Supporting EdD Scholar-Practitioners through the COVID-19 Pandemic Using an Ethic of Care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.263Keywords:
education doctorate, EdD faculty, ethic of care, COVID-19 pandemicAbstract
Given the significant challenges PK-12 educational leaders currently face, the purpose of this essay is to orient EdD faculty with Noddings’ (1984/2003) care ethics as a framework for conceptualizing their work and employing care acts to support EdD scholar-practitioners through the COVID-19 pandemic. Practical strategies for this work are suggested. The author argues that Noddings’ (1984/2003) ethic of care provides a timely lens through which EdD faculty’s actions can be guided. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty have become tasked with supporting their students’ socioemotional well-being in addition to their academic progress. EdD faculty must be responsive to these needs if they are to retain students and effectively train scholar-practitioners to identify and address problems of practice. Stemming from this argument, future research could empirically investigate how employing care ethics affects scholar-practitioners’ well-being, program satisfaction, retention, and completion rates.
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