Pedagogical relationships in times of sexual violence: constituting intimacy and corporality at the limits^*

* The research was conducted for the German Institute for International Educational Research and for the University of Duisburg-Essen.

ABSTRACT

The article takes its starting point from the current debate on sexual violence in educational institutions. It follows an ethnographic perspective without observing sexual violence directly, arguing that doing so is ethically impossible. Instead it suggests deducing risks for sexual violence through the limits of pedagogical practices. Discussing two case studies (an all-day-school and a residential child care home) and relating their discursive concepts of caring and educating to their practices shows how these institutions address the topic of sexual violence. Reconstructing the practices that constitute a difference between exclusive, one-on-one caring situations and open, publicly accessible educational situations show how transgressions of the limits of corporality to intimacy become institutionalised. We conclude that an ethnography of transgression points to practice arrangements that pose a risk for sexual violence in educational institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational institutions
• transgression
• risk for sexual violence
• pedagogy
• practices

Acknowledgements

A draft version of this paper had been presented at the OEC 2015. We are very thankful for our colleagues in the audience who had been the first readers of our ideas. We are delighted that #1, #2 and #3 gave special attention to our text in an early stage. Furthermore we are very thankful for the reviewers, who did not tire of helping us reflect on our ethnography. The comments, questions and suggestions of the reviewers have richly helped to develop our theoretical background and sharpen our interpretation of data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Martin Bittner http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8414-4137

Meike Wittfeld http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4799-0462

Notes

* The research was conducted for the German Institute for International Educational Research and for the University of Duisburg-Essen.

1 The German welfare system provides for different institutions and different mandates for the development and well-being of children. We will subsume those institutions that mark an interface of a transition into the society as educational institutions (cf. Benner 2015).

2 Intense motion pictures (e.g. The Magdalene Sisters, film by Peter Mullan, Ireland 2002) and print media reports contribute to the increasing public awareness that educational institutions are not as safe as they are supposed to be according to their mandate.

3 Vulnerability, Power Relations, intimacy and Subject Positioning as well as Gender differences are those theoretical concepts that frame sexual violence – mainly with recourse to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman and Raewyn Connell.

4 The perspective of practice-arrangement bundles already provides the perspective of Foucauldian Genealogy (cf. Schatzki 2012, 25).

5 The overlapping of voices (marked by “└”) shows how intense they discuss this topic. Pauses of less a second are marked by “(.)”.

6 This aspect of governing the subject and the related concept of pastoral care (refer to Foucault) have to be elaborated elsewhere.

Additional information

Funding

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany under Grant 01SR1210A and Grant 01SR1210C supported this work.