¿Educar es cuidar? El cuidado educativo como práctica ética en la relación socioeducativa.

Recent discourses on social education have highlighted a growing interest in developing the ethical dimension. Concepts of the ethics of care are key when thinking about the role of ethics in the social and educational professions. This article discusses the theoretical conceptualisation and analysis of representations that social educators have of the idea of educational care as an ethical component of socio-educational relations. To this end, Gilligan’s proposal regarding the ethics of care is discussed. Within this framework, moreover, a qualitative empirical study was carried out through 14 focus groups of social educators and interviews with 19 social educators and 11 people with whom they have maintained a socio-educational relationship. The results enable us to identify and implement care practices within the socio-educational relationship that have a direct impact on the well-being of these people, eschewing the welfare-based, paternalistic or “good-hearted” approaches. In conclusion, educational care is proposed as a practice that makes it possible to create scenarios for intervention based on an ethical view of the socio-educational relationship.