The Re-Emergence of Character Education in British Education Policy

Abstract

Character education is a specific approach to morals or values education, which is consistently linked with citizenship education. But how is it possible for a heterogeneous society that disagrees about basic values to reach a consensus on what constitutes character education? This article explores how character education has returned to the agenda of British education policy, having been largely neglected since the 1960s in response to unsatisfactory attempts at character education going back to the nineteenth century. Between 1979 and 1997 Conservative governments attempted to reverse a perceived decline in moral standards, established State control of the schools curriculum, imposed on State schools the duty to provide for moral and other development, and established a National Forum which attempted to articulate a set of consensus values in education. Labour has extended these developments in the curriculum, introduced compulsory citizenship education, and its White Paper of September 2001 speaks of 'education with character'.The character and virtues Labour seeks to promote through schools are pragmatic and instrumental in intention, linked to raising pupil school performance, meeting the needs of the new economy, and promoting democratic participation. Otherwise the vision is pluralistic and evades explicit directives, and there is no explanation or analysis of its theoretical basis.The question of how agreement can be reached on what counts as character education may benefit from Sunstein's analysis of how law is possible in a heterogeneous society -'incompletely theorized agreements on particular cases' allow for common laws without agreement on fundamental principles. Many schools in fact operate in this way, but such a consensus is not entirely stable and runs the danger of teaching character education as a series of behaviour outcomes taught in a behaviourist fashion.

From emotional and psychological well-being to character education: challenging policy discourses of behavioural science and ‘vulnerability’

“…This accommodates the language of virtues and values whilst avoiding the disputes about them that have always undermined previous political attempts to develop character in schools (e.g. Arthur 2005). This, together with enthusiasm for finding novel ways to measure these capabilities, encourages a behavioural training approach.…”

Character education, new media, and political spectacle

“…Character education is not new, but it has re-emerged around the world in the past few decades. In that time, many national and state/provincial governments have introduced policies and/or legislation mandating formal character education in public schools including New Zealand, Australia (Jones 2009), England (Arthur 2005), 23 American states (Glanzer and Milson 2006), and the Canadian provinces of Alberta (Alberta Education 2005) and Ontario. The character education movement is promoted and supported by private and not-for-profit organizations as well.…”

Ehrliche Unehrlichkeit

“…199ff.) x Anstands-und Höflichkeitswerte (ebd., S. 203) x bürgerliche Tugenden (ebd., S. 206) x Arbeits-und Berufswerte (ebd., S. 212) x materialistische Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 220) x hedonistische Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 224) x individualistische Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 228) x familienorientierte Wertvorstellungen (ebd., S. 236) x konservative Wertvorstellungen (ebd., S. 224) x ethnisch-nationale Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 246) x religiöse Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 255) x asketische Tugenden und Moralvorstellungen (ebd., S. 263) x idealistisch-nichtmaterialistische Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 267) x ökologische Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 272) x politische Wertorientierungen (ebd., S. 276) x negative Werte und Unwerte (ebd., S. 279) Die Tugend Ehrlichkeit ist einmal unter den prosozialen Werten erwähnt: "Ehrlichkeit: Aufrichtigkeit, Wahrhaftigkeit, Vertrauen, Treue, Zuverlässig-keit, Offenheit, Natürlichkeit" (Hillmann 2003, S. 199 (Davies et al 2005;Arthur 2005). Ziel der character education ist es, demokratische Tugenden zu fördern.…”