Relational equality in education: what, how, and why?

Relational equality is broadly understood to be about relating to others as moral equals. I consider three questions of relational equality as applied to education: what, how, and why? Relational equality is important on a macro (societal) level, a meso (school) level structuring of relationships, and a micro (interpersonal relationships) level. I focus on micro level relational equality in schools, and connect theoretical perspectives from two neighbouring fields: education and humanistic counselling, suggesting that we might usefully draw on theory from humanistic counselling to inform our understanding of how egalitarian interpersonal relationships might manifest in education. I emphasise the importance of considering what we are trying to communicate through our behaviour and suggest that in order to treat someone as a moral equal, educators should work towards communicating empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence. Such an understanding gives a clearer focus for increasing equality than broader understandings of relational equality, and greater scope for challenging inequality than distributive accounts.