The Inquiry of Care

While discussions of the moral dimensions of the caring relation and their implications for teaching and learning are well developed within the literature, there has not been much analysis of the place of inquiry within our understanding of caring and the education inspired by it. Previous discussions offer important insight into what care‐inspired education might entail, but they do not address how inquiry itself may be enhanced by an ethic of care. After arguing that we should consider reason to be more central to the caring relation than has been previously recognized, Peter Nelsen seeks to ameliorate the apparent rift between reason and the affective dimensions of caring through what John Dewey described as the body‐mind. According to this view, reason and affect are inseparable aspects of the process of inquiry; they are both always present in our caring encounters. Nelsen then explores the educational implications of envisioning the caring relation as body‐mind grounded inquiry.