Pedagogical Tact as an Ethical Practice

Drawing on Theodor W. Adorno’s reflections on tact in Minima Moralia, this article revisits tact as a historically situated social capacity that emerges at moments when established conventions have lost their binding authority without fully disappearing. For Adorno, tact presupposes a fragile normative order and thus raises fundamental questions of belonging to, or deviating from, prevailing social norms. Building on this insight, the contribution adopts a phenomenological perspective to conceptualize pedagogical tact as a principle of difference—a capacity for “knowing deviations” in singular and unpredictable situations. Conceived as a cultural-aesthetic phenomenon, pedagogical tact integrates sociological and anthropological perspectives to orient professional judgment in educational practice. Such judgment is invariably shaped by ethical and moral demands grounded in an ethos of attentiveness and accountability. The article develops a normative understanding of pedagogical tact that is particularly suited to bridging theory and practice in special needs teacher education. It clarifies the relationship of this approach to related theoretical positions and highlights its specific value for professionalization and for coping with uncertainty in school-based teaching internships. The central elements are summarized in a concluding conceptual framework.