The issue of violent extremism has given rise to new policy debates in Norway. A key limitation of these debates, often grounded in naïve assumptions about the peacebuilding effect of education, is the downplay of emotions and dissent in democratic engagement. This article analyses how selected educators in Norway describe encountering and…

From the beginning of its existence, the child is articulating an unconditional claim to life. Even in the post-mythic era, or rather in the myth-critical world of the modern age, education is confronted with the difficult task of responding to this claim -- but now without the possibility of being able to legitimise its interventions and actions…

This article introduces a developmental perspective on kindness. The central goal is to posit a new framework for the study of kindness and its development. From an ethical perspective, kindness can be considered a virtue. It reflects emotions, cognitions, and inner states that convey a particular gentleness and benevolence. These orientations can…

The development of children's lie-telling abilities is considered to be a social and cognitive milestone. While occasional lying is developmentally appropriate, the use of frequent, antisocial lies as a maladaptive problem-solving mechanism can indicate behaviour problems. Since lying is often considered a moral transgression, researchers should…

This article reports on the differential impact of a curriculum intervention on students' understanding and practice of virtue. The research is germane given Ofsted's new requirement that its inspectors should assess how the curriculum in all schools in England and Wales supports students' character development. Results are reported here for a…

Although prosocial behavior has been regarded as a critical predictor of positive peer relationships and teacher-student relationships, more interventional studies are needed to more confidently determine causality. Dizi Gui instruction, a Confucian classical approach, was used in the current research as a prosocial behavior intervention to test…

Most function-based intervention plans (FBIP) discuss what to teach, but often fail to address effective methods for teaching the skills addressed in the plan. This article discusses the various parts of the FBIP plan that may require teaching and provides potential instructional approaches for teaching the components of the FBIP to students and…

Complementing existing studies on religious tolerance education which have mainly evaluated interventions using pre-post designs, this article argues that discourse analysis can be a viable alternative methodology for generating new knowledge in this field. To illuminate the potentials of discourse analysis, the article also presents a case study…

Video Self-Modelling (VSM) and Video Peer-Modelling (VPM) have proved effective when teaching pro-social behaviours to students with disability, individually and during whole-class instruction. In Victoria, Australia, this has been achieved in specialist schools using a television programme known as meTV. This study examined the application of…

The AIM of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of the integration of character education and positive behavior reinforcement. This integration was the intervention itself, a school-wide program, used within this study. After the intervention was implemented, quantitative student discipline data were examined to determine if there was a…

"What If Learning" is a pedagogical approach that allows teachers to deliver traditional content, as prescribed by national curricula, while at the same time promoting character virtues fundamental to Christian ethos. It encourages teachers to present topics from a different perspective, which shapes understanding through the lenses of…

This study aimed to examine the impact of a universal, school-based intervention, the Good Behavior Game (GBG), on children's behavior, and to explore any subgroup moderator effects among children at varying levels of cumulative risk (CR) exposure. A 2-year cluster-randomized controlled trial was conducted comprising 77 primary schools in England.…

Background: Research illustrates that student motivations influence learning engagement, persistence, and achievement in powerful ways and that positive motivations are linked to deeper learning, critical thinking, pro-social behavior, and better performance. Most studies of learner motivation, however, are conducted outside of STEM and are…

Gratitude has been widely regarded by philosophers, psychologists and educational theorists as a personal and/or pro-social response of some moral significance. Indeed, beyond its more obvious value as a basic form of social association and reciprocation, gratitude has also been conceived as a moral virtue--if not, more grandly, as a "parent…

Although searching for and discovering a purpose in life has been associated with a variety of psychological, physical, and academic benefits, the experience is relatively rare (Bronk, 2013). Only about one fifth of adolescents and one third of young adults report leading a life of purpose (Damon, 2008). Accordingly, we designed and tested 2 brief…