Lately, in educational research and debate, there have been discussions on a trend sometimes named as a ‘therapeutic turn’ in education. Mindfulness-oriented activities represent one therapeutic approach in education, aiming for virtues such as patience and trust. A large part of the critical viewpoints on therapeutic education among young students seem to concern problems of integrity, privacy and the autonomy of the student. It is therefore, I suggest, fair to say that meetings between teachers and students are of special concern (...) within the realm of therapeutic education. The aim of this study is to shed light upon two teachers' reflections upon their own work and their students' within a mindfulness-oriented approach in a Swedish secondary school. I turn to Iris Marion Young, a theorist who has dealt with questions of communicative ethics and respectful meetings, for guidance. I find Young's concepts of recognition and distance through the act of greetings interesting and possibly fruitful for discussing qualities in teacher–student relations in therapeutic education from a professional ethical point of view. The analysis shows that Life Competence Education has the potential to be an arena within youth education where traditional roles, hierarchies and relations within education may be challenged. Likewise, because of this potential, it may also function as an arena where traditional structures and hierarchies of education are reaffirmed. (shrink)

This present article takes an interest in the fairly new phenomena of social and emotional training programs in youth education. Prior research has shown that values and norms produced in these types of programs are supporting ethical systems that teachers may not always be aware of. This motivates the development of methods for analyzing these activities from an ethical point of view. An analysis model has been developed and piloted in the analyses of two different classroom activities. The model is (...) based on theories of communicative ethics and an ethics of dialogicity, drawing upon the work of Jürgen Habermas, Iris Marion Young, and Emmanuel Levinas. The analyses show that norms concerning whose perspective is prioritized and what ethical values are constituted in the classroom vary depending on how the program is organized and how the teacher chooses to use the program. The article also argues that the analytical model suggested might serve as a contribution to both teachers’ own professional,... (shrink)