Keywords

Globalisation as a Multi-faceted Phenomenon: Implications for Values Education

Defining Values

What I want to argue is that values education and effective learning environments are necessarily connected to students’ knowledge of democracy, active citizenship education, social justice and human rights education, and results in a positive and significant impact on students’ identities, engagement, and academic achievement. Halstead and Taylor (1996) argued that values were ‘central’ to the theory of education and schools in ‘two ways’:

First, schools and individual teachers within schools are a major influence, alongside the family, the media and the peer group, on the developing values of children and young people, and thus of society at large. Secondly, schools reflect and embody the values of society…(Halstead & Taylor, 1996, p. 11).

Halstead and Taylor (1996) suggested a pragmatic three tier typology for conceptualising values education in society and schools:

  1. 1.

    Values as a set of subjective criteria for making judgments, and linked to a ‘relativist view that no set of values can be shown to be better than another’.

  2. 2.

    Values as absolute, and ‘applying everywhere and at all times’. Certain human actions are ‘always right or always wrong, irrespective of circumstance’.

  3. 3.

    Certain values, such as ‘animal rights, patriotism, equal opportunities or bravery, have some kind of objective quality, insofar as some social arrangements and patterns of behaviour promote well being more than others’ (Halstead & Taylor, 1996, p. 14).

This three tier typology of values is very useful in various discourses, surrounding values in general and values education in schools, in particular. It demonstrates an on-going complexity in defining, understanding and the use of values in society. Global research findings have demonstrated the nexus between values education and students’ academic performance in schools. Values education to be meaningful, engaging and authentic must involve a greater sense of active citizenship education, social constructivist pedagogy, and more emphasis on cultural diversity, critical thinking and a deeper and critical understanding and knowledge of democracy, equality, human rights and social justice for all (see Zajda, 2021).

All teaching and learning in classroom settings globally is necessarily grounded in morality, ethics and laws, defining and directing schools and classroom pedagogies. Ethics, derived from moral philosophy, is concerned with the study of right and wrong action, or choosing between good or bad. While teachers are entitled to their own beliefs and values, in the classroom, teachers’ responsibility is defined and guided by the school’s policy and rules, designated classroom pedagogy, prescribed curriculum, specific discipline content and its standards, and desirable students’ outcomes (Zajda, 2020a).

Values can be defined as the principles governing rules and moral standards for socially desirable actions and behaviour. Such values include freedom, democracy, equality, justice, beauty, truth, honesty, loyalty, and human rights. Hill provided his preferred definition of values as ‘the priorities individuals and societies attach to certain beliefs, experiences, and objects, in deciding how they shall live and what they shall treasure’. Values also provide moral standards, by which actions are judged as right or wrong (Zajda, 2018c). In general, values refer to beliefs held by individuals or groups concerning moral standards defining actions that are ‘good or bad’, and what is desirable and what is not desirable (Giddens, 2009).

Values are regarded as one of the most fundamental components, like ideology, of a group’s culture (Zajda & Majhanovich, 2021). They generally represent the core of the ideological system, and provide individuals with values about their cultural identity, and which define and characterise the social group and its membership (Zajda & Majhanovich, 2021). Smolicz (1999) stressed the symbolic and collectivist essence of values and their significant role in maintaining both individual and collective identity: ‘it is through core values that social groups can be identified as distinctive ethnic, religious, scientific or other cultural communities’ (Smolicz, 1999, p. 105). Cummings et al. (2001) in their comparative study of values education in 12 countries, observed that at the core of values education is the autonomous individual, and suggested that values education will have a high priority, and schools will play a key role in values education (see also Habermas, 1990; Shor, 1992; Halstead, 1996; Hattie, 2003; Brady, 2005; Brady, 2011a; Zajda, 2018c; Zajda & Majhanovich, 2021).

