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The chapter examines to what extent research from social cognitive neuroscience can inform ethical leadership. We evaluate the contribution of brain research to the understanding of ethical leaders as moral persons as well the understanding of their role as moral managers. The areas of social cognitive neuroscience that mirror these two aspects of ethical leadership comprise research relating to understanding oneself, understanding others, and the relationship between the self and others. Within these, we deem it relevant for ethical leadership to incorporate research findings about self-reflection, self-regulation, theory of mind, empathy, trust, and fairness. The chapter highlights social cognitive neuroscience research in these areas and discusses its actual and potential contributions to ethical leadership. The chapter thereby engages also with the broader discussion on the neuroscience of leadership. We suggest new avenues for future research in the field of leadership ethics and responsibility.

Discourse among the media and general public has associated the term ‘multicultural’ with multiculturalism; however, Tiryakian (2003, p. 22) argues that the two should be seen as analytically distinct but empirically complementary. In its demographic-descriptive meaning, the term multicultural refers to cultural or ethnic diversity or the coexistence of different cultural groups within a particular locality; in this sense it represents heterogeneity over homogeneity. This descriptive approach, adopted by governments and public officials in Australia, describes those spaces shared by a variety of groups as ‘multicultural’. I want to confine this particular construction of multicultural to the category of ‘multiethnic’. On the other hand, the word ‘multiculturalism’ alludes to a normative category and refers to philosophical arguments regarding the legitimacy of claims surrounding the recognition of particular identity groups. The normative view accepts that pluralism and diversity are good in themselves and assumes that all difference should be valued and given a voice in the public realm. This version of multiculturalism has been evident in the United States, but has come under increasing attack by neo-conservatives. In its programmatic-political dimension, couched in liberal terms in Australia, multiculturalism pertains to policies designed to respond to the problems posed by diversity. Advocates of such policies believe that they foster toleration and equal opportunity. Another category entails an attitude towards the cultural ‘other’ and refers to an inter-subjective mode of being. The typology constructed here is based on a continuum consisting of monocultural, multiethnic, multiculturalism, and multicultural and will be used to interpret a city's relationship to its diverse population. This typology also raises some interesting questions. How many different cultural groups need to exist within a designated urban space before a city can legitimately or authentically represent itself as ‘multicultural’? Can one judge to what extent a city is multicultural based on the type of social interaction that exists among culturally-diverse groups? If multiculturalism extends beyond a demographic phenomenon, then it is possible to distinguish multiethnic cities from multicultural cities. These questions and issues can also shed light on the politics of representation.

Discussions about the dignity of human beings often focus on violations of a person’s dignity that are performed by other persons. However, human beings can also violate their own dignity or at least they can expose it to a violation by others thoughtlessly or intentionally. In his Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states that ‘[o]ne who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him’. Kant presupposes that persons can infringe or even forfeit their own dignity – for instance through servile behaviour – and that violating one’s own dignity is a violation of a duty towards oneself. Starting from the tension between dignity in terms of honour and worth in current debates and in Kant’s own thinking, as well as between understanding dignity as absolute or relational, I develop a comprehensive account of dignity as a duty to oneself. The author argues for a twofold obligation towards oneself to respect one’s own dignity: (i) a duty (as the necessity of an action done out of respect for the moral law) to respect one’s authority as an autonomous person in the Kantian sense; and (ii) beyond the Kantian framework – an obligation arising from the practical necessity that follows from one’s self-understanding as a self-determined, self-expressive individual personality in a socio-cultural context. Finally, the author outlines the consequences of the idea of ‘making oneself a worm’ for the concept of dignity in the realm of rights by discussing why, even though persons can behave like worms, others ought not to step on them.

On Justification: Economies of Worth (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991/2006) was a synthetic and comprehensive parsing of common goods, goods that could and had to be justified in public. In response to Bourdieu’s critical sociology, they rather provided a robust and disciplined sociology of critique, the situated requirements of justification. They refused power and violence as integral to the operability of justification. They emphasized the ways in which conventions of worth afforded coordination, not their constitution of or by domination. They refused to make either capitalism, or the state, into primary motors of social order. Indeed, they refused social sphere, structure, or group as the ground of the good. They emphasized the cognitive capacities of agents. There was no passion, no desire, no bodily affect in these justified worlds. There wasn’t even any account of production of value, of children, or of money. And while they recognized the metaphysical aspect of the good and even used Christianity as a template for one of their cités, they rigorously excluded religion. The theory was designed to analyze moments of controversy, not quiescence or quietude. In his subsequent work, Boltanski aimed to address these absences. In this essay, we examine how Boltanski sought to restore love, violence, religion, production, and institution across five texts: Love and Justice as Competences (1990/2012), The New Spirit of Capitalism, co-authored with Eve Chiapello (1999/2007), The Foetal Condition: A Sociology of Engendering and Abortion (2004/2013), On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation (2009/2011), and La «Collection», Une Forme Neuve du Capitalisme – La Mise en Valeur Economique du Passé et ses Effets (2014) co-authored with Arnaud Esquerre.

