One dimensional man

The Study of Man. By Michael Polanyi. Price, $1.75. Pp. 102. University of Chicago Press, 5750 Ellis Ave., Chicago 37, 1959. One subtitle to Polanyi's challenging and fascinating book might be The Evolution and Natural History of Error , for Polanyi is at pains to expunge what he believes to be the false notion contained in the contemporary view of science which treats it as an object and basically impersonal discipline. According to Polanyi not only is this a radical and important error, but it is harmful to the objectives of science itself. Another subtitle could be Farewell to Detachment , for in place of cold objectivity he develops the idea that science is necessarily intensely personal. It is a human endeavor and human point of view which cannot be divorced from nor uprooted out of the human matrix from which it arises and in which it works. For a good while

Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy

Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Symposium Review: 25th Anniversary of Moral Boundaries by Joan Tronto

The sociology of housework.

This paper argues that early childhood education and care (ECEC) has a legitimate aspiration to be a ‘caring profession’ like others such as nursing or social work, defined by a moral purpose. For example, practitioners often draw on an ethic of care as evidence of their professionalism. However, the discourse of professionalism in England completely excludes the ethical vocabulary of care. Nevertheless, it necessarily depends on gendered dispositions towards emotional labour, often promoted by training programmes as ‘professional’ demeanours. Taking control of the professionalisation agenda therefore requires practitioners to demonstrate a critical understanding of their practice as ‘emotion work’. At the same time, reconceptualising practice within a political ethic of care may allow the workforce, and new trainees in particular, to champion ‘caring’ as a sustainable element of professional work, expressed not only in maternal, dyadic key‐working but in advocacy for care as a social principle.

Don’t we care?: the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism

This article builds upon an earlier attempt (Taggart 2011) to articulate a rationale for professional training in early childhood education and care (ECEC) which is ethical as opposed to one which is purely instrumental or rooted in a patriarchal notion of women's supposed unique suitability. The argument proposes that a feminist approach to ethics, as both socially critical and psychologically affective or flexible, has a particular relevance to professional identity in ECEC. In particular, compassion, as a concept which has both sociological and psychological connotations, foregrounds the ethical dimension of the work whilst overcoming false dichotomies between discourses of ‘children's rights’ and ‘care’. The implications for the training and professional identity of practitioners are discussed.

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Compassionate pedagogy: the ethics of care in early childhood professionalism

The practitioner’s own self is a resource in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It is proposed that an experiential training focusing on the ‘professional self’ helps to raise awareness of how psychological dispositions may impair or enhance quality of provision. A key concept in such training is emotional labour, explored with students through examples of ‘relational pedagogy’ and ‘attunement’ to the needs of children. The argument of this paper, underlying the training, is that the expectation of attunement encapsulates both the best and worst aspects of such labour. The research focuses on the introduction of mindfulness exercises into the training in order to sustain this attunement. It seeks the students’ responses to them and to the experience of the training overall. The paper concludes by recommending that such practices be incorporated into professional development whilst acknowledging that such interventions can only succeed where working conditions reflect a compassionate culture.

Sustaining care: cultivating mindful practice in early years professional development

This article represents a critique of the 'spiritual literacy' approach to spiritual education developed by Andrew Wright (e.g. 2000a), with particular reference to the inclusion of Michael Polanyi's theory of 'tacit knowledge'. Wright's assessment of the current state of religious education is summarised and his proposed method is outlined. Polanyi's ideas are then described and assessed for their compatibility with the 'spiritual literacy' approach.

Spiritual literacy and tacit knowledge

The purpose of this paper is to argue that care ethics is part of an ongoing feminist challenge to a narrow kind of epistemology in higher education which separates mind from body and feeling from intellect. Care ethics imagines a self which is embodied and relational. Connecting this philosophical model with psychological research in attachment and moral development, I propose an experiential and contemplative approach to the ethical development of teachers in ECEC.

Geoff Taggart

Papers

Don’t we care?: the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism

Compassionate pedagogy: the ethics of care in early childhood professionalism

Sustaining care: cultivating mindful practice in early years professional development

Spiritual literacy and tacit knowledge

Cultivating ethical dispositions in early childhood practice for an ethic of care: a contemplative approach