Making Space for Ethics

Abstract

The paper argues that since ethics permeates early childhood work—its purposes, its organisation, its practices, its relationships—it should figure much more in all discourses about this work, whether policymaking, management, practice or research. What this might involve is illustrated through exploring three sets of ethical ideas: postmodern ethics; the ethics of an encounter and the ethics of care; and care of the self. All three ideas reject the idea of universal ethical codes and foreground the importance of otherness in contemporary ethics. The paper concludes by outlining two possible directions for working with these ideas: removing ‘care’ from an unproductive and dualistic education/care debate, viewing it instead as an ethical approach to use across projects in early childhood institutions, including education; and reconceptualising early childhood institutions as spaces for ethical practices.