective care as both a pedagogical and methodological response to the sociopolitical anxiety increasingly shaping higher education classrooms (Ballard et al., 2020).

The framework of collective care was originally theorized in response to the growing demand for pedagogies that are relational, justice-centered, and affectively attuned. As articulated in the published article, the framework weaves together insights from feminist and anticolonial traditions, affect theory, and critiques of individualized care models such as those seen in Social Emotional Learning (SEL). A key contribution of this conceptual work was the proposition of affective solidarity—inspired by the feminist work of Hemmings (Hemmings, 2012)—as an alternative to the dominant affective governmentality shaping classroom dynamics (Zembylas, 2021).

This current study seeks to translate theory into practice, asking: How can collective care be taught, facilitated, and experienced in higher education classrooms? What tools exist—or can be adapted—to support educators in holding space for hard conversations about injustice, identity, and power without resorting to avoidance, harm, or false neutrality?

In alignment with the conference theme—Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World—this presentation argues that peace-building in education requires the capacity to hold discomfort, engage in principled disagreement, and cultivate a culture of collective care. Drawing from ongoing participatory action research with a network of college-level educators, the paper reports on the use of Lewis Deep Democracy (LDD)—a relational facilitation method grounded in process-oriented psychology—as a pedagogical tool to foster collective care and support classroom divergence, marginalized voices and emerging polarities (Erfan, 2024; Lewis, 2013).

This study is situated in a CEGEP (pre-university college) context in Quebec, Canada, where faculty participants are piloting LDD techniques across disciplines. LDD, used internationally in political facilitation and conflict resolution, is still a relatively underresearched methodology in higher education pedagogy. Its core emphasis is surfacing suppressed perspectives, naming and working through polarities, and using affective undercurrents as sources of group wisdom.

The research design applies a participatory action research (PAR) framework to support teacher co-inquiry over two academic years (2025-2027). Participants engage in LDD training, implement the methodology in their classrooms, and co-reflect through structured community of practice sessions. Data includes teacher reflections, student questionnaires, focus groups, and facilitator memos. These multimodal sources allow for a grounded, iterative evaluation of both pedagogical impacts and relational transformations within learning spaces.

The research addresses five interconnected questions:

- How does collective care function as a pedagogical and political response to sociopolitical anxiety?

- How can Lewis Deep Democracy facilitate collective care across disciplines?

- What are the capacities required of educators to facilitate affective solidarity and principled disagreement?

- How do students perceive classroom experiences that invite, rather than suppress, discomfort?

- What does it mean to “teach peace” in classrooms shaped by structural injustice, polarization, and post-truth conditions?

This paper presents insights from the first research cycle. Early findings suggest that LDD:

- Encourages principled struggle (brown, 2021), rather than debate or withdrawal, as a form of respectful engagement;

- Helps students reframe anxiety and disagreement as learning opportunities, particularly in classes focused on identity, equity, or justice;

- Builds classroom conditions that students describe as more caring, dialogical, and inclusive, even when tensions are present;

- Supports educators in developing a relational orientation to care that is not based on emotional labor alone, but on shared responsibility, structure, and facilitation skill.

The paper also discusses practical challenges, including the discomfort faculty can feel in releasing control over classroom process, the institutional pressure to perform care without resourcing it, and the need for scaffolding student participation in emotionally charged conversations.

This research makes three key contributions:

1. Theoretically, it extends earlier work on collective care by offering a relationally grounded pedagogy that centers affective solidarity and anti-colonial resistance.

2. Methodologically, it introduces LDD to postsecondary education as an innovative tool that supports both classroom learning and participatory research processes.

3. Practically, it offers insights and models for instructors and institutions seeking to build inclusive, justice-oriented learning spaces where disagreement, discomfort and unequal power relations out and in the classroom are not suppressed, but held and transformed.

In a time when many campuses are sites of rising tension, censorship, and anxiety, this project affirms that educators require tools—not just mandates—to facilitate peace through pedagogy. Peace in this context is not defined by consensus or comfort, but by the ongoing, collective commitment to dialogue, accountability, and care.

The work is situated within broader conversations on critical affective pedagogy, feminist epistemology, and peace education, and invites engagement from scholars and practitioners across contexts. The presentation will include both conceptual framing and illustrative examples from classroom and teacher-researcher experiences to offer attendees a grounded sense of what collective care can look like in practice.

Ultimately, this paper calls for an educational reimagining of peace—not as avoidance of conflict, but as an ethical stance toward principled justice and collective care. By centering affect, relationship, and pedagogy, this research aims to contribute to the transformation of higher education into a more just and courageous space for learning.

Keywords: collective care; peace education; Lewis Deep Democracy; sociopolitical anxiety; critical affective pedagogy; participatory action research; higher education; principled struggle.

Author

• Cory Legassic Legassic, McGill University