Theoretical Approaches to Moral/Citizenship Education.

N

21

Citizenship; Citizenship Education; Comparative Analysis; Democratic Values; Educational Needs; Educational Objectives; Educational Philosophy; Educational Strategies; Educational Trends; Ethical Instruction; Evaluation; Moral Development; Moral Issues; Moral Values; Research Needs; Theories; Values

Four theoretical approaches to moral/citizenship education are described and compared. Positive and negative aspects of the cognitive-decision, developmental, prosocial, and values approaches are discussed and ways of relating the four approaches to each other are suggested. The first approach, cognitive-decision, is distinctive for its examination of the concept of practical reason. It includes claims about morality and offers a specific moral/civil theory based upon liberty, dignity, equality, and fairness. It maintains that the objective of moral/citizenship education is to instruct students in the nature of making moral and civic decisions. The second approach, developmental, favors a moral theory which maintains that there exists a set of sequential and irreversible moral stages through which human beings go and that students must be guided to higher stages until they reach rational autonomy. The third approach, the prosocial, stresses research on specific kinds of altruistic behavior and alteration of student behavior in a prosocial direction. The fourth approach, values, focuses upon helping students become aware of and act upon their values, although there is significant disagreement among proponents of this approach whether or not any set of values might be good or bad in a moral sense. References are included in the document. (Author/DB)

1977

ED137160