The aim of this symposium is to contribute to a wider debate on the meaning and significance of the phenomenon of ‘attentiveness’ as being of fundamental interest for and within education. By presenting and bringing into discussion four different papers on this phenomenon we want to transcend views in which attentiveness within education is defined within psychological,  neurobiological or philosophical frames. We argue that by doing so, we shed light on aspects of attentiveness that often remain underexposed in educational research. Aspects that are embedded in the relational, intersubjective, situated and ethical character of education.

Several specific notions that we consider to be part of ‘attentiveness’, are presented in four papers, respectively papers on: attention, attentive involvement, presence and attentiveness.  Inspired by these four papers, we want to discuss on what attentiveness ‘is’ (Mole, 2011) and what its position is or should and could be in relation to the various aims and intentions of education: qualification, socialization and subjectification (Biesta, 2015, p. 14). Besides, we would like to debate on how attentiveness can or cannot be investigated educationally.

Although the papers share their focus on fundamental aspects of attentiveness within these educational processes, they also show different accents, and vary in angle of approach. Not only is ‘attentiveness’ framed in distinct ways, also divers research methods (philosophical inquiry, ethnography, phenomenological research) have been applied. Furthermore, the research areas in which ‘attentiveness’ has been investigated alter (Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands) as well as their educational context (primary, secondary and higher education).

The PhD project of Bastiaansen, in which the meaning and significance of attentive involvement in Dutch educational practices is researched, will be used as an example to discuss the (im)possibilities of researching an entity, attentive involvement, that is indeterminable and therefore hard to investigate. The central questions here are: What does it mean to conduct research in an attentively involved way, how can its methodical validity be ensured and what kind of information can be gathered when the entity being researched cannot be determined?

A phenomenological study of Roefs, in which students’ experiences of presence in daily educational practice in the Netherlands are investigated, shows the significance of presence for students’ self-awareness, self-confidence and broadened view of the world. Nevertheless, students indicate that such experiences are fairly exceptional in day-to-day educational practice. This evokes the question whether, and in what ways presence and research thereof, may be used in order to realize educational aims of qualification, socialization and subjectification?

In Johannes Rytzler’s theoretical research, education is approached as a lived practice of attention formation where self-active subjects are called into self-awareness through encounters of concrete otherness (Rytzler, 2017). Acknowledging the difficulties of providing an ontological ground for attention (Mole, 2011), Rytzler turns to a phenomenological approach suggested by Arvidson (2006), where attention always unfolds in relation to a theme, a context and a margin. With this approach, education can be understood as a form of ethical deconstruction of attention, where the boarders between a context and a margin are dissolved, paving the way for new thematic fields to appear.

In her PhD, as well as in her symposion paper, Barbro Fossland explores attentiveness in teaching from a pedagogical philosophical perspective and on the basis of phenomenological inquiry into her own dialogue with students. She is pointing at an “empty” or non-conceptual quality of deep attention, arguing that this quality is of great pedagogical value:  When teachers are attentive on a deep level, being without any expectations, they are preparing for the incalculable and unknown to show itself in pedagogical situations.

Arvidson, P. S. (2006). The Sphere of Attention. Context and Margin. USA: Springer. Biesta, Gert JJ. Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Routledge, 2015. Mole, C. (2011). Attention is Cognitive Unison. An Essay in Philosophical Psychology. USA: Oxford University Press. Rytzler, J. (2017). Teaching as Attention Formation. A Relational Approach to Teaching and Attention. Doctoral Thesis, Mälardalen University.