‘Pedagogical housekeeping’: An inquiry into corporeal and sensuous dimensions of education
What preconditions need to be in place in education if pressing ethical and political issues are to be addressed? How can sustainable educational spaces be created where controversial ‘wicked’ issues can be discussed? These questions are in focus in this project and the results will be presented in the book Educational Fundamentals – a corporeal and sensuous approach to ‘wicked problems’ in education.
The project makes use of empirical data collected in two previous research projects. Its objective is to offer a research-based language for the often marginalized bodily and sensory work that helps create an environment, within the spaces of schools and universities, that can harbour conflicts and tensions. Drawing on continental feminist philosophy (Judith Butler; Adriana Cavarero) and ordinary language philosophy (Rita Felski; Toril Moi) as methodology and as modus of critique, the book explores rituals and traditions, body language, voice, narration, timekeeping, and tact – small embodied and sensuous ‘things’ that have a large impact on educational spaces in polarized and conflicted times.
The work is academically motivated by the fact that embodied and sensuous dimensions of pedagogical practice are currently given little attention in values education research despite the fact that life in schools and universities usually depends upon it. It is empirically motivated by the increasing insecurity teachers feel about addressing controversial issues in pluralistic settings.
The project makes use of empirical data collected in two previous research projects. Its objective is to offer a research-based language for the often marginalized bodily and sensory work that helps create an environment, within the spaces of schools and universities, that can harbour conflicts and tensions. Drawing on continental feminist philosophy (Judith Butler; Adriana Cavarero) and ordinary language philosophy (Rita Felski; Toril Moi) as methodology and as modus of critique, the book explores rituals and traditions, body language, voice, narration, timekeeping, and tact – small embodied and sensuous ‘things’ that have a large impact on educational spaces in polarized and conflicted times.
The work is academically motivated by the fact that embodied and sensuous dimensions of pedagogical practice are currently given little attention in values education research despite the fact that life in schools and universities usually depends upon it. It is empirically motivated by the increasing insecurity teachers feel about addressing controversial issues in pluralistic settings.
Final report
The project has resulted in a book manuscript entitled A Pedagogy of Everyday Gestures: The Work of Ritual, Time, and Home in Education. The book is to be published by Bloomsbury Academic at the beginning of next year and consists of three parts and six chapters:
Part I: Preconditions
Chapter One: Towards a Pedagogy of the Everyday
Part II: Elements
Chapter Two: Ritualization and Appearance
Chapter Three: Time and Rhythm
Chapter Four: Homemaking and Worldmaking
Part III: Implications
Chapter Five: The Tone of Teaching
Chapter Six: The Theatricality of the Teacher
The project’s basic idea has remained unchanged since the time of the application, but the synthesis of previously conducted research has been concentrated to part one and chapter one – Preconditions. In this part, the book’s methodological and theoretical points of departure are also laid out: a spatial analysis of education and schooling and a feminist-inspired philosophy of everyday life with a focus on corporeality and sensuousness. Both of these perspectives are at present relatively sparsely used within the philosophy of education research that draws inspiration from Hannah Arendt’s thinking which, from the beginning, has constituted this book’s academic belonging. The book contributes new perspectives on everyday life, corporeality, and sensuousness to the continental pedagogical research that currently takes an interest in pedagogical form, but which focuses on forms of study without paying too much attention to the body and the senses. It also contributes to the research that has been conducted on the significance of the body and the senses in education with partly new and relatively unexplored themes. The concept of ritual, for example, has for a long time been considered conservative and therefore incompatible with progressive pedagogy and modern, emancipatory education. To use it for an analysis of collective pedagogical forms in the everyday life of schools, and at the same time consider the possibility of transformation and change, is one of the book’s innovative contributions. For ritualized work in everyday school life to be seen as pedagogical, a rethinking of the notion of time is required. By making visible how different temporal logics interact in a teaching situation and how changes in tempo are experienced in the classroom, the book contributes with a deepened understanding of pedagogy as a question of rhythm and tempo. Another contribution concerns highlighting the home-likeness of the school as a necessary ethical dimension of care, which is decisive for preparing students for political participation in the world. To highlight the likeness between home and the school as gestures of care is also to make visible what I call the reproductive work of education and schooling. The home-likeness of educational institutions has, in Swedish history of education, been a prominent theme among women pedagogues, in particular, but in recent years it has for various reasons receded into the background. Thus, the book contributes with a normative reminder of the importance of gestures of care in the upbringing of the next generation, especially in an existentially challenging time such as ours. The three themes that are analysed in part two – Elements – have consequences for teaching (as a sensuous question of tone/tonality) and for the teacher role (as a theatrical roleplay), which is discussed in the book’s final and third part – Implications. The most important result of these two chapters is the shift they make from the ethical and the political dimensions of education to the aesthetic dimension. The book thereby also contributes a “grammar” for pedagogy as a discipline that accommodates both an ethical, political, and aesthetic dimension. In order to formulate the aesthetic dimension, I draw on the (unfinished) aesthetics that has been developed from Hannah Arendt’s thinking and which, to my knowledge, has not previously been considered within Arendt inspired philosophy of education. Funding to make the book open access will be applied for from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond after the final reporting of the project.