Values Education

The term values education refers to a multifaceted process of socialization in schools, which transmits dominant values, in order to provide and legitimate the necessary link between the individual, the group and society. Values education is a structured process of instilling desirable aspects of moral education, ethical traits and standards. Values are culturally internalized, shared, and transmitted ideas about what is good or desirable. Values may refer to: a particular belief system—believing that pluralist democracy is the best model of social/political system; a code of conduct—being honest, tolerant and courageous; a state of existence—peace, tolerance and equality; or a moral judgment—truth, beauty, and justice.

Every society has its own rules defining behaviour and actions. This is a normative dimension of a society and its culture, consisting of norms, and values. Values refer to ideas held by individuals or groups concerning moral standards defining actions that are ‘good or bad’, or what is desirable and what is not desirable (Giddens, 2009). Values are regarded as one of the most fundamental components (like ideology) of a group’s culture (Zajda, 2009a, p.13). They generally represent the core of the ideological system, and provide individuals with values about their cultural identity, and which define and characterise the social group and its membership (Zajda, 2009b; Zajda, 2020a). Smolicz (1999) stressed the symbolic and collectivist essence of values and their significant role in maintaining both individual and collective identity: ‘it is through core values that social groups can be identified as distinctive ethnic, religious, scientific or other cultural communities’(1999, p. 105).

Since the 1990s, a number of scholars and policy analysts began to stress the moral function of pedagogy, both locally and globally (Purpel, 1999; Cummings et al., 2001; Bindé, 2002; Zajda, 2014; Lovat, 2017; Zajda, 2018b). For instance, Jacques Delors (1996) in his report to UNESCO of international Commission on education for the Twenty-first Century, Learning: the Treasure Within, believed that education had an important role to play in promoting tolerance and peace globally:

In confronting the many challenges that the future holds in sore, humankind sees in education an indispensable asset in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice (p. 13).

A similar concern with a moral dimension in education is present in Jérôme Bindé (2002) in ‘What Education for the Twenty-First Century? It is argued that a new paradigm shift in education should be aiming to ‘humanize globalization’ (Bindé, 2002, p. 391, see also Bindé, 2000). At the same time he reminds us that one of education’s future major challenges will be to use the new information and communication technologies to disseminate knowledge and skills (Bindé, 2002; see also Zajda & Gibbs, 2009).

Cultural Origins of Values

We are all citizens of one world; we are all of one blood. To hate a man because he was born in another country, because he speaks a different language, or because he takes a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist I implore you, for we are all equally human…Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity. Comenius (1592–1670)

Global research on social, cultural and political capital demonstrates that the core values of a culture act as ‘strong forces’ that shape societies (Cummings et al., 2001; Willms, 2003; Zajda & Daun, 2009; Zajda & Ozdowski, 2017). Every society has its own rules defining behaviour and actions. This is a normative dimension of a society and its culture, consisting of norms, and values. Some researchers have argued that values may focus on ‘ends’ such improvement in culture or the quality of life (Cummings et al., 2001; see also Purpel, 1999; Zajda & Daun, 2009). Others have focused on ‘means’ such as the ‘enhancement of civic mindedness’ (Cummings et al., 2001, p. 11).

Values education is an essential part of school pedagogy, even though the nexus between values education and pedagogy is very contested and problematic. The situation is further complicated, as values education (and moral education) seem to be ‘subject to changes of fashion’ (Winch & Gingell, 1999). Berkowitz (2011) perceived the values education process in schools to be an ‘attempt within schools to craft pedagogies and supportive structures to foster the development of positive, ethical, pro-social, inclinations and competences in youth…’ (Berkowitz, 2011, p. 153). For instance, when MacIntyre (1981) re-interpreted and revived the Aristotelean pedagogy of values education, it became a very popular approach to virtue theory, which was based on Aristotle’s Nichomachaean Ethics. Virtue advocates argue that moral concepts and values should be explicated in terms of character traits, which children can internalise, through classroom pedagogy and reflection. In the Soviet Union this process of moral education was known as vospitanie (upbringing) (Zajda, 2017). Desirable character traits or virtues include tolerance, altruism, asceticism, benevolence, honesty, courage, fairness, moderation, conscientiousness, selflessness, sincerity, humility, modesty, magnanimity, sympathy, tactfulness, diligence, nobleness, trust, self-mastery, solidarity, and frugality.

