How I Pursue Care Ethics in My Work

At this year’s National Art Education Association National Convention (NAEA), I presented (although not in person as intended) as part of a session called “The Ethics of Care: Love, Morals, and the Future of Museum Education.” As my former professor Dana Carlisle Kletchka described in our presentation, the Ethics of Care, or Care Ethics, is a philosophical approach to morals developed in the 1970s with feminist roots.

When Dana initially invited me to join the session, I was reluctant. I was not previously familiar with the Ethics of Care and did not feel I had the expertise to speak about the topic. But when I started to reflect on my evaluation practice, the Ethics of Care strongly resonated with me. As an evaluator, I am guided by the Belmont Report’s three principles for the ethical treatment of human subjects (i.e., people) in research: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. This report and subsequent policies around research and evaluation are a result of a lack of ethical care for people, which I have written about previously related to Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). The Belmont Report principles are also echoed in the American Evaluation Guiding Principles, particularly Principle E: Respect for People and Principle D: Common Good and Equity. 

But what does it actually look like to practice care ethics in evaluation work? I realized care practices can look so many different ways depending on who you are caring for. Care must account for a diversity of people, roles, relationships, etc. In preparing for the session, I was able to identify 5 concrete things I do to care for people in my work. 

1. Use language, images, and other strategies to center people

I find it can be very easy to ignore people and humanity in work. For instance, I might say, I worked with “X Museum” to simplify a statement. However, I didn’t really work with the “Museum.” There are very real individuals that make up a Museum’s staff. It is important to acknowledge individuals explicitly by identifying them by name or at least implicitly by generally acknowledging museum staff or workers. For example, I initially made a slide for the NAEA presentation acknowledging how my work with three museums in 2020 shaped my care practices that included pictures of the museums’ buildings. Then I realized it was all wrong! It certainly wasn’t the buildings that shaped my thoughts on care, but the people who worked there, so I added some people icons to the slide to emphasize that idea.

2. Pursue accessible and inclusive practices

To me, DEAI pursuits are a way to practice care. For visual presentations, I am mindful of font size, color contrast, and adding alt text to images. I aim to use inclusive, non-ableist, and non-violent language (see Margaret Middleton’s family-inclusive language chart, Elizabeth Grim’s non-violent language alternatives, and Lydia X. Z. Brown’s glossary of ableist terms). I try to speak with language that visually describes what I am showing. And, I try to keep up with the diversity of opinions on what is accessible and inclusive, such as differing opinions on the racial and demographic term Latinx. I am not a model of accessible and inclusive practices (and is anyone really?), but I keep pursuing this work. 

3. Allow yourself to feel emotion in your work

It seems like many people try to keep emotion out of their work. Maybe it feels like the “professional” thing to do. But emotions are human. And emotions are powerful people connectors. For example, you may bond with someone when you realize you share the same emotional reaction to something. I think of the celebratory raised-hands emoji 🙌 that to me expresses an emphatic yes of resonation. Or, you may feel an emotional connection with someone when they share a different emotional reaction to something than you. Being presented with an alternative perspective is extremely revealing! 

4. Recognize that care needs are situational

There are no singular best practices of care because our needs for care are situational. For example, in practicing self-care, maybe one day I need mantras, another day exercise, or another day just rest. None of these are necessarily wrong acts of self-care for you, but they may be wrong for you at that moment. Similarly when it comes to care practices with others, it is situational and intrapersonal.

5. Remember that people show and receive care in different ways

It’s easy to rationalize that people are unique, but to really act in ways that acknowledge people’s uniqueness is totally different. So when you start to think about care in your work, you must also acknowledge that showing care and receiving care looks different for different people. I have admittedly not read The Five Languages of Love, but I have heard it discussed many times. I refer to this book because it highlights a breakdown in loving relationships when one person shows love in a way different than their partner receives or feels loved. As related to practicing care, it is important to consider whether the ways you show care makes recipients actually feel care. In evaluation terms: do the actions you perceive as showing care result in the outcomes of people feel cared for? 

Care practice is complex, and we have to be adaptable, which can feel overwhelming. I take comfort in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in response to questions about his views on the world and humanity: “The world is getting better…It takes time. We are growing and learning how to be compassionate, how to be caring, how to be human.” Even for such a great spiritual leader, care is an ongoing pursuit.

Source: WikiCommons