The Aristotelian concept of habituation is receiving mounting and warranted interest in educational circles, but has also been subject to different lines of interpretation and critique. In this article, I bring forward Aristotle's words on habituation, and then clarify the two lines of interpretation that have developed in the contemporary philosophical literature. I argue that the mechanical interpretation contains an intellectualist bias and then argue a cognitivist view that positions habituation as the only method appropriate to cultivating the starting points of the ethical life. I contend, contrary to the popular view, that the starting points are non-discursive and not subject to explanation, and thus require the non-discursive method of habituation. I conclude with some thoughts for moral education that answer critiques of habituation concerning the role of reasoning and critical independence of students.

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As societies face unprecedented challenges that are global in scope and “more-than-wicked” in nature, educators and educational policy makers emphasize the importance of deepening knowledge about the causes of these problems, creating policies to address them more efficiently, and offering more compelling moral arguments that might persuade people to change their convictions, and ‐ as a consequence ‐ their behaviour. These concerns shape how policies on the study of interculturality are approached in contemporary teacher education in our contexts in Canada and the UK. Our research, however, positions these as problems that cannot be solved with improved information, enhanced cross-cultural skills, or moral claims, because they are rooted in modernity’s systems, which structure the possibilities for co-existence on the planet. We see these problems as ontological challenges of being that emerge from a modernist ontology rooted in colonial violences. Our approach therefore explores an orientation to intercultural education which enables student teachers to expand their understanding of cultural and ecological relationships beyond existing frameworks of modernist knowledge, politics, and economic systems. In this paper, we share some of our current learning about the affordances and limitations of dominant approaches to intercultural education, and then explore how the method of “social cartography” can enable engagement with ontological problems in teacher education in a way that generates possibilities for imagining decolonial learning futures, beyond modernity.

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In this article, we share our engagement with Indigenous methodologies in a research study focused on teacher candidates in inner-city education. The study is conceptualized through ethical relationality as developed by Dwayne Donald (Papaschase Cree), and the principles of Indigenous Storywork as developed by Jo-ann Archibald (Stó:lō and St’at’imc). The study was enriched through encouraging a wholistic embodiment of ethics, revealing the presences of land and more-than-human teachers, and providing opportunities to transcend dualisms. We conclude with a consideration of the complexities, possibilities, and limitations of ourselves as Euro-descendant researchers, and the ethical requirements of Indigenous mentorship, time, and responsibility.