UC Merced

My call for submissions for this special issue began with the unjoyful: an acknowledgement of global environmental collapse, political polarization, social breakdown, the threat of artificial intelligence eclipsing human thought…students who seem lonelier, more disengaged, dysregulated, and depressed than ever. I proceeded to pose the question: How can educators respond to this moment? I noted one reaction might be to throw our collective hands up in despair and retreat into cynical silence: “there’s nothing we can do; we tried, and we’re tired.” However, I asserted there is another way: joy-centred pedagogy. In his essay collection Inciting Joy, Ross Gay (2022) observed “joy is not separate from pain,” before he queried: “What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us when we help each other carry heartbreak?” Inspired by this wisdom, the concept of joy-centred pedagogy emerged during the development of a book I edited, Joy-Centered Pedagogy in Higher Education: Uplifting Teaching and Learning for All (Routledge, 2025). That publication articulated a necessary ‘next step’ beyond culturally-responsive and trauma-informed teaching to show ways learning spaces can allow students (and teachers) to feel seen and valued, as well as process trauma, by leveraging the healing and pro-social effects of joy. Therefore, when I was invited to edit this special issue, I asked educators to share the ways they are activating joy in their classrooms and other sites of learning to help students develop agency and purpose. Thus, this special issue richly continues an ongoing conversation.