The ethical paradox: exploring the pedagogical potential of ethical gender relations between pre-service teacher and student

Providing children with ethical experiences has been an educational struggle fraught with theoretical and practical incompatibilities. Post Foucauldian theorists, such as Deborah Youdell and Laura Teague, have attempted to disrupt processes of inequality in schools by exploring how teachers might utilise performatives to constitute their students in ways that let them live. These ethical experiences disrupt unethical pedagogies that may injuriously constitute students – limiting the freedom of their existence. This study focuses on gendered constitutions specifically by engaging in discourses with pre-service teachers that explore their perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of gender. This study found that pre-service teachers were apprehensive when grappling with gendered discourses which diminished their agency. The roles of teachers, schools and institutions were considered whereby this study found that each struggled to implement ethical pedagogies that let students live. Finally, suggestions were made in an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice; promoting pre-service institutional training in performative politics to allow for ethical relations between teachers and students.