Clio Stearns is Assistant Professor of Education at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, USA, and author of Consent in the Childhood Classroom: Centering Student Voices Across Early Years and Elementary Education.

• Introduction 1. Can you be close to someone and still be yourself? 2. Can you be close to someone who has power over you? 3. Can you be close to someone and be very different from them? 4. Can you be close to someone who is just the one you’re with? 5. Can you be close to someone and want them to change? 6. Can you be close to someone who doesn’t want to be close to you? 7. Can you be close to someone when it feels like the world is ending?

“Closeness in Student-Teacher Relationships is a unique exploration of the connection between children and their teachers. Dr. Stearns poses questions that challenge the reader to use philosophical, sociological, and psychological thinking to make sense of the small world of the elementary school classroom. Through case studies, the reader enters two classrooms in search of possible answers to the human equation of classroom life.”- Lesley Koplow, Founding Director of the Center for Emotionally Responsive Practice at Bank Street College, USA“Closeness in Student-Teacher Relationships leads educators through a series of questions aimed at troubling the seemingly straightforward idea that many of hold as an unassailable truth: that ‘good’ relationships are the heart of effective and transformative classroom practice for students and teachers alike. Stearns challenges us to think critically about what makes a relationship ‘good’ and to explore the boundaries of closeness and intimacy that emerge when we consider issues of power, agency, and choice in our instructional practice.”- Sara A. Clarke-deReza, Associate Professor and Chair of Education and Co-Director of the Cromwell Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington College