Politics of Character Education

Abstract

Character education’s history in the United States goes back to the beginning of public schools. The emphasis and profile has waxed and waned, frequently with political trends. The current standards-based environment poses particular threats and challenges to character education. In spite of these pressures, character education continues and—by most measures—is growing. This article (a) defines character and examines the history of character education in U.S. public schools; (b) introduces and contrasts the major approaches: traditional character education, caring, and developmental; and (c) outlines and examines current issues including the relationship of character to citizenship education, the family and school roles in character development, the relationship of church and state, federal and state polices and funding of character education programs, and issues of evaluation and research. Although advocating for character education, the approach here to the issues is descriptive and as impartial as possible.

The “MelArete” Project: Educating children to the Ethics of Virtue and of Care

“…Berkowitz (2011) defines character education as the intentional development, in educational contexts, of youth's citizenship agency, characterized by responsibility, pro-social behaviors and respect. Howard et al (2004) affirm that there are three main approaches to character education: "the cognitive-developmental approach (often called moral education) which gives primacy to 'knowing the good', the caring approach which emphasizes 'desiring the good', and the traditional character education, which sees 'doing the good' as fundamental" (p. 190). These approaches are frequently mixed in the classroom practice and applied with other educational programs: service learning programs engaging students in active experiences to promote values (Stott &.…”

A Survey of Values Education and its Connection with Character Education

“…Lickona agrees with Doyle on the subject of values in action while Howard et al echo Vedder and Veugelers when they list various terms that are found in literature. (e.g., Adler, 1982;Gray, 1989;Strong, 1996) Source: Howard et al (2004) Politics of Character Education, pages 197 & 198 According to Howard et al (2004), character education may refer to one of three approaches: caring, traditional character, and developmental. The first and third approaches use the term moral education and the authors use the second one in reference to the narrow approach.…”

“…Character has three interrelated parts: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral behavior." Howard et al (2004) state that societies, families, and educators are interested in encouraging the improvement of character in children and over the years, this search has received various names such as values education, moral education, and character education. These authors provided a table that presents a taxonomy of programs considered to be character education (2004) and Table 1 shows six out of ten types of character education.…”

“…Character is defined by Lickona (1989 quoted in Howard et al 2004): "Character consists of values in action. Character has three interrelated parts: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral behavior."…”

Perceptions of Character Education in a Seventh-Day Adventist School

“…Cultural values, on the other hand, encourage catalyst of educational improvement. Leadership and professors of teacher education have documented the range of programs taught in the curriculum as character education (Farrelly, 1998;Howard, Berkowitz, & Schaeffer, 2004;Rusnak, 1998;Ryan, 1997;Switala, 1998). Ryan (1997) defines "leadership" as "deans of schools of education and chairpersons of teacher education departments" (p.3).…”