A growing number of Americans believe that the public schools have a responsibility to include moral education in their curriculum; and, in fact, 31 states are currently offering courses aimed at teaching students some aspect of traditional values in the expectation of producing concerned citizens who will preserve our democarcy. Each moral…

The seven chapters of this theme issue examine how to create a moral context to stimulate moral development and how the system of self-interest in childhood and adolescence integrates the system of morality in ways that yield a high moral identity. Among issues considered are the moral climate of a school and child development. (SLD)

Character education is a contentious and fractionated topic, yet one that has been revisited with stubborn persistence in the history of American education. To explore the complexity of the character-education debate, this theme issue presents interviews with three national figures. First, a broad perspective is provided by Theodore R. Sizer, who…

An overview is presented of an elementary-level social studies core curriculum at Fieldston Lower School (in New York City) in which the moral and ethical development of students is seen as a priority. Fieldston Lower School is one of three branches of the Ethical Culture Schools. Article 1 focuses on the modification of the traditional elementary…

Approaches used by colleges and universities to implement values clarification and inquiry, moral education and development, and normative and applied ethics into the curriculum are examined, along with the way that the schools are defining values education in terms of their own students and mission. In "Values in the Curriculum," Edward…