I highlight the importance of paying attention to the affective strategies of abolition pedagogies in higher education to mobilize abolitionist praxis. Affective strategies can make a contribution in either changing or reproducing the affective culture that has long been established at the colonial university. In the analysis here, I argue that…

To show the potential and limitations of pedagogies of discomfort and empathy in anti-racist and multicultural teacher education, this paper engages in an in-depth analysis of two "critical moments" that are drawn from a series of teacher workshops. The purpose of the analysis is to show how discomfort and empathy may be combined…

Within the broad Freirean paradigm that dominates critical pedagogy, there is a tendency to assume that affects such as love, hope, and empathy as well as revolutionary agency are naturally occurring in all human beings and that conscientization will eventually lead to empowerment for change (Amsler 2011). However, it is not clear how the workings…

This paper addresses one of the challenges in human rights education (HRE) concerning the conceptualization of a pedagogical orientation that avoids both the pitfalls of a purely juridical address and a "cheap sentimental" approach. The paper uses as its point of departure Richard Rorty's key intervention on human rights discourse and…

In this article we depart from a conceptualisation of foreign language teaching as intercultural citizenship in schools and universities. We extend this conceptualisation by suggesting that foreign language teaching can and should also sensitise students about issues of human suffering and cultivate empathy, solidarity, hospitality and inclusion.…

The present paper focuses on the "emotional regimes" that may be invoked, molded or used in history education engagements with the past as part of reconciliation processes. In the first part, the paper examines briefly how emotions are related to the process of reconciliation and discusses the ways in which emotional regimes grow out of…

This paper reports on the results of an exploratory study focusing on the perceptions of elementary school principals who espouse a critical multicultural approach and show signs of a social justice leadership style. The study has taken place in an ethnically divided society (Cyprus) in which the political situation seems to influence the ways in…

This article critiques some of the existing literature in critical pedagogy and the way it tends to overlook or downplay the strong emotional investments of troubled knowledge in posttraumatic situations. Examining existing literature in critical pedagogy reiterates the argument that the discourse of critical pedagogy constructs and sustains its…

This paper constructs an argument about the emotionally complicated and compromised learning spaces of teaching about anti-racism in higher education. These are spaces steeped in complex structures of feeling that evoke strong and often discomforting emotions on the part of both teachers and students. In particular, the author theorizes the notion…

This article joins discussions concerning education as a means of cultivating compassion and pays explicit attention to the emotional complexities of teaching for/with compassion to help students become active and critical compassionate citizens. After reviewing the emotional aspects that establish feelings of pity and a sentimental relationship…

This article explores the ways in which a fifth-grade class of Greek Cypriot students and their teacher perceived and negotiated the meanings of empathy for the "other" in the context of ethnic conflict in Cyprus. The findings suggest that the process of engaging with empathy is full of fractures and failures, possibilities and…

Illustrating the tensions and possibilities that the notion of the ethic of care as a democratic and citizenship issue may have in discourses of citizenship education in western states is the focus of this article. I first consider some theoretical debates on the definition of an ethic of care, especially in relation to issues of justice and…

This article looks at the emotion discourses among 30 Greek-Cypriot children and youth interviewees when they describe their feelings about migrants in Cyprus. It looks at how migrant representations and narratives are highly emotional constructions that children and youth utilize to make sense of their views about how migrants are different or…

In this article, the author argues that it would be valuable to look into less paradigmatic manifestations of forgiveness in schools, that is, pedagogical approaches that acknowledge the complexity of forgiveness in socio-political contexts--namely, how forgiveness might be "ambivalent," intermingled with both positive and negative…

This article interrogates the sentimentality, resentment or desensitization in education as a result of the politics of emotion in the circulation of trauma narratives. Such an interrogation advises a different analysis of trauma narratives, one that acknowledges the politics of trauma and the dangers from its rhetoric. Sentimental education takes…