This book explores the scope for discomforting pedagogies within practice and professional education contexts in order to consider the ethical challenges associated with exploring complex and sensitive areas of practice and everyday life.

Questions explored include:
· How is discomfort handled within professional training?
· What spaces remain for critical reflection, dialogue and compassionate challenge within practice and professional education spaces?
· What are the ethical implications of critical pedagogic practice in University-based professional education and other training settings?
· How does compassion and care intersect with developing critical pedagogical approaches on thorny and sensitive issues?
· How do identities and investments play out in education and training spaces, and to what effect?
· What are the limits of 'safe' space within professional education contexts?

Bringing together scholars, practitioners and students who draw on themes of social justice in their pedagogical practice, the contributors unpack the debates around how to reflect on, challenge and explore critical and sensitive issues in social justice education in professional contexts. Consideration is given to how decisions in relation to notions of safety and discomfort should be made, and who is empowered to make these decisions.

Fiona Cullen is a Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at St Mary's University Twickenham, UK.

Mike Seal is the National Officer of the Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work and Director of the Centre for Research into the Education of Marginalised Children and Young Adults at St Mary's University Twickenham, UK.

Michael Whelan is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Early Childhood at the University of the West of England, UK.