Teachers' beliefs about teaching character values are pivotal in cultivating students' character. This study systematically reviewed teachers' beliefs towards character education in primary school. A systematic review following the PRISMA statement was applied to peer-reviewed papers published between 2011 and 2021. This review paper analyzed…

In Sweden, ethics education occupies a prominent position in the curriculum, both in the general, introductory sections and as a part of the subject religious education. The aim of this article is to investigate teachers' insights regarding ethics education and to contribute knowledge about opportunities and challenges with ethics education, by…

Teachers in the non-confessional Swedish subject religious education have conflicting responsibilities to convey values and facilitate critical thinking. The research regarding these responsibilities has often been considered a theoretical problem and the discussion has concerned theoretical solutions. However, the problem is not only theoretical.…

In recent research on moral psychology, the human consciousness has been compared to a tongue, with different taste buds, which together can cause a variety of sensations. According to this theory, people in general have a preparedness to react to situations, which can provide opportunities or pose threats in a social context. Moral psychologist,…

This paper aims to show how Emerson provides a reworking of Kantian understandings of moral education in young children's "Bildung." The article begins and ends by thinking of Emersonian self-cultivation as a form of improvisatory or wild "Bildung." It explores the role of "Bildung" and self-cultivation in preschools…

Bullying is a moral transgression. Recognizing the importance of approaching bullying from a moral perspective, the present study examines whether children's judgments and reasoning to justify their judgments differ between bullying and repeated conventional transgressions. Our study also explores differences by gender and differences among…

The "aim" of this article is to present varieties of ethical competence that are highlighted in ethics and moral education research articles, and to discuss them in the light of competences stressed in the Swedish curriculum, understood as an example of ethics education in compulsory school. The material consists of 1,940 educational…

The purpose of this study is to describe, critically analyse and discuss the Swedish system of assessing ethics education in compulsory school through national tests. The publicly available tests from 2013 for grades six and nine have been studied as have the assessment instructions for teachers. Staff responsible for the test construction have…

This article aims to analyze how science is discursively attached to certain parts of the world and certain "kinds of people," i.e., how scientific knowledge is culturally connected to the West and to whiteness. In focus is how the power technology of coloniality organizes scientific content in textbooks as well as how science students…

This paper uses a specific phenomenon of early-modern education in Sweden, the school jail, as a point of departure for a broader analysis of educational policy in the areas of discipline and moral instruction. The paper demonstrates how the jail evolved as a part of a wider network of objects, pedagogical technologies and social routines in this…

The overall aim of this article is to develop in-depth knowledge about the connection between outdoor experiences and moral attitudes towards nature. The study focuses on processes in which moral relations are at stake in encounters between students and nature. The purpose is to identify such events, describe their specific circumstances and…

The concept of "Bildung", sometimes translated as self-cultivation, is located at the core of an influential tradition of educational thought. A key question concerns the relationship between "Bildung" and interculturality. Drawing on Wilhelm von Humboldt and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and on the so-called transformative learning…

In this article I will investigate a perceived tension in Swedish early childhood education (ECE) policy between reevaluating certain foundational claims on the one hand and following universal moral commands on the other. I ask the question; how is it that certain commonly held assumptions are being debunked and others left undisturbed in this…

This article presents some unexpected findings from a study of the upper secondary school voucher system in Sweden. This publicly funded but relatively unregulated quasi-market offers a large number of alternatives to teenagers choosing an education. The choice situation is relatively complex and the stakes are high, but the youths themselves find…

The present article presents results obtained from a survey focusing on attitudes to solidarity among upper secondary school students. A relation between positive attitudes to solidarity and future-orientation was evident. The survey results were reinforced by a second study, exploring how students in the Swedish upper secondary school perceived…