Abstract
Moral education and moral growth are very important topics, and have been so as much in the fields of moral psychology and moral education as in the policies of governments and international institutions over the past decades. These two topics are also central themes within the educational proposal of Philosophy for Children (P4C), as seen in theoretical reflection and in educational research. It is necessary to start from a more global approach to moral growth, focused on the development of capacities. Such abilities are to be understood as virtues or personality traits that enable us to achieve a full life, that is, to become good people. The transformation of classrooms into communities of philosophical inquiry, following the educational guidelines of P4C, can contribute to the achievement of this objective. Here we present the psychological and methodological underpinnings of an educational research project that we are applying to a small sample that includes two groups—experimental and control—in a typical classroom environment. We are administering tests at the beginning and the end of the application of a moral education model according to the basic principles of Philosophy for Children. The objective is to verify that our research design could be used to evaluate the contribution of this educational model to the students’ moral growth, understood as the consolidation of the students’ moral habits and competences.
Highlights
Moral education and moral growth are very important topics, and have been so as much in the fields of moral psychology and moral education as in the policies of governments and international institutions over the past decades
Achieving an appropriate ethical education involves focusing on the moral growth of students, a broad field of study that has been the topic of numerous theoretical discussions
We focus on defining character as an objective of moral education and on efforts to assess its impact
Summary
There is currently widespread concern and interest in ethical education, especially within the teaching profession. We understand that compulsory formal education is an institution that transmits moral education to students, mainly through what is often called the hidden curriculum [3,4,5]. Some sectors were especially concerned about the degradation of morals in their societies, and were looking for students to internalize values and behavioral habits. Those positions were part of the character education movement, which had a clearly conservative bias [9]. Other sectors felt the same need, but did not share the same diagnosis Rather, such groups considered it important to improve moral education in order to move towards democratic societies through critical and progressive pedagogy. There seems to be a consensus—at least in the grand pronouncements—about the need to pay more attention to moral education, as well as to the moral competences (cognitive and affective) and contents (democratic values and human rights) that should be nurtured by teachers and schools
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