Are values to be ‘caught’, instead of being taught? Values such as peace, tolerance, courage, civility, honesty, moderation, and frugality should be taught to all if we are to maintain a truly caring and responsible democratic community. Some values deal with proper ways, or standards, of interacting with others (being polite, cooperative, truthful, and accepting). Other values describe desirable states of existence to which we all aspire—desire for work, happiness, peace, love, and fulfilling life (see also Kohlberg, 1975).

Revell and Arthur (2007), using their data of 1000 student teachers, analysed student teachers’ attitudes to and experience of character and values education in schools and the opportunities provided by schools for the development of character. Their findings demonstrated that student teachers were overwhelmingly in favour of developing their skills in the area of moral development. The authors concluded that whilst character education was seen as part of citizenship education in the school curriculum in England, the data indicated that it was not part of the formal curriculum of teacher education.

Teaching our students morality or values education, means teaching them what we ourselves, as citizens, with a democratic voice in a pluralist democracy, understand by morality and moral values. It is important to understand that not only values may vary from culture to culture they are also subjective, and relative. A value considered good in one society at a particular point in time may be bad in different era. For example, the White Australia Policy, which enforced racial aspects of the immigration law, was dismantled by the Holt Government’s Migration Law in 1966, and 1973 marked the end of the White Australia policy. Similarly, the value of racial segregation in the USA, or de jure segregation, or segregation sanctioned by law, was practised until 1954, when the US Supreme Court ordered that the public schools be desegregated. The value has shifted towards racial equality, inclusive schooling and school integration. It has taken many decades to achieve this significant value shift.

Global Models for Values Education

The Western and non-Western models of values act as dominant agencies of socialization for values education, social identity, and nation-building. Western-informed international conventions provide value statements globally. The United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) was a statement by the international community of the inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms for all human beings. In Article 26, Part 2 it stressed that education ‘shall be directed…to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedom. It shall promote understanding tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups…’ (UN, 1948, p. 7). Other specific value positions are found in various international and legal treaties. For example, the four major Council of Europe treaties protecting the human rights of children combined offer a policy direction for developing and promoting a global vision for a better childhood. The four principal treaties are the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), the European Social Charter (1996), the European Convention on the Exercise of Children’s Rights (1996) and the European convention on Contact Concerning Children (2003). Values associated with schooling are found in the Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the twenty-first century, Learning: The Treasure Within (Delors, 1996) and its four essential pillars of education for the twenty-first century: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be. More recently, the UNESCO Conference on Education for Shared Values and for Intercultural and Interfaith Understanding (2005) called on educational systems to incorporate common and agreed values into school curricula, to promote intercultural and interfaith understanding. Recently, the idea of ‘global competence’ was developed by OECD and PISA. The teaching of global competence to enhance students’ knowledge and values of intercultural sensitivity was developed in Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world the OECD PISA global competence framework (PISA, 2018b):

Global competence is a multidimensional capacity. Globally competent individuals can examine local, global and intercultural issues, understand and appreciate different perspectives and world views, interact successfully and respectfully with others, and take responsible action toward sustainability and collective well-being… Schools can encourage intercultural sensitivity and respect by allowing students to engage in experiences that foster an appreciation for diverse peoples, languages and cultures (PISA, 2018b, p. 4).

Local and National Values

Values education differs around the world, both locally and globally. Different values are transmitted, according to differences in societies and cultural settings, be they religious, cultural or political. In some communities and societies, dominant values are defined by the ideology of religion or politics. As Huntington (1996) pointed out, in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order culturally diverse nations, divided by different and competing ideologies for global dominance, have different values priorities. In the USSR, prior to 1991, values education was based on cultivating a communist morality of Homo Sovieticus, and promoting a collectivist, rather than individual identity. In the USA, being a democratic society, the values of individualism, equality, freedom, democracy and self-fulfilment are inculcated in schools. Values education in Europe reflect economic and social principles, which embrace student-centred learning, accompanied by dominant values embedded in cognitive, social and emotional development, and vocational philosophies of achievement, success and work.

