Daring to care: learning, teaching and being reflexive in management education

Our aim in this Professional Development Workshop is to explore how we engage and deal with passion and compassion when teaching and learning from a reflexive perspective. Classroom situations are typically conceived of as "neutral" grounds of rational decision-making, yet we have found that teaching reflexivity can surface personal, interpersonal and institutional vulnerabilities on the part of both teachers and learners – vulnerabilities we then need to address. This issue evolved from conversations begun in the AoM 2009 PDW "Can You Teach It? Building Reflexivity in Management Practice." We would like to address this new line of inquiry by facilitating discussion around three key aspects: First, the external conditions and the broad institutional and political contexts that facilitate or make barriers for reflexivity. Second, the emotions, behaviors and attitudes that can promote or inhibit ‘being’ reflexive. Third, how daring and caring one needs to be in enacting reflexivity in classroom and organizational settings.