Caring Now and Later: Black Boys’ Schooling Experiences of Relational Care

Background/Context: Black boys’ schooling experiences in the United States are an important area of inquiry, given the ways they are systematically repositioned away from schooling success in dominant narratives about their lives. Scholars suggest that Black boys need to be cared for and nurtured in schools. However, few studies have explicitly explored their subjective experience of care. A cumulative understanding of the educational trajectories of Black boys suggests that their early experiences can influence later schooling years. This exploration considers the role of relationships and contexts across two distinct time periods of development in shaping their educational experiences. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we use a relational care framework to investigate how Black boys, during preschool and high school, make sense of their experiences of care within the school context. Based on their relationships with teachers, other adults, and peers, care is discussed through three important constructs: tangible care, time-related care, and personal support. The major questions we explore are: (1) In what ways do Black boys feel cared for in school? and (2) How does being cared for matter in their schooling experiences? Participants: This study comprises two groups of Black boys at different developmental stages. The first group comprised 11 Black boys enrolled in the same state-funded preschool program, and the second group of participants consisted of 20 Black boys who graduated from the same all-male, all-Black secondary school. Research Design: This qualitative investigation explored how Black boys (N = 31) make meanings of their school-based relationships. It was conducted across two distinct time periods within two separate studies, one during preschool and one during high school. Findings/Results: We found that Black boys at both stages of development place primacy on care through school-related relationships with teachers, other adults, and peers. The Black boys in this study delineated distinctions in the dimensions of care, source of care, and their perspectives of the care they received from peers and adults in school. Taken together, caring for others and being cared for were critical to the educational experiences and well-being of Black boys in this study. Conclusions/Recommendations: This research contributes to understandings of Black boys’ school-related needs across two distinct developmental periods. As such, it is important for educators to see relational care as a vital tool for educational success of Black boys during the early years and continuously throughout their educational trajectories. Relatedly, educators must seek to incorporate care within the context of a relationship centered on a unique appreciation of each Black boy and his individual care needs, educational aspirations, and possibilities.

Contemporary curating: Gift-giving in the Zürcher Theater Spektakel performing arts festival

This article aims to deepen the understanding of the distribution and reconfiguration of agency and power in relationships between artists from the South and curators from the North. Focusing on the Zürcher Theater Spektakel, an annual performing arts festival in Zürich, Switzerland, it scrutinises the artist-curator relationship through the perspective of the gift rationales. Gift-giving theory can contribute to understanding motifs and logics behind dealings between curator and artist. In order to qualify these interactions, the article fuses gift-giving with relational care ethics. In doing so, it foregrounds the values and ethics that inhabit curator-artist relationships and shows to what degree gift-givers and gift-recipients may influence each other’s work. From this perspective, the article suggests that contemporary curating not only implies that the curator and the artist coproduce artistic performances, rather contemporary curating entails that the curator and the artist coproduce curatorial formats, hence the festival.

Web-Conference Lecturing: In Dialogue with Student Experiences During a Pandemic

covid-19 is an omnipresent feature of 2020, both globally and within Australia. For university students, a consequence of this has been the shift from on-campus to online delivery. Exploring these visual realities for lecturers and students, this article engages in Bakhtinian dialogism; a dialogic interaction that is born between peoples searching for meaning (Bakhtin, 1986). To do so, the authors engaged with and responded to students’ survey data whom they lecture and coordinate. Although the survey had limited responses, it enabled the authors to dialogue about received knowledge (istina) from students and contemplate this in relation to the authors’ own perspectives and experiences (pravda). Through this engagement, they suggest the importance of visually imbued emotive connectivity and dialogic relational care within web-conferencing, as well as didactic lecturing as valid forms of visual engagement.

In-PREP: a new learning design framework and methodology applied to a relational care training intervention for healthcare assistants

Background ‘Older People’s Shoes’ is a training intervention designed for healthcare assistants (HCAs) to improve the relational care of older people in hospital. The intervention formed part of a broader evaluation, in this paper we describe its development from a learning design and methodological perspective. Methods Learning theory and an instructional design model were key components of the In-PREP (Input, Process, Review and Evaluation, Product) development methodology used in the design of the ‘Older People’s Shoes’ training intervention to improve the delivery of relational care by front-line hospital staff. An expert panel, current evidence, and pedagogical theory were used to co-design a training programme tailored to a challenging work environment and taking account of trainees’ diverse educational experience. Peer review and process evaluation were built into the development model. Results In-PREP provided a methodological scaffold for producing evidence-based, peer-reviewed, co-designed training. The product, ‘Older People’s Shoes’, involved a one-day Train the Trainers event, followed by delivery of a two-day, face-to-face training programme by the trainers, with accompanying handbooks underpinned by a range of digital resources. Evaluation found the approach met learner needs, was applicable in practice and won approval from trainers. Discussion In-PREP enables high quality learning content, alignment with learner needs and a product that is relevant, practical and straightforward to implement.