Both Bronfenbrenner (1979) and Banks (2012, 2013) offer two different models of values education shaping one’s social and cultural identity. In his research, Bronfenbrenner focused on major agencies of socialisation shaping the self and identity. On the other hand, Banks (2013) developed a very influential model of multicultural education, grounded in values education and citizenship education (see below).

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Model

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) was the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Human Development and of Psychology in the Cornell University College of Human Ecology. He developed an ecological model describing major socio-cultural factors defining values and shaping one’s social identity and learning (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 2005). Bronfenbrenner’s model depicts 5 concentric circles: microsystems (learner’s immediate environment—family, friends, peers, and teachers) mesosystems (the nexus between home and school, community and school), exosystems (parental aspirations and goals), macrosystems (cultural and societal dominant values affecting the individual), and chronosystems (the influence of the milieu and time). Bronfenbrenner’s model was adapted and widely used by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in Citizenship and Education in Twenty-Eight Countries study of values education in civics. The Octagon model used in IEA studies was based on 8 major socializing agencies affecting the values of individuals in different countries.

James Banks and His Model for Multicultural Education

James A. Banks, Professor in Education and Chair in Diversity Studies at the University of Washington, the author of Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society (2007), developed his popular model for multicultural education in schools in his book An Introduction to Multicultural Education (2013). The model for values education within the framework of multiculturalism, proposed by Banks, consists of 5 Dimensions of Multicultural Classrooms: Content Integration (teaching diversity); Knowledge Construction (teaching how knowledge is created); Prejudice Reduction (developing positive relationships among students of different ethnic backgrounds); Equity Pedagogy (facilitating the academic success of students from different ethnic and social class groups): and Empowering School Culture (inclusive classroom environment that is conducive to the academic and emotional needs and growth of all students).

Values Education in Schools

Values education in schools is a complex and controversial area of the curriculum. It is an essential, contested and constantly changing area of study that develops critical thinking skills that are vital for all other areas of study. A very good example of the nexus between globalisation, and values education in humanities and social sciences education is the National Council for the Social Studies in USA. According to NCSS, social studies educators should ‘teach students the content knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic values necessary for fulfilling the duties of citizenship in a participatory democracy and that in ‘In a multicultural, democratic society and globally connected world, students need to understand the multiple perspectives that derive from diverse cultural vantage points’ (National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, 2010). Carr et al. (2017) in examining the nexus between multicultural social justice education, democracy, and education for democracy, argued for the need to employ critical thinking and critical pedagogies, in order to develop a new knowledge and skills of ‘transformative education for democracy’:

Our findings underpin the need to include critical pedagogies that focus on reflexivity, transmediation, autobiography, and self-positionality throughout the educational process. A broad, multi-pronged framework for conceptualizing a critical, engaged, transformative education for democracy is proposed, in which multicultural social justice education is inextricably interwoven (Carr et al., 2017).

The Nature of Values in Schools

Values may refer to a particular belief system—believing that pluralist democracy is the best model of social/political system, a code of conduct—being honest, tolerant and courageous, a state of existence—peace, tolerance and equality), or a moral judgment—truth, beauty, and justice. Different values are associated with different criteria. We can differentiate between aesthetic, cultural, civic, family, economic, environmental, intellectual, legal moral, political, religious, scientific, technological and social values. Snook (2003) noted the nexus between ethical theory and classroom pedagogy (see also Carr, 2000; Snook, 2003; Zajda, 2014). In his book, The Ethical Teacher, Snook (2003) argues that the ethical teacher is one who one who understands both the moral purpose of education and the importance of viewing the process of teaching as essentially ethical in its nature. Among the ethical teacher’s roles, Snook identifies respect for autonomy and respect for reason. He asks the question: How can teachers respect the learner as a person and yet try to change her in fundamental ways? This, according to him, constitutes the basic ethical dilemma of teaching:

