Education for a Caring Society

How can we create a classroom in which relationships are a central focus, and why is this important to teaching and learning? In this engaging book, Johnston brings the conversation about the purpose of education back to the importance of developing critical thinkers that can participate in a democratic society and a rapidly changing world. In order to educate this kind of citizen, teachers must attend to the development of students’ ability to think of themselves in relationships. Drawing on 35 years of teaching and thinking about teaching as a guide, the author:

• Discusses how teachers can develop a classroom in which students learn to trust each other.
• Examines the connections of these classroom relationships to moral theory and moral behavior.
• Presents the ways teachers think about the many dimensions of classroom relationships.
• Illustrates how complicated and often difficult it is in a classroom to develop relationships in which people can speak out and trust one another.
• Offers ideas that are crucial to classroom community and teaching for social justice.

D. Kay Johnston is a Professor of Educational Studies and Women’s Studies at Colgate University.

“In listening to teachers’ conversations, Johnston has been able to map a moral language that enables us to talk about trust in the classroom….This book extends the conversations of writers such as Noddings, Greene, Martin, and Grumet in helping us to think about hard and critical questions.”
— From the Foreword by Jo Anne Pagano, Chair, Department of Educational Studies, Colgate University

“This is the book to read on moral education. Kay Johnston's is a courageous voice within a profession increasingly silenced by testing. She leads us to a new understanding of what it means to educate for democracy and social justice, and then shows us how to do it.”
Carol Gilligan, University Professor, New York University

“Kay Johnston has given us a strong reminder that student relationships, not just those between teacher and students, contribute to a classroom environment of care and trust. This is a significant contribution to the literature on relational ethics and teaching.”
Nel Noddings, Professor Emerita, Stanford University