Excellent schools strive to develop a comprehensive and integrative improvement process for students and their families that integrate best practices of positive school culture, climate, and social and emotional learning; character development skills, enhanced academic achievement strategies, and positive parent engagement. Character.org's…

The present study starts describing the relevance of university mission statements and how they have been interacting with the social demands throughout the history of higher education. This way, the recent development of a knowledge economy has strongly impacted universities that look for ways to produce and commercialize ideas (second and third…

Although universities often teach ethics courses, they do not always teach students how to apply ethical course content to ethical dilemmas they encounter on a day-to-day basis. The Awareness-Investigation-Responding (AIR) model of ethical inquiry bridges this gap by scaffolding the reflective process and empowering students to make more caring,…

Character education is a growing discipline with the deliberate attempt to optimize students' ethical behavior. The outcome of character education has always been encouraging, solidly, and continually preparing the leaders of tomorrow. The promotion of character education should not just a leap service but has an action plan for practice. In order…

This article describes the Ethics and Citizenship Program, a moral education project developed by the Brazilian government to promote education in ethics and citizenship in Brazilian fundamental and middle schools through four key themes: ethics, democratic coexistence, human rights and social inclusion. Some findings from a research project that…

This article demonstrates that while the more obvious and visible forms of citizenship education (such as introducing it as a new subject on the timetable and a public examination option) are being endorsed and promoted in official discourse, less visible forms (such as attending to ethics and values across the curriculum or the impact of…

All colleges teach ethics across their undergraduate curricula, yet relatively few institutions do so deliberately. That is, few colleges make explicit attempts to coordinate or integrate the various ethical lessons their students might be learning. This does not mean that most colleges are bad for students' ethical development; research shows…

Describes the Central New York Education Consortium's efforts to develop university-school district partnerships and devise a positive approach to ethical instruction. The group identified essential "schools of character" aspects, such as clean, orderly environment, constant curriculum evaluation criteria, administrator role modeling,…

Stresses the importance of outdoor ethics education and describes educational strategies such as public awareness campaigns, codes of ethics, dilemma discussions, role plays and simulations, "trigger" films, guided ethics observations, recognizing and rewarding ethical behavior, using role models, guiding students in developing personal…

Three Chicago schools have adopted the Junior Great Books Program, allowing students and teachers to mine a wide range of literature on themes of fairness, justice, cleverness, greed, love, friendship, and respect. Program success hinged on engagement, shared leadership, professional development, and a multiyear adoption plan. (MLH)

Character education's goal is to help young people know, care about, and act on core ethical values such as fairness, honesty, kindness, respect for others, and responsibility. In this interview, a high school principal in Memphis, Tennessee, explains how staff implemented a separate character-education course. (MLH)

Development of a comprehensive medical ethics teaching program for four years and residency, and of an ethics consultation service, are described. Potentials and significant difficulties in program establishment and maintenance are discussed, including long-term funding, negative faculty and student attitudes, and instructional approaches.…

In describing the just community approach to moral education developed at Cluster alternative high school, the author focuses on the setting of collective norms and relationships between these norms and Kohlberg's moral development stages. He finds this approach to moral education to be more comprehensive than the moral discussion approach. (SJL)

This book tells the story of a character-education effort implemented in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. It is asserted that school board members, administrators, faculty, classified staff, parents, and students all have key roles in developing a districtwide ethos that supports the core ethical values at every opportunity. The first chapter offers…

The Child Development Project (CDP) was designed to enhance the development of prosocial characteristics in school children in kindergarten through sixth grade. It was developed and evaluated in a school district (San Ramon) in the San Francisco, California area. The features of the program include: (1) an instructional approach that enhances…