Character education is of growing importance in educational discourse. The Knightly Virtues programme draws on selected classic stories to teach eight moral virtues to nine- to 11-year-olds; it has proved to be hugely popular with UK schools. A finding of the trial was the different levels of "virtue literacy" in faith and non-faith…

The educative project MelArete proposes an interpretation of ethical education: a form of Education to Virtue Ethics in the light of the philosophy of care. Starting from the ontological assumption that care is prime in life and without it the human being cannot flourish in his/her humanity, the project is based on an interpretation of the…

Traditional approaches to character education have been viewed by many educators as an attempt to establish self control within students to habituate them to prescribed behaviour and as nothing more than a "bits-and-pieces" approach to moral education. While this is accurate for many character education programmes, integrated…

Though American life in 1923 was significantly different than the present day, authors John Dewey and Diana Brannon share similar concerns about character. Historically, educators as far back as the 1800s have felt an obligation to the community to transcend the primary purpose for schooling by including character education in their curricula.…

This paper challenges a pervasive curricular justification for educationally acquainting young people with stories of genocide and other moral horrors from history. According to this justification, doing so favours the development of psycho-social soft skills connected with interpersonal awareness and the establishment and maintenance of positive…

The superintendent of the Hudson Public Schools in Massachusetts describes educators' challenges to educate disaffected and disaffiliated youth. Recent research shows that prosocial behavior is stimulated by unity of one's sense of self and one's morality, sense of connectedness to others, and sense of meaning arising from contributing to…

The Harvard "Program in Ethics and the Professions" focuses less on abstract moral reasoning than on practical problems, the concrete decisions and dilemmas of the real world. Another key question that has been discussed is whether or not it is possible to teach moral reasoning without teaching moral values. (MLW)

Character education's goal is to help young people know, care about, and act on core ethical values such as fairness, honesty, kindness, respect for others, and responsibility. In this interview, a high school principal in Memphis, Tennessee, explains how staff implemented a separate character-education course. (MLH)

This report examines the topic of moral education and describes the current trend toward increased adoption of moral education programs for public schools. The author identifies four different approaches to moral education, focusing mainly on the cognitive-developmental approach or Kohlberg model and the affective-relativist or values…

The design of the law school curriculum at the University of Notre Dame, in which every professor in every course is expected to discuss ethics along with substantive, theoretical, and procedural law, is described. (MSE)

Most institutions teach ethics in some academic disciplines, but such efforts are usually experiential and are typically designed to reach student leaders and judicial offenders. This packet summarizes six model ethics programs which were identified as being comprehensive--they reached all or most of their students. The sample programs here were…

In an effort to promote consistency in moral education practices in Indian schools, the All Indian Association of Catholic Schools (AINACS) is conducting seminars to collect and classify the principle values of the world's major religions and to develop these concepts into learning activities for the appropriate grade levels. (SJL)

An overview is presented of the "Skills for Ethical Action" (SEA) instructional materials relative to other instructional approaches in the field of moral/values/ethical education, and information about anticipated learner outcomes is offered. The program is intended for junior high school students. Several major existing theoretical…

Provides a point/counterpoint investigation into appropriateness of character education as a function of public schools. Lickona describes the implementation and success of various character education curricula across the country, while Skillen suggests that public schools may not be sufficiently pluralistic in their approach to support such…