In a 2014 paper in "Theory and Research in Education," Howard Curzer and colleagues critique the Defining Issues Test of moral judgment development according to eight criteria that are described as difficulties any measure of educational outcomes must address. This article highlights how Curzer et al. do not consult existing empirical…

McGrath presents a prototyping proposal to better classify character education programs. He proposes 7 key elements that can facilitate identifying more and less typical programs. This proposal appears to be a very good start for improving the organization of the character education field and facilitating research. This commentary highlights 4…

In this article I examine whether Moral Foundations Theory can fulfil the promises that Haidt claims for the theory: that it will help in developing new approaches to moral education and to the moral conflicts that divide our diverse society. I argue that, first, the model that Haidt suggests for understanding the plurality of moralities--a shared…

The "New England Journal of Higher Education" ("NEJHE") Executive Editor John O. Harney had the chance to catch up with Lasell College President Michael Alexander about the small Newton, Massachusetts, college's plans to challenge the higher education business model. The interview is presented in this article.

This article represents comments on the original article, "Nonrational processes in ethical decision making" by M. D. Rogerson et al (EJ945176). The current authors suggest that Rogerson, Gottlieb, Handelsman, Knapp, and Younggren (October 2011) presumed that the only ethical theories available for grounding decision-making models are of the…

When the editors of this journal asked the author to provide his evaluation of the concept of "paradigms" and provide a commentary on Joseph Maxwell's article on the subject, he responded positively because he believes that too often important ideas are not clarified, discussed, and debated in the literature. In this article, he first defines some…

When we say that good parenting is an ethical and not a technical matter, what is the nature of the warrant we can give for identifying one way of parenting as good and another as bad? There is, of course, a general issue here about the giving of reasons in ethics. The issue may seem to arise with peculiar force in parenting since parenting casts…

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is…

With the growth of a global economy, there is the need for a type of educational system that promotes civic engagement as a means of building new models toward a democratic society. In this article, the author discusses civic engagement as a tool for building democracy. As educators seek to develop models of civic engagement in teacher education,…

This article presents an interview with Allan Wigfield, professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and distinguished scholar-teacher at the University of Maryland. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on children's motivation and other topics. He is a fellow of Division 15 (Educational…

This article addresses the dilemmas emerging from efforts to integrate human rights values within a peace education programme being carried out in a conflict situation. Although the article is largely theoretical, it is grounded in the author's reflections on a series of teacher workshops and his overall experiences conducting ethnographic…

This paper takes as its starting point the Journal of Moral Education Special Issue (September, 2008, 37[3]) "Towards an integrated model of moral reasoning". Although explicitly post-Kohlbergian, the authors in this Special Issue do not, I argue, depart far enough from Kohlberg's impoverished notion of the role of the affective in moral life--or…

In this article, the author offers the theme of intergenerational tension as an approach to bring students from varied cultural backgrounds together into a shared conversation, one that resonates with their personal experiences and that potentially can lead them to more critical reflection on such issues as race, national identity, and social…

The authors articulate the need for a "Counseling Psychology Model Training Values Statement Addressing Diversity" (henceforth "Values Statement"). They discuss the historic unwillingness of the field to address values in a sophisticated or complex way and highlight the increasingly common training scenario in which trainees state that certain…

Complexity theory challenges educational philosophy to reconsider accepted paradigms of teaching, learning and educational research. However, though attractive, not least because of its critique of positivism, its affinity to Dewey and Habermas, and its arguments for openness, diversity, relationships, agency and creativity, the theory is not…