There is more to the moral life than mere adherence to a set of moral rules or principles to which the moral agent has autonomously subscribed. Something more fundamental is required for moral personhood, requiring explication in terms of 'sensitive perception' in relation to the particularities pertaining to any given set of circumstances…

K-12 education as an enterprise always has two main aims; to teach basic skills and knowledge and to cultivate moral citizenry. There is substantial evidence that empathy can promote morality and character development through education. To shed light on what has been done and to identify the pathways already established, a thematic review of…

This paper reports young (3-5 year-olds') children's cognitive and affective understanding of actual moral (harm to others) and prudential (harm to self) transgressions in the family, as reported by the parent, but in a way that provides the child the opportunity to reflect on and reason about the actual events. A total of 38 parent-child dyads…

This paper examines Theodor W. Adorno's notion of democratic pedagogy and the role of emotions in re-educating and democratizing a society, particularly in light of the current political situation in many countries around the world in which right-wing extremism is on the rise. The paper revisits Adorno's educational thought on critical…

This paper considers two studies that address negative affective states and moral reasoning while taking the Defining Issues Tests (DIT, DIT2). Both studies confirmed earlier findings that the DIT dilemma, 'Heinz and the Drug,' and the DIT2 dilemma, 'Famine,' are related to increased anger and sadness and decreased moral reasoning. Similar…

For a service-learning course focusing on poverty, students from a Hong Kong university took a 12-day trip to engage in various poverty alleviation services in Cambodia. This course was border-crossing on five dimensions: (1) urban versus rural, (2) developed versus developing world location, (3) classroom versus practical and experiential, (4)…

In this essay, Mark Jonas argues that there are three broadly held misconceptions of Plato's philosophy that work against his relevance for contemporary moral education. The first is that he is an intellectualist who is concerned only with the cognitive aspect of moral development and does not sufficiently emphasize the affective and conative…

While higher education has historically been tasked with the responsibility of fostering the moral development of society's future leaders, this duty is even more challenging today, as recent studies are reporting Millennial college students have higher levels of narcissism, coupled with declining levels of empathy and creativity compared to prior…

There is a growing demand for equal support of social-emotional learning across the globe. In the United States, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning has shed significant light on the power of affective development for school-aged children, indicating that, without it, students are limited in their ability to reach their…

The term "respect for diversity" has gained prominence in many policy and curricular developments aimed at promoting reconciliation and pluralism. To explore the understandings of "respect for diversity" held by children in a society that has both emerged from conflict and is increasingly multicultural, 15 group interviews were…

This article will argue that neuroscientific insights can inform religious and spiritual education's capacity for strengthening student understanding, promoting transformation and ultimately wisdom. Among other findings, it will show that current neuroscientific research supports a holistic approach to pedagogy which emphasises the cognitive,…

Character development in higher education is a complex process. This process has often been delegated to a single course on ethics or courses on religion. The authors of this article pose an alternative higher educational process whereby character development is rooted in a series of abilities that are contextualized throughout the entire…

This research explores some of the factors that influence the relations about empathy and/or rejection that children establish towards some animal species. The role that school has within the social context in these dynamics was considered. Attitudes of young children (aged 7 to 9) from Mexico and England towards specific animal species, examining…

The importance of moral courage to teaching and learning has been recognized by a number of authors. The process pedagogy of Alfred North Whitehead proposes that emotion is central to experience and to the imaginative questioning which enables learning and the ability to stand up for one's beliefs. Faculty who wish to connect with their students…

This study validated the Chinese version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) in the Hong Kong context as well as examined the relationship between students' perceptions of interpersonal teacher behaviour and their cognitive, affective and moral learning outcomes. Data were collected with the QTI and four other measures of student…