Character Education

dam4_c07.qxd 12/20/05 9:36 AM Page 248 CHAPTER 7 Character Education DANIEL K. LAPSLEY and DARCIA NARVAEZ HOW IS CHARACTER DEFINED? 250 APPROACHES TO CHARACTER EDUCATION 269 The Problem with Habits 250 The 11 Principles of Effective Character Education 269 The Problem with Traits 251 Caring School Communities 272 The Problem with Virtues 253 Service Learning and Community Service 275 PHILOSOPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 255 Positive Youth Development 276 Bag of Virtues and Foundations 255 Social-Emotional Learning 279 Character and Virtue Ethics 257 A CASE STUDY: INTEGRATIVE EDUCATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS 258 ETHICAL EDUCATION 281 Broad Character Education 258 Character as Expertise Development 282 Direct and Indirect Methods 260 Pedagogy for Cultivating Character Expertise 282 Mimesis and Transformation 261 Self-Regulation for Sustainability 283 Oratorical and Philosophical Traditions 261 An Implementation of IEE: The Community Voices and Historical Lessons 262 Character Education Project 283 NEW APPROACHES TO CHARACTER ISSUES OF IMPLEMENTATION 285 PSYCHOLOGY 264 OPEN QUESTIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 287 Identity, Exemplars, and the Moral Self 264 REFERENCES 289 Models of Personality Psychology 267 Character education is both popular and controversial. best pursued with direct or indirect pedagogies, a debate In this chapter, a psychological approach to understand- that is placed into historical context. We note that char- ing its central constructs is proposed. We review acter education requires robust models of character psy- philosophical conceptions of virtues and conclude that chology and review several new approaches that show character education cannot be distinguished from rival promise. Six general approaches to character education approaches on the basis of a distinctive ethical theory. are then considered. Integrative Ethical Education is de- We review several educational issues, such as the man- scribed as a case study to illustrate theoretical, curricu- ner in which the case is made for character education, lar, and implementation issues. We summarize issues of the implications of broad conceptions of the field, implementation that are challenges to research and prac- whether character education is best defined by treat- tice. We conclude with several challenges to character ments or outcomes, and whether character education is education, chief of which is the need to find a distinctive orientation in the context of positive youth develop- We express our appreciation to the following colleagues, who ment. Problem-free is not fully prepared, but fully read and commented on previous versions of this chapter: prepared is not morally adept. Jack Benninga, Jerrell Cassady, Kathryn Fletcher, Lisa Huff- The moral formation of children is one of the founda- man, Jim Leming, Tom Lickona, Kristie Speirs Neumeister, tional goals of socialization. The ambitions that most Sharon Paulson, Ben Spiecker, Jan Steutel, Larry Walker, and parents have for their children naturally include the de- Marilyn Watson. velopment of important moral dispositions. Most parents 248 dam4_c07.qxd 12/20/05 9:36 AM Page 249 Character Education 249 want to raise children to become persons of a certain to possess virtue, and to live well the life that is good kind, persons who possess traits that are desirable and for one to live. It shows up, too, in the sort of develop- praiseworthy, whose personalities are imbued with a mental literatures, constructs, and metaphors that one strong ethical compass. Moreover, other socialization finds compelling. agents and institutions share this goal. The development There is a certain value, of course,incastinglarge, of moral character is considered a traditional goal of fundamental, and deeply felt perspectives into such formal education. It is a justification for the work of starkrelief. It often is useful to draw sharp boundaries youth organizations, clubs, and athletic teams. It is the around contesting points of view to discern better their object of homily and religious exhortation. It shows up strengthsand weaknesses. Yet Dewey (1938) warned of in presidential speeches. It has preoccupied writers, ed- the folly of construing educational options in terms of ucators, curriculum experts, and cultural scolds. The either/or. In so doing, he argued, one runs the danger number of titles published on character and its role in of advancing one’s view only in reaction against the private and public life has increased dramatically over rival, which means that one’s vision is controlled unwit- past decades. So have curricula for teaching the virtues tingly by that which one struggles against. “There is al- in both schools and homes. Several prominent founda- ways the