Social action and character education

Written By: Author(s): Robin Bevan
1 min read
Social action and character education
What’s the idea? Pupils in school need opportunities to engage in social action aligned to the school’s values. Core educational purpose often focuses on the school-leaver as the end product. An alternate approach might instead involve imagining students a decade after they leave school. What might they be doing in their late twenties? How would we want them to be living their lives? This approach is aligned with an honourable tradition of liberal education, that ‘Nothing is worthy to be the aim of education, unless it is also worthy to be the aim of a man’s [sic] life for here and hereafter…’ (Grubb, 1903). In contrast, many contemporary sources of impetus for school leaders can be quite peripheral to such goals. What does it mean? Elliott (1994) argues that there is often a conflict between a school’s actual values, those it professes, those it manifests and those it markets. In this context, curriculum design takes on a completely new meaning: pupils may i

Join us or sign in now to view the rest of this page

You're viewing this site as a guest, which only allows you to view a limited amount of content.

To view this page and get access to all our resources, join the Chartered College of Teaching (it's free for trainee teachers and half price for ECTs) or log in if you're already a member.

References
  • Brady L (2011) Teacher values and relationship: Factors in values education. Australian Journal of Teacher Education 36(2): 56–66.
  • Elliott, J. (1994) Clarifying Values in Schools. Cambridge Journal of Education 24(3): 413-22.
  • Grubb (1903) The Ultimate Aim of Education. British Friend, February 1903.
  • Thornberg R (2008) The lack of professional knowledge in values education. Teaching and Teacher Education 24(7): 1791–1798.
0 0 votes
Please Rate this content
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Other content you may be interested in