This paper describes a teacher’s intentions of forming and acting in relationships with students in order to fulfil different purposes of education, with an emphasis on those related to fostering democratic citizens. Education can be described as an intervention into the student’s life motivated by the idea that it will make life better in some way. Teaching is meant to allow for the student to progress rather than regress as a human being, which involves presuppositions about what this better life should be – about moral goodness. It is argued that the quality of human relationships has impact on the fulfillment of purposes of education.

An analysis of two interviews with an intermediate-level teacher points to the central importance of different kinds of relationships in the work of the teacher: between the teacher and students, between students as well as between the students and the rest of the society. The examples provide accounts of a teacher’s concern for certain kinds of, and qualities in, relationships, and of how they motivate her to act intentionally in order to make such arise and improve. A structure is used to show to what purposes the actions are intended and how they connect.