dangerinanewmovement,”hewrites,“thatin tions have thrown their resources behind the cause, and rejecting the aims and methods of that which it would professional meetings dedicated to character education supplant, it may develop its principles negatively rather are marked by significant commitment, energy, and fer- than positively and constructively” (p. 20), with the re- vor. In 2003 a new periodical, the Journal of Research in sult that it fails thereby to address “a comprehensive, Character Education, was launched to bring focus to constructive survey of actual needs, problems and possi- scholarly inquiry. bilities” (p. 8). Ye t, for all the apparent consensus about the need to In this chapter, we review the literature on character raise children of strong moral character, and for all the education but in a way that avoids, we hope, the dan- professional attention devoted to the cause, it is a strik- gers of either/or. It is necessary, of course, to sketch ing fact that character education occupies contested the contours of the great debates that have character- ground in American society. Indeed, the issues that sur- ized this field. Fortunately, however, there has emerged round character education are riven with such partisan in recent years a literature that has attempted to bridge rivalry that the very terms of reference seem to function the conceptual and ideological divide (e.g., Benninga, like code words that betray certain ideological and 1991a, 1991b; Berkowitz & Oser, 1985; Goodman & political commitments. Whether one is for or against the Lesnick, 2001; Nucci, 1989; Ryan & Lickona, 1992), or character education movement is presumably a signal of at least to face it squarely. Our search is for the via whether one is a liberal or a conservative, whether one media that provides, in Dewey’s words, the “compre- is sympathetic toward traditional or progressive trends hensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems in education, whether one thinks the moral life is more a and possibilities.” matter of cultivating excellence than submitting to obli- We do not approach our task in complete neutrality. gation or whether moral evaluation is more about agents Our own view is that character education would profit than about acts, or whether one prefers the ethics of from advances in other domains of psychological sci- Aristotle and classical philosophy to that of Kant and the ence (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2005). Indeed, character is a “Enlightenment Project.” concept with little theoretical meaning in contemporary This ideological division sometimes surfaces as a psychology, although it has been the source of ethical re- technical argument about pedagogy, for example, flection since antiquity. An approach to character edu- whether one should endorse direct or indirect methods cation that is deeply “psychologized” would look for of instruction. It shows up in how one conceives funda- insights about moral functioning in contemporary litera- mental questions concerning, for example, the source of tures of cognitive and developmental science, in the our moral values or the epistemological status of our literatures of motivation, social cognition, and person- moral claims. It shows up in our understanding of the ality. Researchers in these areas rarely draw out the im- very goals and purposes of education in liberal demo- plications of their work for understanding the moral cratic polities and in our understanding of what an eth- dimensions of personality and its formation. Yet it is our ical life consists of: what it means to be a moral agent, contention that a considered understanding of what is dam4_c07.qxd 12/20/05 9:36 AM Page 250 250 Character Education required for effective character education will be forth- 1997). Character is an individual’s “general approach to coming only when there emerges a robust character psy- the dilemmas and responsibilities of social life, a re- chology that is deeply informed by advances in sponsiveness to the world that is supported by emotional developmental, cognitive, and personality research. reactions to the distress of others, the acquisition of Moreover, effective character education will require prosocial skills, knowledge of social conventions and deep integration with the educational psychology litera- construction of personal values” (Hay, Castle, Stimson, tures that constitute the knowledge base for instruc- & Davies, 1995, p. 24). It includes the capacity for self- tional best practice. In short, character education must discipline and empathy (Etzioni, 1993; 1996). It allows be compatible with our best insights about psychological ethical agents, as Baumrind (1999, p. 3) put it, “to plan functioning; character education must be compatible their actions and implement their plans, to examine and with our best

Load more