Ethological propositions for curriculum studies in higher education

Abstract

The conceit that humans are exceptional and a species apart from nature continues to dominate traditional forms of curriculum in higher education.           This article considers how an ethological curriculum might be used to disrupt current imaginaries informing prevailing higher education curricula practices in its rejection of a metaphysics of individualism that is foundational to traditional curriculum studies. An ethological curriculum thinks with more-than-human forms of life in relational ways to consider how we might work differently in higher education. The article offers four propositions as launching points, inflections or forces which can potentiate an ethological curriculum ‒ cultivating attunement, attentiveness and noticing; becoming-with; rendering each other capable; and engaging response-ably.