This article summarizes issues in defining character education (CE) that are relevant to program development and evaluation. No authoritative definition exists for CE, but several features seem prominent. These include a focus on enhancing civic, moral, self-regulatory, and/or intellectual virtues; and (at least implicitly) prioritizing the…

We describe the development and implementation of an online graduate bioethics program that weaves a theme of health justice throughout the curriculum. Our account relies on a constructionist model of curriculum development and adult teaching and learning theory. Our curriculum draws upon core values of Jesuit higher education, including content…

At the foundation of most inequalities in expression of sexuality lie social constructions of gender. In this paper, sex education is considered as a possibility to challenge sexism and promote healthy and self-affirmative sex lives. In the past decade, the discourse of sex education in India has become a "battle of morality" where…

Finds that eighth grade students in Facing History and Ourselves classrooms show increases in relationship maturity and decreases in racist attitudes and self-reported fighting behavior relative to comparison students. Reports that the gains made by Facing History students in moral reasoning and in civic attitudes and participation were not…

This study explores the Polish experience in values education. Between the years 1944 and 1989 Polish education was often state controlled with the sole purpose of subjugating education to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Over the years the communist party's dictates varied in intensity. Despite the party's efforts to prescribe ethics, certain values…

Finds that most current public school sex education programs and all values clarification programs are based on moral relativism and are intellectually indefensible because they are (1) methodologically defective, (2) present tautologies instead of values, (3) depend on circular reasoning, and (4) undemocratic. (NKA)

The document provides very thorough guidelines for planning, implementing, and evaluating "character education," (or moral/values education, or citizenship education) in elementary and secondary schools. Character education promotes students' positive and realistic self-image, respect for others, and decision-making skills for participation in…