Developing caring relationships in schools: a review of the research on caring and nurturing pedagogies

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Education has been criticized for a disproportionate focus on the technical aspects of teaching with less focus on its ‘human’ aspects. Consequently, many researchers and theorists have expressed a need to answer what role care plays in education. Our purpose in this review is to examine the definition of caring pedagogies and synthesize relevant research helpful to understanding its application. We briefly consider moral development and ethical care theories pertinent to teaching and learning and synthesize the research findings related to defining and measuring caring pedagogy; as well as developing caring characteristics in teachers and students, caring classroom communities, and caring in unique and challenging contexts. Finally, we argue for more research on developing valid instruments for measuring caring pedagogy and examining under‐explored contexts such as higher education and technology‐mediated learning. We conclude that caring pedagogy provides a powerful means to student learning improvement, one meriting the greatest attention by educators and education researchers.

This publication has 75 references indexed in Scilit: