Relational Pedagogies - by Karen Gravett (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

What do meaningful connections in learning and teaching look like, and how might we foster these? How might the concept of mattering be helpful for our understanding of higher education? In this book, Karen Gravett examines the role of relationships, and in particular of relational pedagogies, where meaningful relationships are positioned as fundamental to effective learning. She explores concepts of authenticity, vulnerability, and trust within learning and teaching, as well as the potential of working with students in partnership. This book examines the role of relationships between colleagues: how educators can learn from others both within and beyond higher education, as well as considering how teachers can support one another when working within challenging contemporary contexts.

Drawing upon a rich theoretical perspective that interweaves posthuman and sociomaterial theory, the book also introduces a broader conception of the relational, where relational pedagogies are understood as encompassing objects, spaces and materialities, as part of an interwoven web of relations. In exploring mattering, Gravett explores both who matters - who should be considered and valued - and the material mattering of learning. In this innovative conception of relational pedagogies, Gravett offers a broad and rich reworking of our understanding of relationality, offering fresh ways in which we might understand and conduct higher education theory and practice.

Review Quotes

Relational Pedagogies is a rousing book that provides a means for resurfacing often forgotten questions, thinking with different theories and encouraging us to engage various others as we work to address issues of relationality, connection and mattering in meaningful ways ... [It]is a valuable contribution to and point of departure from the global field of mainstream higher education literature, offering a refreshing and revitalising perspective.
Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice

Relational Pedagogies is novel and innovative, developing a theory-practice for pedagogical matterings in higher education. Focusing on relationships with students, others, theories of relationality and sociomateriality, and drawing on key thinkers in pedagogy, care ethics, Indigenous and Black feminist scholarship, this book is an important read for lecturers and students.
Nikki Fairchild, Associate Head (Research and Innovation), School of Education and Sociology, University of Portsmouth, UK

Karen Gravett's argument regarding the interwoven web of relations-between and among humans and with/in the material world-challenges us to re-understand "matter" as both who and what matters as/in relation. The "radical relationality" she offers could transform our understanding of and practice in higher education and being more broadly.
Alison Cook-Sather, Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education, Bryn Mawr College, USA

About the Author

Karen Gravett is Lecturer in Higher Education in the Surrey Institute of Education at the University of Surrey, UK.