½¿É«µ¼º½

Although there is a growing international interest in within the formal education sector, the concept is not new. Certainly, as myself and former head teacher and blog author Richard Evea explained in a recently published article (Edwards & Evea, 2025), relationship-centred pedagogies have long been central to social life. Particularly, in the informal processes of children’s upbringing.

Since the mid-industrial revolution, however, these pedagogic processes have been adopted and professionalised in the form of social pedagogy movements in Europe and South America and youth work movements in England. Central to these relational pedagogies, are notions of reciprocal dialogue and encounter, which focus on the process rather than outcomes of the relationship. It is from within these processes that Davies (2016, p. 11) asserts, ethical goods such as patience, perseverance, temperance and justice emerge.

Freire (1972) conceptualises these processes within a liberation education framework, which emphasises notions of encounter and dialogue that involve the whole person as subject within relation – that is, within social rather than solely individual cognitive processes. This pedagogic approach stands juxtaposed to current, favoured education pedagogies that separate knower from agent as object, and frame the educator’s image on the other through processes of cognitive production for which end (grade) outputs are the primary goal.

Freire’s concept does not stand alone, however, and sits within the broader field of critical pedagogies emphasising lived experience as a starting point for problem posing and collective, equitable action. In practice, Freire offers a framework (1972, chapter 3) through which participants involved in the relationship, encounter (or re-encounter) one another in reciprocal dialogue. A process of conscientisation emerges in which understanding addresses assumptions about the others’ realties. Here, actions and underlying concerns are problematised and the self as being-in-relation emerges in a state of immanence, thereby creating the conditions for collaborative action that can transform the situation.

Yet, although founded on mutual trust and openness, the relationship is not naive. Freire understands the limitations of organisational context, personal and professional circumstances, and quality of the relationships. But this does not limit possibilities for change and opportunity for new beginnings – either systemically or individually. Rather, it opens avenues for new beginnings and opportunities for all parties to participate in equitable change together.

Buber (1961) defines this process as coming-into-being where, within the relationship-building processes, the other as object (that is, something to be acted upon) becomes subject. Not subject in terms of one who is subordinate to the other but, rather, one who acts as participant within the relationship. Relationship in this sense precedes language and brings language into being. Hence, dialogue which carries each subjects’ voice can only be understood as verb, a process enacting movement from one position to another where change is framed in a new language – that of being-in-progress.

‘A position that renders each vulnerable to the other, placing them perhaps in an ethical dilemma where the risk of seeing the current situation as untenable, requires change.’

To see the other in this way, though, requires a willingness to have one’s assumptions and prejudices challenged and stripped away to confront truth. A position that renders each vulnerable to the other, placing them perhaps in an ethical dilemma where the risk of seeing the current situation as untenable, requires change. However, the dilemma (if any) and addressing risks are not unsurmountable when confronted by truth as, unlike Narcissus who fell in love with his own self-reflected image, an emergent and reciprocal love for the other becomes the salvation of both from their own situatedness.

Therefore, if being-in-relation is a participatory and reciprocal process, there is a price to such an encounter. That is, one must take a step of faith in the other and discard the boundaries and safety of one’s current situatedness for the sake of entering the other’s presence. This step of faith brings into being the self and the other as subject – but the process must be mutual. Perhaps then, such an encounter cannot be sought but only offered through grace. How this grace might be grounded in practice is at the heart of the remaining blog posts in this special issue.

References

Buber, M. (1961). I and thou (2nd ed.) R. G. Smith, Trans). Scribner.

Davies, R. (2016). Youth work and ethics: Why the professional turn won’t do. Ethics and Education, 11(2), 186–196.

Edwards, S. (2023). Freire for twenty-first-century, austerity-driven schools: Creating positive educational relations with and among students at the margins. International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 12(1), 6.

Edwards, S., & Evea, R. (2025). Resisting the professional turn: revisiting youth work as a covenantal process. International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 14(1), 9. .

Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Books.