The person of the teacher is an essential element in what constitutes professional teaching and therefore needs careful conceptualisation. In this chapter the author argues for this central thesis, presenting a wrap up of his theoretical and empirical work on the issue over the past decade. These studies have been inspired – both conceptually and methodologically – by teacher thinking-research as well as the narrative-biographical approach to teaching and teacher development. The result is an empirically grounded conceptual framework on teacher development and teacher professionalism. Central concepts are ‘professional self-understanding’ and ‘subjective educational theory’ as components of the personal interpretative framework every individual teacher develops throughout his/her career. This personal framework results from the reflective and meaningful interactions between the individual teacher and the social, cultural and structural working conditions constituting his/her job context(s). As such the framework is the dynamic outcome of an ongoing process of professional learning (development). Furthermore, it is argued that the particular professionalism or scholarship of teachers is fundamentally characterised by personal commitment and vulnerability, which eventually have consequences for the kind of reflective attitudes and skills professional teachers should master.

Various philosophers and thinkers have discussed the importance of thinking and philosophising about the concept of ‘place’. A necessary structure of human experience, place is vital to the very foundation of human experience. More than the geography or arrangement of places, place is a concept that moulds human experience and contributes to understanding oneself and the world. Place has also been used to explain political motivations and issues such as citizenship, diaspora and migration. Despite its importance, place has not been problematised enough and has been neglected in studies of intersectionality. For instance, the role and influence of place in a person's diversity wheel and the interlocking web of oppressive structures have been reduced to either racial, class or gender categories. As a result, current critical theories fall short in drawing up the effects of place on intersectionality. This chapter, therefore, proposes the need to develop a critical place theory. It highlights the role that place-aspects play in the oppression and marginalisation of individuals. Moreover, it also examines the relatively new concept of placism as an analytical framework that can be used to explain varying oppressive placial structures.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the exploration of metaphors of learning and teaching can contribute to the professional development of teacher candidates and teacher educators.

Approach – The chapter draws on the author's experiences as a teacher and teacher educator to illustrate ways in which metaphors of teaching offer deeper understandings of the personal and social dimensions of teaching and teacher education practices.

Findings – Metaphors and other artifacts by the author and teacher candidates are examined to illustrate how metaphors have been be used to story experience in teacher education.

Research implications – Imagining and re-imagining metaphors provide a solid foundation for the preparation and development of teachers. Engaging teacher candidates in the identification and development of their metaphors of learning and teaching contributes to their development into teachers able to understand the experiences of their students and adapt their teaching to enhance student learning. The exploration of metaphor can also help teacher educators to better understand their professional identities and practices.

Value – Teacher educators are uniquely positioned to help teachers explore how their teacher images inform practice and to analyze these images to enhance personal professional knowledge and teaching practices.

Though undergoing changes for a decade, the foster care system in Poland is still dominated by the adult model of childhood management. Assuming that the biological, psychological and social immaturity of children precludes their autonomy, this model expects adults to focus on control over the integration of a child into society. A consequence is the instrumentalisation of childhood and the deprivation of a child's sense of agency, i.e., the right to (co-)create one's own life space. Additionally, the foster care system concentration on adult problems relegates children to the background. Treatment of children as the object of adult interactions significantly impedes approaches that could empower, reduces chances for relationships built on dialogue, limits a child's openness and authenticity and hinders development of his/her identity structure and resourcefulness. Such institutionalised systems do not satisfy a child's needs, especially unconditional acceptance, enjoyment of life, and self-fulfilment. Instead, from the child's perspective, residential/foster care is a traumatic experience that deprives a human being of childhood. Such an institutional experience interferes in the acquisition of functional patterns for adulthood, reinforces traumas, and denies a chance to reclaim one's childhood. Research conducted with children indicates a need for a change in direction. The aim herein is to show the current situation of children in the Polish foster care system, identify threats to the development of an autonomous identity, and present an alternative, child-centred foster care model in which the caregiver treats the child as a competent person.