Ethics of Care and the Teaching Profession: A Challenge in Times of Crisis
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Keywords

Affectivity
Interdependence
Social Justice
Feminist Education
Pedagogy of Care

How to Cite

Verdejo Valenzuela, T. . (2026). Ethics of Care and the Teaching Profession: A Challenge in Times of Crisis. Temas De Educación. https://doi.org/10.15443/tde20262741

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical‒reflective analysis of the ethics of care and its relevance to the conceptualization of education and teacher professionalization in contemporary contexts marked by multiple crises.

The text is structured around three guiding questions. First, it examines how care permeates education and the ambiguities that arise when framing it as both a pedagogical and a social dimension, addressing teaching as care work, the school’s role in the social organi-zation of care, and the centrality of care in teaching‒learning processes. Second, the article ana-lyzes the tensions that emerge when teacher professionalization is considered through the lens of the ethics of care.

Finally, it reflects onthe contribution of a pedagogy of care to a political and transformative vision of education, highlighting its potential to resist neoliberal rationality and to promote relational justice, reciprocity, and the sustaining of life from a «more‒than‒human» perspective.

The article argues that integrating the ethics of care reconfigures the understanding of professionalism and opens up democratic horizons.

https://doi.org/10.15443/tde20262741
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Copyright (c) 2026 Tabisa Verdejo Valenzuela

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