Inclusion in childhood studies and education: Ethical responsibility to and for children with disabilities

In this thesis, I discuss what it might mean to engage in an ethically responsible pedagogy, by posing the following questions: What is our ethical commitment and responsibility to and for others—especially when those others are children with disabilities? More importantly, when recognizing that the most challenging task for educators is to create a context for the collective (Rinaldi, 2006), what kinds of ethical and pedagogical contexts should be cultivated when encountering children with disabilities, so that each child's existence and alterity are revealed? To engage these questions, I explore the concept of listening through multiple avenues: listening as attending to and for others, listening as attending to the revelation of alterity, listening in the state of dialogue, and listening through "taking a while". All of these concepts of listening are interpreted in relation to Emmanuel Levinas's conception of I/other relationality.