How can an open access database annotating pictures, films, music and texts support adults as existential exemplars? This article explores the opportunities of a Norwegian database called the OE-database. Its target group is all adults who want to become better exemplars for children through encounters with art and conversations in small groups.…

The Norwegian high-school drama series Skam is produced and published by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, a publicly funded institution distinguished by an explicit obligation to the public interest, not only serving their audience as consumers but even as citizens. Generally, the normativity expressed in Skam may be summarized by treating…

In this article, Emil Saetra examines how teachers and students construct and experience aims and goods in classroom discussions of controversial issues. This study is situated within the emerging tradition of empirical ethics, and the research strategy comprised two main steps. First, Saetra used interview data to analyze, via the experiences of…

Respect and tolerance are key values in education. They are also among the aims of education and are brought to the foreground in educational policy. We argue that these values are neither philosophically nor politically given aims for which education is a means. Instead, respect and tolerance are enacted and negotiated through educational…

This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the articles about values education in the Web of Science database. To this end, analyzes were provided of 254 articles deemed suitable for the analysis from the articles collected from the database. Bibliometric analysis was performed for the most used keywords, the most used words in the…

Education for sustainable development as presented by UNESCO involves a value dimension which is both pivotal and problematic. Pivotal, because values concern what matters to beings, problematic because the values brought forward are formulated as universal values, with the risk of suppressing the plurality of context. The first part of the…

In this paper, we explore the possible contributions of empirical moral philosophy to professional ethics in teacher education. We argue that it is both possible and desirable to connect knowledge of how teachers empirically do and understand professional ethics with normative theories of teachers' professional ethics. Our argument is made in…

Presenting results from a Norwegian empirical study of student texts and moral education textbooks, this article contributes to the evaluation and development of contextual approaches to moral education. Theoretical perspectives from Seyla Benhabib and Mark Tappan are discussed in the light of empirical data. In particular, while textbooks focus…

Background: Physical education (PE) is a subject which has a long history of legitimising itself on the grounds of its contribution to pupils' social and moral welfare. It therefore seems probable that PE teacher education (PETE) might embrace recent calls for the need to re-moralise society due to the conditions of the late-modern age and not…

In Norway changes in legislation in recent years have loosened the firm hold of Christian philosophy in the schools and given room for alternative secular philosophy. This article presents background information and an outline of the basic plan for life philosophy as a school subject. (Author/SJL)

Analyzes responses from 65 preservice teachers in 6 Norwegian colleges addressing the question of the teacher as a moral role model. Reports differences in understanding role-modeling implications, with half of the respondents believing teachers should serve as moral leaders. Finds that future teachers are governed by implicit theories reflecting…

Criticizes the notion that secular humanists and religious educators can equitably agree on a common or middle ground. Maintains that the so-called middle ground is often primarily secular ideology with a token acknowledgment of the validity of religious thought. Argues for a more open discussion with both positions receiving equal consideration.…