In addition to the scientific results, the project has resulted in deepened comparative knowledge of Finnish teacher education vis-á-vis the Swedish. The Swedish debate on schooling often sees Finland as a model country. My two visits to the University of Helsinki have given me valuable knowledge about the theoretical foundations and the practical organisation of Finnish teacher education and have provided valuable knowledge to bring back to my home institution and its teacher education. Participating in the seminar activities at the Swedish speaking Department of Pedagogik and Didaktik at the University of Helsinki also offered deeper disciplinary insight. Particularly important were the insights into what the general pedagogical and general didactical (continental) disciplinary belonging entails for the subject of pedagogik and what consequences this belonging might have for practical pedagogy and for the teaching profession. Thirdly, the stays at HU have provided the opportunity for deepened collegiality with Finnish Swedish-speaking colleagues, both regarding the research and teaching conducted there and regarding my own research project. The academic discussions with colleagues in Finland regarding my own research have made it possible, throughout the entire process, to examine its grounding in general pedagogy, which has been particularly valuable.
Collaboration with colleagues in Finland has also led to new collegial relationships in several of the other Nordic neighbouring countries. As a result of this collaboration, I have, as a co-applicant, together with the main applicant at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, submitted an application to NORDFORSK to explore forms of reading in higher education across the five Nordic countries. This application aligns with the new research questions that have been generated through this study which concern continuing to contribute with philosophical analysis of pedagogical practice from the perspective of the significance of the body and the senses. For instance, how is it that – especially in a time of a reading crisis and declining literacy among students – education in the West often associates reading with silence and solitude, while in many other cultures reading is done aloud and together with others? How can the pedagogical repertoire in the North be expanded and deepened through Southern perspectives and epistemologies? In reflecting on pedagogical practices such as reading (but also memory practices), I aim to draw on postcolonial and postsecular theoretical frameworks to remind the Northern European secular and individually oriented educational culture of its forgotten elements and traditions of thought.
The research findings of this project have been disseminated and discussed through presentations of book chapters at the following occasions:
March 2025 (chapter 4): Educational Homeliness: Rethinking the Reproductive Work of Education Between Durability and Impermanence. Paper presented at NERA’s (Nordic Educational Research Association) annual conference in Helsinki, 5–7 March 2025.
March 2025 (synopsis): The book project was presented at the Higher Seminar in Didactics and Education at the Swedish-language department at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
June 2025 (chapter 6): Att bottna som lärare: det autentiska läraridealet under omprövning. Chapter submitted to a festschrift (Södertörn University). The book is in press and will be published before the summer.
November 2025 (chapter 1 and selected parts of chapters 2, 3, 4): The book project as a whole was presented at a department day with the Swedish-language department at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
March 2026 (chapter 2): Som om världen består: Om de ritualiserade handlingarnas etik och pedagogik. The paper constituted my lecture at Barnkultursymposiet, Stockholm University, which had the theme “Andlighet och ändlighet – tro och religion i barnkulturen” [Spirituality and finitude – faith and religion in children’s culture], 19–20 March, Stockholm.
