Teaching About Political and Social Values

Abstract

Teaching about values is a vast undertaking and one that needs to be divided into more manageable sections as the editors have in this case. This chapter examines issues related specifically to the teaching of political and social values and while I draw upon some of the literature on values education more generally this is only to support the specific task at hand. Similarly, an examination of the teaching about social and political values necessarily draws upon school subjects as well as other aspects of the curriculum and the school to which the editors have allocated many separate chapters. Therefore the focus will be issues of pedagogy, curriculum and educational policy as applied teaching social and political values in schools. Consequently the role of the teacher is critical in this discussion. Similarly, this chapter focuses upon teaching rather than the substantive nature of values and associated constructs. In this handbook there are separate chapters that concentrate upon areas such as moral & character education, teaching Geography, teaching History, Curriculum and teachers, multicultural classes, ethics and justice, the hidden curriculum, and democratic schooling. All of these also have significant components of teaching values within them.