Ethical education should help students become more sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of others. However, the field is dominated by the teaching of moral values as a subject-matter, or by the fostering of character traits in students, or by moral reasoning. This book proposes an alternative to these limited moralistic approaches. It…

Ethical impotence occurs when one wants to act ethically but feels powerless to do anything about the perceived unethical behavior. One may feel that one's actions will have no impact or that those actions actually will have harmful consequences to oneself and/or others. Ethical impotence can be understood in terms of an eight-step model of…

This article reasserts the centrality of reasoning as the focus for moral education. Attention to moral cognition must be extended to incorporate sociogenetic processes in moral growth. Moral education is not simply growth within the moral domain, but addresses capacities of students to engage in cross-domain coordination. Development beyond…

The application of social-emotional and character development (SECD) in classrooms is about teaching, practicing, and modeling essential personal and civic life habits and skills that are almost universally understood as making people good human beings. Among these habits are respect, responsibility, integrity, caring, fairness, and constructive…

Japan's elementary and junior high schools have a formal, nationally mandated moral curriculum called Kokoro-no-kyoiku--education of the heart. Japanese educators include moral growth as an integral part of one's intellectual growth and believe that democratic societies must promote virtuous decision making. Moral education in Japan nurtures the…

This paper questions the perceived divide between "science" subject matter and "moral" or "ethical" subject matter. A difficulty that this assumed divide produces is that science teachers often feel that there needs to be "special treatment" given to certain issues which are of an ethical or moral nature and which are "brought into" the science…

One of the main reasons of the fact that Chinese moral education could hardly get out of its predicament is that "self-regard" has been simply and unilaterally interpreted as the absolute opposite to morality, where "self-regard" is merely regarded as the source of "everything evil", and the fact that it is also the…

Compelling empirical research shows that a positive and sustained school climate promotes students' academic achievement and healthy development. Not surprisingly, a positive school climate also promotes teacher retention, which itself enhances student success. Yet the knowledge of the effects of school climate on learning has not been translated…

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…

Over the years there have been different terms for the idea of educating for character. Some of these are moral education, moral reasoning, values clarification, and ethics. But the basic idea of using schools to produce people of good character has been around for many generations. This volume explores the importance of including character…

Addresses the problems of how moral character is developed and what moral character consists of. Emphasizes the development of democratic, ethical dispositions and focuses on two features of an educational environment that are especially important: respect for students as persons and the democratic organization of the groups in which the young…

Many people are anxious about values, morality, and religion in the schools. Business, political, religious, and educational leaders are concerned; confusion is widespread. This document aims at assisting interested parties to understand better the source of some of the difficulties faced by parents, school board members, teachers, legislators,…

Discusses the religious political right's views and their implications for education. Describes the cognitive and moral development of children, and the context best suited for ethical instruction. (DB)

The University of Victoria program at Matsqui Institution is based on Kohlberg's theory of moral development. The replicability of the program is discussed, and analyzed in terms of relations with the institution, type of courses, program climate, and staffing. The necessity for developing student identity is emphasized. (MSE)

Teachers have a significant role in the moral development of their students. They can legitimately advocate the rightness or wrongness of certain actions, and they should act as role models in this regard. (CJ)