Abstract
This article is based on the assumption that values education has much to offer to a country that is struggling to overcome a fractured moral landscape. Pursuing a modest agenda, the focus of the article is on values and values education in the context of schooling in South Africa. We suggest that debates about what constitutes values and values education raise important philosophical and pedagogical questions about what values are and which values should be prioritized. We contend that it is unlikely that values education will in any significant way meet the expectations of South Africa’s Constitution and its national school curriculum intentions, if it is not underpinned by conceptual clarification of what values are in relation to the role that values education is expected to fulfil in South Africa’s schools. Intended as a conceptual investigation, the article explores different interpretations, tensions and assumptions that confront the notions of values and values education. We suggest that the insights from such a conceptual clarification could provide an appropriate platform not only for a coherent approach to values education, but also for the more effectual transfer and take up of values in schools. We favour a pragmatist conception based on the notion ‘shared goods’ in terms of which values education in schools can lay the basis for dialogical encounters necessary for addressing our country’s diverse and even divergent values orientations.Keywords: conceptual exploration; critical individuation; moral fracture; pragmatist conception; shared goods; socialization; South African schools; values education; values
Highlights
There is arguably a serious decline in moral standards in many societies in general and among the young in particular Commenting on the reasons for the perceived social moral decline, Weber (1990:89) suggests that... the problem of pluralistic perspectivism on the one hand and postmodernism’s critique of Western reason on the other, undercut the foundation for classical models of education to engender democratic competence and value formation
He explains that value formation for the young occurs within a global context that is constituted by the remnants and fragments of deconstructed value and belief systems, cultures, traditions and political arrangements
This article sought to address what is meant by values and values education in the context of South Africa’s education system
Summary
There is arguably a serious decline in moral standards in many societies in general and among the young in particular (see Hill, 1991; Halstead & Taylor, 1996.) Commenting on the reasons for the perceived social moral decline, Weber (1990:89) suggests that... the problem of pluralistic perspectivism on the one hand and postmodernism’s critique of Western reason on the other, undercut the foundation for classical models of education to engender democratic competence and value formation. Taking a more globalsociological perspective, MacIntyre (1981) suggests that issues of morality and values formation have to be understood in the light of the complex reorientations of communities and their traditions in a global context. He explains that value formation for the young occurs within a global context that is constituted by the remnants and fragments of deconstructed value and belief systems, cultures, traditions and political arrangements. We go on to provide some definitional clarity that we suggest might be able to facilitate debate about values and values education in our country
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