The purpose of this study was to test predictability of environmental moral reasoning patterns of preservice science teachers (PSTs) by their epistemological beliefs and values. Four environmental moral dilemma scenarios that reflect different environmental moral dilemma situations taking place in four outdoor recreation contexts (i.e., hiking,…

Across development, young children reason about why social inequities exist. However, when left to their own devices, young children might engage in "internal thinking," reasoning that the inequity is simply a justified disparity explained by features internal to social groups (e.g., genetics, intellect, abilities, values). Internal…

This quantitative descriptive study identified the differences in the moral reasoning development levels between undergraduate teacher education students enrolled in methods courses and graduate teacher education students enrolled in an alternative certification education program using the Defining Issues Test-2 instrument. Based on Kohlberg's…

This study investigates students' individual patterns of adherence to a norm for creating and assessing definitions in an undergraduate real analysis classroom. Our findings indicate that, though all students understood the expectation to define, students differed in their individual adherence to the norm depending upon their perception of the…

Intellectual freedom has long been a desirable ideal and a foundational value for supporting democratic governance. Since 1948, it has been a universal human right. Given the unique nature of education in democratic societies, schools serve as a crucible for helping children understand and practise the rudiments of intellectual freedom. Drawing on…

One of the major goals of the social studies is to help students gain and refine skills in the area of value clarification. Value sheets, carefully planned activities designed to elicit value clarifying patterns of language from students, are one way of securing value clarification. Sheets, planned in conjunction with ongoing units of instruction,…

Virtual spaces allow abstract representations of reality that not only encourage student self-directed learning but also reinforce core content of the learning objective through visual metaphors not reproducible in the physical world. One of the advantages of such a space is the ability to escape the restrictions of the physical classroom, yet…

A multidimensional model of the growth of moral reasoning is described that is significantly different from those proposed by Kohlberg and Piaget. A study that tests several aspects of the model on university students is reported. The suggestion that well-developed chains of reasons are a prerequisite for the emergence of metaethical reasoning was…

A major means by which a culture maintains self-division and violence is abstraction. In the social sciences too, the process of employing abstraction to divorce us from ourselves is becoming increasingly more institutionalized. States that the meanings that emanate from some sectors of psychological research are also not congruent with human…

In reviewing the ancient, well-worn debate on the relationship between literature and values, it may be seen that the current pedagogical theory of developing response to literature is parallel to the argument for helping students articulate their own values. Two approaches to clarifying values are the values clarification approach (Louis Raths,…

The guide contains six episodes, suitable for the secondary level, designed to focus attention on the moral issues involved in war. It is presented in two sections. Section I discusses four objectives of values education and how the suggested activities contribute to their attainment. These objectives are: (1) differentiating value judgments,…

According to Sir Herbert Read, the best form of art results from the workings of the unconscious mind. (CK)

Educators generally assume that questioning promotes learning and that higher level questions do so better than lower level questions. But there are a number of problems with these assumptions. First, the classification of questions as higher level or lower level is ambiguous. The distinction is confused by such issues as non-controversial…

Two views of emotion in the writings of Paulo Freire are discussed. Freire views emotions as critical forces to be curbed if not eliminated. Emotions are also seen as a necessary part of that essential element of education for critical consciousness--dialog. (JN)

Because university teachers tend to be intellectually lazy and avoid sound, rigorous thought, it is emphasized that they should weigh evidence, assess arguments fairly, and take a partial stand on values and philosophies they hold. (ND)