Pedagogies of Taking Care - by Dennis Atkinson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This book traces the notion of care and civic values in education that are largely devalued today by neoliberal economic concerns. Through a discussion of educators and philosophers including Arendt, Foucault, Guattari, Patocka, Simondon, Stengers and Whitehead, Atkinson explores the 'gift of otherness' in relation to an ethico-politics of pedagogic practice and learning, including art education. He argues for pedagogical practices that facilitate and support each learner's pathways through what is called a pedagogy of taking care. This involves paying due attention, with empathy, to each learner's pathway of learning and to the difference and divergence of such pathways. It also requires the teacher to take care, to be vigilant towards their own pedagogical frameworks that inform pedagogical work, particularly when a student or child produces work that does not accord with such frameworks. Atkinson not only critiques current educational policy but advocates possible futures of being, not dominated by the neoliberal tools of force and power. Pedagogies of taking care allow us to think differently about education and art education, and revaluate it's meaning within research, classrooms, non-formal contexts of education and cultural institutions.

Review Quotes

"In Pedagogies of Taking Care Dennis Atkinson offers a tour de force of contexts, theories, artworks, and analyses that move anyone who is familiar with his work to state that this could possibly be the most comprehensive and powerful of all his most recent books." --John Baldacchino, Professor of Arts Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

"Philosophically this is an important work; it digs deep into the concepts of learning and pedagogy, locating them into the broader steams of contemporary theoretical thinking. Atkinson's comprehensive grasp and application of current philosophical trends provide new and profound insights into the fundamental nature of teaching and learning." --Jeff Adams, Emeritus Professor of Art Education, University of Chester, UK

"In this fascinating new book, Atkinson introduces a 'pedagogy of taking care' as a process of learning to receive the gift of otherness with grace. Yet with this grace also comes a ferocity that viscerally refuses neo-liberal imperatives that have taken hold of global education systems over the past two decades. For Atkinson this graceful disobedience is not embodied by the familiar shape of the rebel individual, but is found instead in the processual interstices of collective pedagogical life. Atkinson thus invites us to take a crucial leap forward in response to a burning contemporary question: how do we forge an education that truly values, and cares for, difference? In answer Atkinson draws on numerous philosophers and social theorists to construct a new ground for common sense, in the Whiteheadian mode of differentially shared experiential knowledge. If difference is ultimately all we have in common, and therefore our only currency for educational change, then Atkinson offers valuable new tools for charting this adventure into pluralism." --David Rousell, Senior Lecturer in Creative Education, RMIT University, Australia

About the Author

Dennis Atkinson is Professor Emeritus at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. He is the author of five books, including Art, Disobedience and Ethics (2017). In 2015 he was awarded The Ziegfield Award by the United States Society for Education Through Art for outstanding international contributions to art in education.