Moral Education in Maltese Kindergarten State Schools: A Focus Group

Abstract

Malta has become a diverse country and educators are facing challenges in adapting their pedagogies to their current students. Given that parents were opting their children out of Catholic religion lessons, the ethics curriculum was introduced in the primary and secondary classroom. However, no direction was given regarding moral education in the kindergarten classroom with children aged 3-5. This study seeks to explore how kindergarten educators are transmitting morality in their classroom and what impacts these transmission practices. This descriptive research used cluster sampling. Seven kindergarten educators whose ages range between 30-60 participated in two two-hour focus groups representing the diverse demographic and needs of the students in the colleges of Malta and Gozo. Given the flexibility and organisational approach, thematic analysis was used to code the focus groups. The major findings are that teachers beliefs followed by school climate are salient factors in the impact on moral educational strategies. Moral education was mostly imparted through the teaching of societys moral norms and different forms of inclusion. This study suggests that future research investigates the impacts of teachers beliefs on the childrens identity and studying how childrens religious identity impacts their prosocial behaviours and relationships in the classroom. This study sheds light on policies for training programmes and moral education in the kindergarten state schools.