Breaking silence: educating citizens for love, care and solidarity

Abstract

An indifference to the affective domain and an allegiance to the education of the rational autonomous subject and public citizen are at the heart of formal education. The impact of Cartesian rationalism is intensifying with the glorification of performativity measured by league tables and rankings. The citizen carer and the care recipient citizen are only recognised in the educational arena when professionals are being trained to manage those in need of care. Education for informal care labour, solidarity work and love labour is generally not part of the formal educational trajectory. Because the scholarly understanding of work has been equated with economic self preservation and self-actualisation through interaction with nature, education is seen as preparation for this type of work. Education is indifferent to other-centred work arising from our interdependencies and dependencies as affective, relational beings. In particular it has ignored the centrality of nurturing for the preservation and self-actualisation of the human species. In this article the authors argue that sociologists need to engage with the extensive feminist scholarship on care if they are to challenge the deeply care-less view of the citizen that is implicitly accepted in new and older forms of liberal thinking. The rational economic actor model of the citizen is contrasted with the care-full view of the citizen and the implications of both for education are explored. Neglect of the affective domainA deep dichotomy has been drawn in the social sciences between fact and value. Following from the work of Weber (1949) in particular, a division of labour exists between normative political philosophy and 'objective' social scientific research (Sayer, 2005). While it is understandable why social scientists wanted to separate the normative from the empirical at a time in history where religion and related ideologies were paraded as absolute scientific truths, the dichotomy that has been created between fact and value is a false one. Values influence what we choose to study, the methods we employ and the interpretive paradigms we invoke. There is no view from

Multiple Intelligences Theory, Action Research, and Teacher Professional Development: The Irish MI Project

“…Despite unprecedented waves of curriculum reform in Irish schools over the last twenty-five years (Gleeson, 2010), including an entirely revised primary curriculum, the introduction at postprimary level of new programmes (e.g., the Leaving Certificate Applied) with innovative assessment techniques, the revision of Leaving Certificate subjects, and the presence of some oral, aural, project and practical assessments in state certificate examinations (Gleeson, 2010, Willams andMcDonald, 2013), the little systematic research (Smyth and Banks, 2012) that exists on the teaching methods used in Irish schools, suggests that teaching methods have changed relatively little (Smyth and McCoy, 2011). The holistic ethos of the revised primary curriculum is threatened by the focus on literacy and numeracy, to the exclusion of other educational objectives (Ó Breacháin and O'Toole, 2013); there is a continued dominance of didactic approaches in post-primary education (Gilleece et al, 2009); and there is a neglect of the development in education of the affective domain that amounts to indifference (Lynch et al, 2007).…”

Going global: Internationally mobile young people as caring citizens in higher education

“…One of these main “other things” which young bodies do in the spaces of higher education is practice relationality, being looked after, expressing affection, helping others, exhibiting the work of “love, care and solidarity” that Lynch et al. () suggest constitute the “carer citizen.” Instead of being motivated entirely by neoliberal agendas, the carer citizen exists in relation with others, building an everyday existence out of acts of tenderness, sharing and generosity. For the students in this research, their relationality with others can be regarded as a manifestation of caring citizenship, as these interpersonal relationships involved deep dependency with and on others.…”

“…Global programmes have been critiqued by critical scholars as breeding grounds for “market‐oriented, culturally savvy, liberal subjects” (Mitchell, , p. 709; see also Lyons et al., ; Zemach‐Bersin, ). These critiques coincide with more general concerns about the emergence of youth subjects in higher education who are “economic maximisers” and “consumer citizens” (Lynch, ), “rational economic actors” and “privatised citizens” (Lynch et al., ), “entrepreneurial selves” (Masschelein & Simons, ), and “the new, superior foot‐soldier of global capitalism” (Mitchell, , p. 400). These framings posit a neoliberalised youth citizen, one who aspires to individual success and the accumulation of economic capital (Giroux, ; Pimlott‐Wilson, ).…”

Affective equality: love, care and injustice

“…A sustained, interdisciplinary collaboration over four years is evidenced throughout the volume, as each chapter builds upon the next, skillfully employing the sociological imagination (Mills 1959) by linking the intimate life worlds and work of love and care with larger economic, political and social forces. The team analysis is drawn from prior theorizing about systems of inequality (for example, Baker et al 2004;Lynch 1989Lynch , 2007Lynch, Lyons, and Cantillon 2007) and an impressive taxonomy of care work (i.e. household love labor; professional or voluntary care labor; and solidarity work) and their relational characteristics and dynamics, including those of power, responsibility, trust and obligation.…”