Developing an ethical school through appreciating practice? Students’ lived experience of ethical situations in school

Abstract

In meetings between people in school our values are shown through, for example, our actions, our speech and body language. These meetings can be regarded as ethical situations, which can arouse strong emotional reactions that ordinary, everyday situations usually do not do. The aim of this paper is to illuminate, interpret and discuss students’ lived experiences of ethical situations in their school. The participants in the study were students in a Swedish secondary school, and the empirical data consisted of written reflections and interviews. The study is based on the lived experiences of students. The analysis of the empirical data resulted in two themes: response in speech and action, and power relations. The comprehensive understanding of the results is that healthy relationships play an important ethical role in the school. Finally, we discuss how ways of listening to students’ voices and appreciating practice can develop an ethical school.

Keywords:

• appreciation
• empathy
• justice
• life-world
• power
• responsiveness
• truth

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the students who participated in this study. Without your willingness to be a part of this study, we would not have had the opportunity to mediate your voices from within the school. We also want to thank all colleagues around the world who have made valuable comments on our paper during the writing process, as well as the reviewers of the paper. Finally, we thank our financing supporters–Luleå University of Technology and the EU, Interreg. Kolartic 3A, who supported this research within the project ‘Development and Research Project of Psychosocial Well-being of Children and Youth in the Artic–ArctiChildren’.