Part I: Preconditions
Chapter One: Towards a Pedagogy of the Everyday
Part II: Elements
Chapter Two: Ritualization and Appearance
Chapter Three: Time and Rhythm
Chapter Four: Homemaking and Worldmaking
Part III: Implications
Chapter Five: The Tone of Teaching
Chapter Six: The Theatricality of the Teacher
The project’s basic idea has remained unchanged since the time of the application, but the synthesis of previously conducted research has been concentrated to part one and chapter one – Preconditions. In this part, the book’s methodological and theoretical points of departure are also laid out: a spatial analysis of education and schooling and a feminist-inspired philosophy of everyday life with a focus on corporeality and sensuousness. Both of these perspectives are at present relatively sparsely used within the philosophy of education research that draws inspiration from Hannah Arendt’s thinking which, from the beginning, has constituted this book’s academic belonging. The book contributes new perspectives on everyday life, corporeality, and sensuousness to the continental pedagogical research that currently takes an interest in pedagogical form, but which focuses on forms of study without paying too much attention to the body and the senses. It also contributes to the research that has been conducted on the significance of the body and the senses in education with partly new and relatively unexplored themes. The concept of ritual, for example, has for a long time been considered conservative and therefore incompatible with progressive pedagogy and modern, emancipatory education. To use it for an analysis of collective pedagogical forms in the everyday life of schools, and at the same time consider the possibility of transformation and change, is one of the book’s innovative contributions. For ritualized work in everyday school life to be seen as pedagogical, a rethinking of the notion of time is required. By making visible how different temporal logics interact in a teaching situation and how changes in tempo are experienced in the classroom, the book contributes with a deepened understanding of pedagogy as a question of rhythm and tempo. Another contribution concerns highlighting the home-likeness of the school as a necessary ethical dimension of care, which is decisive for preparing students for political participation in the world. To highlight the likeness between home and the school as gestures of care is also to make visible what I call the reproductive work of education and schooling. The home-likeness of educational institutions has, in Swedish history of education, been a prominent theme among women pedagogues, in particular, but in recent years it has for various reasons receded into the background. Thus, the book contributes with a normative reminder of the importance of gestures of care in the upbringing of the next generation, especially in an existentially challenging time such as ours. The three themes that are analysed in part two – Elements – have consequences for teaching (as a sensuous question of tone/tonality) and for the teacher role (as a theatrical roleplay), which is discussed in the book’s final and third part – Implications. The most important result of these two chapters is the shift they make from the ethical and the political dimensions of education to the aesthetic dimension. The book thereby also contributes a “grammar” for pedagogy as a discipline that accommodates both an ethical, political, and aesthetic dimension. In order to formulate the aesthetic dimension, I draw on the (unfinished) aesthetics that has been developed from Hannah Arendt’s thinking and which, to my knowledge, has not previously been considered within Arendt inspired philosophy of education. Funding to make the book open access will be applied for from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond after the final reporting of the project.
In addition to the scientific results, the project has resulted in deepened comparative knowledge of Finnish teacher education vis-á-vis the Swedish. The Swedish debate on schooling often sees Finland as a model country. My two visits to the University of Helsinki have given me valuable knowledge about the theoretical foundations and the practical organisation of Finnish teacher education and have provided valuable knowledge to bring back to my home institution and its teacher education. Participating in the seminar activities at the Swedish speaking Department of Pedagogik and Didaktik at the University of Helsinki also offered deeper disciplinary insight. Particularly important were the insights into what the general pedagogical and general didactical (continental) disciplinary belonging entails for the subject of pedagogik and what consequences this belonging might have for practical pedagogy and for the teaching profession. Thirdly, the stays at HU have provided the opportunity for deepened collegiality with Finnish Swedish-speaking colleagues, both regarding the research and teaching conducted there and regarding my own research project. The academic discussions with colleagues in Finland regarding my own research have made it possible, throughout the entire process, to examine its grounding in general pedagogy, which has been particularly valuable.
Collaboration with colleagues in Finland has also led to new collegial relationships in several of the other Nordic neighbouring countries. As a result of this collaboration, I have, as a co-applicant, together with the main applicant at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, submitted an application to NORDFORSK to explore forms of reading in higher education across the five Nordic countries. This application aligns with the new research questions that have been generated through this study which concern continuing to contribute with philosophical analysis of pedagogical practice from the perspective of the significance of the body and the senses. For instance, how is it that – especially in a time of a reading crisis and declining literacy among students – education in the West often associates reading with silence and solitude, while in many other cultures reading is done aloud and together with others? How can the pedagogical repertoire in the North be expanded and deepened through Southern perspectives and epistemologies? In reflecting on pedagogical practices such as reading (but also memory practices), I aim to draw on postcolonial and postsecular theoretical frameworks to remind the Northern European secular and individually oriented educational culture of its forgotten elements and traditions of thought.
The research findings of this project have been disseminated and discussed through presentations of book chapters at the following occasions:
March 2025 (chapter 4): Educational Homeliness: Rethinking the Reproductive Work of Education Between Durability and Impermanence. Paper presented at NERA’s (Nordic Educational Research Association) annual conference in Helsinki, 5–7 March 2025.
March 2025 (synopsis): The book project was presented at the Higher Seminar in Didactics and Education at the Swedish-language department at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
June 2025 (chapter 6): Att bottna som lärare: det autentiska läraridealet under omprövning. Chapter submitted to a festschrift (Södertörn University). The book is in press and will be published before the summer.
November 2025 (chapter 1 and selected parts of chapters 2, 3, 4): The book project as a whole was presented at a department day with the Swedish-language department at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
March 2026 (chapter 2): Som om världen består: Om de ritualiserade handlingarnas etik och pedagogik. The paper constituted my lecture at Barnkultursymposiet, Stockholm University, which had the theme “Andlighet och ändlighet – tro och religion i barnkulturen” [Spirituality and finitude – faith and religion in children’s culture], 19–20 March, Stockholm.