Ethics and ECEC children with autism

Anthropological Research in Educational Work

Abstract

A premise of this article is that ethics is embedded in human actions. ECEC educators’ actions affect children and make a difference to them, whether positive or negative. As anthropological researchers, we are concerned with analyzing the micro-interactions that take place between educators and children, and to which the fieldwork gives access. Our analyses can likewise have different positive or negative consequences for the field of practice. The purpose of this article is, on one hand, to reflect on our research ethical choices, which are connected to our research on educational work with ECEC children with autism in mainstream daycare institutions. The purpose is, on the other hand, to show examples of how educational work can appear problematic in an ethical sense, and to illustrate educational work that fulfills the ethical requirement to a greater extent. We do this based on the anthropologist Cheryl Mattingly’s moral philosophical perspective, which focuses on the relationship between experiment, knowledge, and experience in human actions. We examine whether and how educational actions orientates towards educational goals. Thus, we establish an analytical approach which avoids a value-relativistic ascertainment that one ethical approach/view is as right as the other. Instead, we insist on an ethical stance.

Keywords:

Ethical action, Autism, ECEC, Educational work, Micro Ethics, Meso Ethics.