ABSTRACT Many believe that higher education contributes to students’ joint cognitive and non-cognitive development. However, relevant empirical evidence of that is scarce. Employing a sample of 348 college students, the present study explored the relationships among a range of outcomes using both a variable- and a person-centered approach. We found that a sense of purpose, strength of principles, and moral agency were positively associated. However, cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes were only weakly correlated. We also found that most students had either high or low scores in all of the measured outcomes, but some had non-uniform profiles. These results suggest that colleges should not assume that cognitive and non-cognitive developments are strongly related. College students likely need differentiated instruction and support, depending on their individual backgrounds, interests, and levels of the target constructs.

ABSTRACT Amidst global uncertainty, character education has become increasingly important. Yet, academic discourse surrounding the field remains obfuscated. This paper has two aims: First, to provide a broad toolkit to demystify the field of character education, consisting of (i) a basic conceptual GPS for terms like ‘virtue’, ‘character’, ‘morals’ and ‘character education’; and (ii) a lay-of-the-land overview of character education approaches. Second, equipped with this toolkit, we analyse Singapore’s Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) syllabi of 2014 and 2021. Situated within a ‘survivalist’ rhetoric and communitarian tradition, CCE is characterised as a pragmatic, nation-centric amalgamation of various approaches, striving towards a society-oriented goal of maintaining social harmony and cohesion. We identify several tensions in the CCE syllabi, such as its integration of character education and citizenship education, philosophical foundations, curricular content and pedagogical approaches. We argue that elements of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics offer theoretical scaffolding to address some of these tensions.

ABSTRACT Although research conducted worldwide has pinpointed the importance of the cultivation of worldviews in citizenship education, little is known of how worldviews are constructed in the civics curriculum. In this study, we adopted a comparative historical approach to examine how China’s civics curriculum has interpreted the meaning of life for young citizens during the transformation of the country from an empire into a nation-state. The data were drawn from 210 school textbooks published between 1902 and 2020. Four historical periods were delineated: the late Qing and Republican era, the Maoist era, the Deng Xiaoping era, and the current Xi Jinping administration. The findings demonstrated the trends and changes that took place while the ideal of citizenship and citizenship education took root, driving the modernisation of Chinese society. Through this study, we contribute to the theoretical discussions on enriching civics curriculum development from a humanist perspective.

ABSTRACT In an age of hyper-globalization, ethical criticism has become vital in tackling the bombardment of information across networked societies. This paper begins by exploring the historical emergence of ethical criticism, its dominant approaches (relational, analytical and historical), and potential for character education. Next, we focus on character education in Singapore. Utilizing a comparative case study analysis, we compared older and recent character education syllabi and applied ethical criticism as an analytical lens. Findings show a discernible shift from moral adaptation to some evidence of ethical criticism where more emphasis is placed on the relational and less on analytical and historical aspects. We then examine the opportunities and tensions for ethical criticism in Singapore’s character education programme. These tensions arise from the simultaneous objectives of empowering citizens to handle the challenges of multicultural engagements alongside the limits placed on critical-ethical thinking when applied to analyzing politics and systemic structures of power.

ABSTRACT Gratitude has recently received increasing scholarly attention as a moral value and virtue important for individual and social functioning and therefore worth cultivating in schools. However, previous research has often been based on experiences in western societies, while moral values and moral cultivation are understood in different ways across cultural contexts. This exploratory qualitative study examines teachers’ conceptions of gratitude and their experiences of cultivating gratitude in schools in mainland China. Based on semi-structured interviews, the findings highlight Chinese teachers’ culturally distinctive conceptions of gratitude and its cultivation, namely its role in developing relationships and maintaining social harmony, and the importance of acts of reciprocity. This empirical study develops a more substantive cross-cultural understanding of the nature of gratitude and practices of moral cultivation in schools.

ABSTRACT I present a new model of the self-regulation of virtue that integrates perspectives on emotion, cognition, and motivation. Across three vignette-based studies in US/UK (N = 1,540), I developed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis a multi-item measure of broadening and defensive responses, the Self-Regulation of Virtue Inventory (SRVI). I applied that measurement model to two new scenarios portraying prototypical moral exemplars (selected from a set of 12) and fitted structural models that identify key antecedents: motivational dispositions (regulatory focus and hedonic orientation) and moral comparisons (opinion- and ability-based). The findings were consistent with network analysis, providing initial evidence of their robustness. By integrating literatures on motivation, emotion, social cognition and comparison within a self-regulation framework, I provide initial evidence to advance theory on moral self-regulation and moral education, with practical implications on how to maximise the upsides of virtue while mitigating or channelling its possible drawbacks.

ABSTRACT The significance of harm to the life and development of victims results from the deprivation of certain goods and the violation of their dignity. The experience also impacts the decisions made by the victims regarding the perpetrators and others and, thus, their moral development. In this article, the relationship between the forgiveness and moral reasoning of victims of harm to life is discussed and the unusual and controversial thesis is proposed: Forgiveness is a condition for making morally good decisions. Consequently, from the perspective of victim morality, forgiveness can be considered not as an act of supererogation, but as a necessary act. To confirm this thesis, the misconceptions about forgiveness, which blur the lines between forgiveness and acts such as excuse and pardon, are discussed. Thereafter, how forgiveness conditions the moral reasoning of the victims is shown.

ABSTRACT Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory has gained traction in recent years as a valid approach to moral education. Insufficient attention has so far been paid to questions about who we should count among exemplary people to be emulated. In this paper, we make the case for considering the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as one moral exemplar for the contemporary world. Since Thunberg is a controversial figure, we not only argue in positive terms why Thunberg would make a good exemplar, but also respond to a number of objections that could be made to her exemplarity based on popular discussions. Our argument is however not limited to showing why Thunberg should be considered a moral exemplar. Through our discussion, we also exemplify the kind of critical discussions that in our view should be part of how exemplarism is utilized as a theory of moral education.

ABSTRACT The construct of moral injury is usually utilized to understand cases in which individuals perform or witness actions they consider morally wrong. In this paper, we suggest the construct of moral trap, which entails circumstances in which teachers face pressure to act but are unable to simultaneously meet the demands of care, justice, and truthfulness because of systemic conditions. Using grounded theory, we present the analysis of ten semi-structured interviews with teachers from four U.S. states. We found three different types of entrapment: teachers attempting to enact and/or advocate for social justice, attempting to care for their families, and attempting to care for their professional identities. Implications for teacher education include a need to prepare teachers for navigating multiple moral demands and for coordinating with other teachers to advocate for social change. Implications for policy include a need to provide greater wrap-around supports for educational equity.