Religious Education (RE) is more than a single curriculum subject and research should give more attention to that fact. Drawing on a lifetime's engagement with RE, this article identifies ten topics that deserve urgent pursuit if the interests of children and young people are to be more effectively understood and addressed. They begin with a…

The highest form of virtuous behavior in the Aristotelian virtue ethics approach to character education involves practical wisdom, or "phronesis," which allows an individual to act in the right way about the right things for the right reasons. Here, we use our experiences with social-emotional and character development (SECD) in…

Urie Bronfenbrenner is almost certainly best known for his theoretical writings about the ecology of human development. His interest in theory was not, however, separate from his practical concerns, particularly those related to early education and care of children and the families and teachers who interact with them. From the role that he played…

In the past two decades, psychologists, educators, and economists have shown that social stratification creates social inequalities that have long-term detrimental effects on children's physical, emotional, and academic development. The segregation of social networks, as well as experiences of social inequality in the form of prejudice and bias,…

We write as critical theorists, who consider that in terms of scoping out robust conceptual elaborations which are suitable for contemporary schooling, that physical education has ground to make up connecting theory with practice and practice with theory. We advocate that aspects of existentialism and phenomenology can provide a theoretically…

In this article I propose that curriculum and instruction are inextricably intertwined, curriculum development should be an important function of educational supervision, and supervision should foster a multidimensional curriculum developed by teachers. The proposed curriculum framework includes cognitive, social-emotional, moral, cultural,…

This article contains four parts. It begins with a description of the Child Development Project, a research project aimed at discovering ways to integrate a focus on students' social and moral development in elementary schools. Then we describe the project's mixed results in helping teachers successfully apply its approach to classroom management,…

There is a growing demand for equal support of social-emotional learning across the globe. In the United States, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning has shed significant light on the power of affective development for school-aged children, indicating that, without it, students are limited in their ability to reach their…

The Small Island Developing State of Jamaica, in the Caribbean region, is facing significant environmental, economic, and social challenges. Violence has become a serious challenge for Jamaica and several other countries in the region; the level of violence against and among children is particularly disturbing. Perhaps even more troubling is the…

Virtual environments have the potential to be an important teaching tool for emotionally sensitive issues capable of producing a sense of presence, perspective-taking and introspection in users in a risk-free, rapid feedback experience. In designing such experiences, it is essential that users are regularly engaged in a collaborative design…

"Conflict Narratives in Middle Childhood" presents evidence from twenty years of research, examining nearly 3,000 narratives from 1,600 children in eight settings in two countries about their own experiences with interpersonal conflict. Close readings, combined with systematic analysis of dozens of features of the stories reveal that…

Contemporary culture has wrought profound changes--especially in the lives of children. In today's world, more than ever, schools need to think about what it takes to educate children to be psychologically healthy and of good character, to give them the tools that will enable them to find meaning in their lives both in school and after they…

This chapter looks at John Dewey's consideration of childhood as a platform which to view the significance of childhood in moral life. It argues that the concept of childhood is integral to our thinking in the teaching and learning relationship. When we consider childhood from Dewey's platform, we see that childhood is relevant to…

Sometimes a single word changes everything. In his groundbreaking book "Choice Words", Peter Johnston demonstrated how the things teachers say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for the literate lives of students. Now, in "Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives", Peter shows how the words teachers choose affect the worlds students…

What is, or should be, the role of ethics in giftedness? In this article, I consider why ethical behavior is much harder to come by than one would expect. Ethical behavior requires completion of a series of eight steps to action, the failure of any one of which may result in a person, even one who is ethically well trained, to act in a manner that…