ABSTRACT
Current discussions on care emanate from the development of the ethics of care in the 1980s in the US, attributed to C. Gilligan and N. Noddings. Noddings' 'relational ontology' suggests care as a way of being in the world, requiring negotiated care before personal/intimate, to delineate inappropriate crossing of professional boundaries, and beyond public/duty of just fulfilling legal requirements to reach the nexus of relational-care. By foregrounding the role and contribution of women, the ethics-of-care sought to counter the reliance on what they saw as a more masculine objectivity and universalism in traditional deontological ethical thinking derived from Kant. If connection to school relies on young people feeling cared about as individuals and their learning, then it is necessary to understand the subjective and contested construct of care and how it might manifest in relation to the 'duty' applied in education. Identifying a 'relational' model is key: care must be offered and acknowledged to work and be indeed care.
