The Phenomenology of Attentional Care in the Synchronous Platform Classroom: care ethics, emotion, and attentional justice in ۲۱st century education

This article develops a phenomenology of attentional care in platform-mediated education and advances the normative concept of attentional justice. Employing a phenomenological–hermeneutic method, it analyses composite vignettes derived from synchronous online teaching (۲۰۲۰–۲۰۲۴) in undergraduate and Master’s-level courses in philosophy of education, teacher education, and curriculum studies at a public university. The vignettes, based on field notes and reflective memos, condense recurring situations—such as latency-filled discussions, camera-off participation, and chat-based interaction—while preserving anonymity. Phenomenological analysis reveals three invariants of attention in this context: embodied tact (gesture and voice as holding), temporal generosity (protected intervals resisting acceleration), and recognitive address (naming, echoing, and confirmation). Read alongside critiques of the attention economy and technicity, these findings show that attentional care depends on minimally just conditions and cannot rely on individual virtue alone. The article therefore articulates two correlative rights—the right to protected intervals and the right to recognitive address—and specifies institutional duties concerning time, limits on surveillance, equitable access to bandwidth and quiet, and the governance of platform affordances. The study contributes a refined conceptual grammar of attention in education and proposes a normative criterion for platform pedagogy: a learning environment is adequate when learners can truly say, I was held; I was given time; I was recognised.

Keywords:

attentional care , phenomenology of education , care ethics , Platform Pedagogy Attentional Justice