The author describes two 9th grade experiences that began his transformation from a lackadaisical student into a motivated learner. In the first incident, a word of advice from a teacher made him aware that his actions mattered. In the second, his engagement in writing a story for the school newspaper taught him the power of discovering new…

Research Findings: An empirical investigation was conducted to test young Palestinian, Jordanian, Israeli-Palestinian, and Israeli-Jewish children's (N = 433; M = 5.7 years of age) cultural stereotypes and their evaluations of peer intergroup exclusion based upon a number of different factors, including being from a different country and speaking…

As educators, we grapple with a myriad of dilemmas and often have difficulty resolving issues that relate to curriculum and instruction, funding, facilities and supervision, to name a few. Depending on the leader(s), a variety of ethics come in to play when making decisions. The ethic of connectedness refers to community building and welfare as…

Moral intelligence is newer and less studied than the more established cognitive, emotional and social intelligences, but has great potential to improve our understanding of learning and behavior. Moral intelligence refers to the ability to apply ethical principles to personal goals, values and actions. The construct of moral intelligence consists…

This article examines the work of R. S. Peters on moral development and moral education, as represented in his papers collected under that name, pointing out that these writings have been relatively neglected. It approaches these writings through the lens of the "familiar story" that philosophical work on this topic switched during, roughly, the…

The assumption that high level functioning is characterized by a great deal of autonomy is central to some major theories of moral development [Kohlberg (in T. Lickona (ed.) "Moral development and behavior: Theory, research and social issues," 1976); Piaget ("The moral judgment of the child", 1932)] and to the self-determination theory of…

The North Carolina Governor's School offers a six-week residential summer program for four hundred academically talented rising juniors. This article measures the school's impact on these students in four fundamental areas: cognitive maturity, moral reasoning, personal learning style, and projections for the future. The results showed that…

The Social Intuitionist Model (SIM) of moral reasoning proposed by Jon Haidt and colleagues (Haidt, 2001; Haidt & Bjorklund, 2006) is criticized on the grounds that (1) its conclusions concerning moral reasoning are unwarranted by research reporting 'dumbfounded' responses by subjects whose initial judgments are challenged and judgments…

We examine the implications of dual-processing theories of cognition for the moral domain, with particular emphasis upon "System 1" theories: the Social Intuitionist Model (Haidt), moral heuristics (Sunstein), fast-and-frugal moral heuristics (Gigerenzer), schema accessibility (Lapsley & Narvaez) and moral expertise (Narvaez). We argue that these…

The classic question, "Should business schools teach ethics?" is not often asked anymore given the drip, drip, drip of business corruption reported in the news. Even skeptics allow that business ethics education could not hurt and might improve the ethics of business leaders. Furthermore, universities, colleges, and business accrediting…

Adventure-based programs focusing on adolescent girls' development often claim that they cultivate courage in girls; however, very little research has examined whether they accomplish this goal or how they accomplish this goal. An evaluation was conducted on one such program, Passages Northwest, to examine the efficacy of adventure-based…

My study concerns the teacher knowledge of "mehankhim," teachers in Israeli high schools entrusted to promote students' moral, civic, and social growth. It examines two "mehankhim" from a secular Israeli high school who participated in a long-term professional development program in secular Jewish education, centered by…

The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general "decline in moral values". There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like "ubuntu," communalism and the like; and humankind's increasing…

Researchers have been studying the conditions that matter in supporting the successful transition and persistence of students to the collegiate environment for more than three decades (Astin, 1997; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt & Associates, 2005; Upcraft, Gardner & Associates, 1989). As first suggested by Sanford (1962,…

This research investigated levels of moral judgment among public elementary school principals as measured by the Defining Issues Test Version 2 for occupationally relevant and other moral dilemmas. The participants scored lower (38.7) than the predicted average P score (postconventional thinking) for individuals who have attained graduate level…