Bortom mitt barn och andras ungar. Omsorgsetisk grammatik för skolväljande föräldrar

Abstract

A grammar of ethics of care for school choosing parents. To choose a school for one’s child is part and parcel of urban parenting in the contemporary Swedish educational system. While previous studies have investigated the consequences of the school choice empirically through both qualitative and quantitative methods, there are no previous studies investigating the issue of school choice as an ethical concern. Through the author’s situated experience of being a school choosing parent in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmö, the author uses educational philosopher Nel Nodding’s work on ethics of care and applies it to the question of what situated, responsible parenting in Malmö could mean today. The author introduces the metaphor of a grammar of ethics of care where the relationship between “our kid” and “our kids” is seen as relational, with an opening for caring for children outside the immediate family.