Educators seek to nurture in the hearts and minds of students a sense of moral thinking, action and behaviour. What these constitute is dependent on one's perspective, or worldview. Moral thinking and action emerge from worldviews or visions of life--religious or secular. In the history of common or public schools educators have linked moral…

The actual effect is a big problem in current school moral education. By analyzing the problems in the theory and practice of the current school moral education, the author points out that the reason is that, for a long time, the meaning of morality has been dissimilated, and moral education is considered as a kind of knowledge input and…

Can schools encourage children to become independent moral decision-makers, maintaining controlled environments suitable to instructing large numbers of children? Two opposing responses are reviewed: one holds that the road to morality is through discipline and obedience, the other through children's experimentation and choice-making.…

This interpretive study proposes a framework with which to explore the ethical significance of classroom-based literacy practices. Overly narrow views of literature as a source of role models or moral precepts take insufficient account of the complexity of text and experience. Through analyses of telling examples from student writing and…

The author argues that American educators rely on standardized tests at too early an age when administered in kindergarten, particularly given the original intent of kindergarten as envisioned by its founder, Friedrich Froebel. The author examines the current use of standardized tests in kindergarten and the Froebel model, including his emphasis…

It is possible to approach, but not to achieve, the goal of perfection. To the three traditional philosophical values of truth, goodness, and beauty it is appropriate to append the important values of wisdom, humanness, and grace. Among the resources available toward the perfection of behavior are ethics, morality, and mores. The first chapter of…

The aim of this paper is to present the didactic possibilities of phenomenology as moral philosophy. It deals with the possible application of phenomenology into education, with the way it makes the concept of reflection change, and how in its very essence, this encourages a moral relationship with the world, thus being fairly suitable for the…

The question of what counts as good education research has received a great deal of attention, but too often it is conceived principally as a methodological question rather than an ethical one. Good education research is a matter not only of sound procedures but also of beneficial aims and results; our ultimate aim as researchers and educators is…

Contemporary approaches to moral education are influenced by the "domain theory" approach to understanding moral development (Turiel, 1983; 1998; Nucci, 2001). Domain theory holds there are distinct conventional, personal and moral domains; each constituting a cognitive "structured-whole" with its own normative source and sphere of influence. One…

In this article, the author describes how the study of past and present prisoner of war (POW) situations can provide an excellent academic opportunity for students to evaluate virtues and values in the short and long run. Using case studies of past and present POW situations, students can categorize and analyze the historical nature of the…

The virtue of generosity--at least generosity in the context of world poverty--is conspicuously absent from most curricula in the field of moral education. This article explores generosity and its educational ramifications. I start by characterizing two types of persons who may seem to be generous but who do not really possess generosity as a…

The project of which this paper is a part consists of three steps. The first step (an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference 2000 paper subtitled "Clearing the Terrain") provided a critical overview of current debates on moral development and education, focusing on the relationship between empirical and theoretical…

Discusses from a skeptical, transcendental-critical viewpoint the question of whether the expectations connected with a German ethics course are well-founded, and which assumptions have been made that have led to the conclusion that ethics can be taught. Argues that it is impossible to give a definitely positive answer. (DSK)

The manner in which individuals hold various nonevidentiary beliefs is critical to making any evaluative claim regarding an individual's autonomy. In this essay, I argue that one may be both justified in holding nonrational beliefs of a nonevidentiary sort while also being capable of leading an autonomous life. I defend the idea that moral…

The Republic of Kyrgyzstan became a free and democratic state after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since that time, Kyrgyzstan has redefined and renegotiated what education in its society should be. Although numerous internal and external initiatives have sought to reshape Kyrgyzstan's curriculum and instructional strategies, these projects…