Attunements to the Ethical in Design and Learning

Abstract

Within the learning sciences, conversations around the political dimensions of learning and design are growing, with implications for research epistemologies, approaches to social change-making, and possibilities for impact in the lives of children and communities. This symposium seeks to explicate, amplify, and further theorize ethical dimensions of human learning that orient our thinking towards what could or ought to be and sensitize us to the ways ethics, like politics, are always mediating learning. We explore these questions: In what ways do attunements to the ethical dimensions of learning, teaching, and design evolve in activity to expand opportunities for children and youth to grapple with the world as it is and imagine how it might be? In what ways does relationality shape and become shaped by emergent ethical attunements in learning environments? How might research and design that center the ethics of learning shift how “impact” is defined and assessed?