Teachers’ Implicit Moral Values in Their Narratives About Teaching Practice

Abstract

This article focuses on the moral values that teachers consider important for their teaching practice. First, we investigated the tensions experienced and questions raised by teacher’s experience of the moral matters that arise in their profession. These moral tensions and questions arise in three different areas of interactions with pupil(s): (1) pupils’ attitude, (2) class climate and (3) teachers’ professional role.Second, we investigated the moral values that inform the narratives teachers construct to give meaning to their experiences. We conducted a qualitative content analysis that used three moral orientations—discipline, autonomy, and social commitment—as a theoretical framework. The moral values in the area of pupils’ attitude concerned autonomy, discipline and social commitment. In the area of class climate, the moral values of discipline and social commitment were explicit in teachers’ narratives. In investigating teachers’ professional role, disciplinary moral values and a broad spectrum of the moral value of social commitment were found. Our findings also show that moral values are actualized in teaching practice in multiple ways.