More Than Gentle Smiles and Warm Hugs: Applying the Ethic of Care to Early Childhood Education

Caring has become a buzzword in education. However, the commonly held understanding of caring—characterized by gentle smiles and warm hugs—obscures the complexity and the intellectual challenge of work with young children. Coupling early childhood education with this simplistic conception of caring will be detrimental to the field. As an alternative, the author draws on feminist moral theory, specifically the ethic of care, to develop an understanding of caring that emphasizes its deeply ethical, philosophical and experiential roots. Using narratives of life in a primary grade classroom, this article highlights the ways that the ethic of care can be used to enhance our understanding of what it means to be caring teachers.