Varieties of Conceptions of Ethical Competence and the Search for Strategies for Assessment in Ethics Education: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Various conceptions of ethical competence are highlighted in this chapter with the aim of presenting a more or less comprehensive analysis of fundamental importance for developing the national tests in RE in Sweden. The chapter starts with an introduction where the Swedish curricula of 2011 are presented. The structure and the content of the syllabus for RE in compulsory school are analysed with reference to an interpretation of the concept of ethical competence that identifies six competences that may contribute to the meaning of the concept in question. The results of this analysis are used as a basis for a critical interpretation of how “ethical competence”, mostly in an implicit way, is understood in the national tests. This interpretation is developed with regard to some perspectives within the virtue and capability approach presented by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The chapter ends with some suggestions for developing the items on the national tests regarding ethics, in order to take into account a more complex interpretation of ethical competence and to make this interpretation transparent to pupils and teachers.