Role Models

Abstract

Determining which people we should look to for personal guidance and what role they should play in shaping our lives is a perennial issue of moral and philosophical inquiry. Although our particular answers to these questions change in different historical, sociopolitical and educational contexts, each generation, and indeed each individual, faces them in some form or other. There is certainly no shortage of potential role models in contemporary societies, but how do we decide which role models, if any, are worth emulating? The authors of this issue of on_education engage with these and related issues and questions concerning role models and their often ambivalent educational role and functions in educational contexts. They come from various areas of educational theory and research, and thus the issue as a whole provides an overview on some of the most important current controversies on role modelling and exemplarism in education.