The ethical teacher, taking into account the student's age and maturity, tries to impart not just the conclusion of processes and arguments but the methods of arriving at the conclusions: not just ways of behaving but an understanding of these ways of behaving and the reasons for them. Thus, guided by teachers who respect her reason, the student gradually learns to use her own reason, to become autonomous, and hence does not have to rely forever on the views of others. This task of handing over full control to the learner may take a long time but it needs to be begun early so that she learns the habit of ‘thinking for herself.’ (Snook, 2003).

Purpel (1999) argued for a need to frame education as primarily a ‘moral, cultural, and social endeavour’ (p. 3) and for teachers to develop a social vision, and be prepared to be engaged in social transformation and holistic education:

To be an educator without a social vision is like being an artist without an aesthetic, and to be a holistic educator without a social vision is to be like an artist without a soul Purpel, 1999, p. 135).

In examining moral education, we note at least two closely related problems in discourses and debates surrounding ethics—the lack of provision of moral education, and the loss of moral direction in society. One could argue that a proper moral education is one that provides an adequate understanding of the ‘moral sphere’ (see Woods & Barrow, 1995; Purpel, 1999), just as the study of history equips one with the logic of historiography and the values of historical thinking. Earlier, in his work, Barrow (1977) asks the question ‘What is the most effective way to morally educate the children?’ (Barrow, 1977, p. 199). He suggests that children inevitably do, to some extent, acquire moral attitudes from their environment, which includes parents and teachers, and other role models. Perhaps the most important point Barrow makes is when he argues that it would be wrong to assume that what a moral philosopher says is true must be so. Look to his reasoning –not his judgment, reminds us Barrow (Barrow, 1977, p. 212).

The Politics of Values Education

The current debate on values education has become an overtly partisan political issue producing a dominant ideology of teaching values and character education. I am reminding the readers that what we call values education was known as ‘character education’ in most schools during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Recently, values education has become a ‘metaphor and code’ for pedagogy pursuing the neo-liberal and conservative social and cultural agenda (Purpel, 1999, p. 83). In some ways the values taught in schools are traditional rather than modern:

…the values taught in the schools are very much in line of Puritan tradition of obedience, hierarchy, and hard work, values which overlap nicely with the requirements of an economic system that values a compliant and industrious work force, and a social system that demands stability and order (Purpel, 1999, p. 89).

Not only values education appears to be more traditional than modern, but by emphasising such traditional values as loyalty, responsibility, duty, obedience and honesty they may well be advancing a newly reinvented moral paradigm of ‘domesticating values’ (Snook, 2003). He argues that that all programmes of values education are dependent on political judgements, and tend to reinforce the existing inequality:

They serve to reinforce the status quo and the power structures which serve the interests of the dominant group. We need only reflect for a moment on how the values of “loyalty and submission” and even “love” have served the oppression of women by men while generations of South Africans and African Americans were schooled to know their place and be loyal to their exploiters…

The curriculum is an ideological construct, and discourses surrounding cultural and political dimensions of schooling should emphasise the ideological nature of school subjects and moral/character/values education (Narvaez & Rest, 1995; Purpel, 1999; Apple, 2004; Zajda, 2009d; Zajda, 2014; Zajda, 2021). As Purpel argues, part of this strategy is to create a discourse in which the schools are blamed for not ‘teaching values’. Such a discourse, which defines desirable values to be taught in schools, attempts to shift the argument from social and political spheres to the individual and personal traits. Blaming the individual for not learning desirable values is far more acceptable than blaming society and its structures, which exert a powerful socialising influence. Purpel also reminds us that ‘Moral issues are by definition socially and culturally situated and any dialogue on proper character is based on some communal notion of propriety’ (Purpel, 1999, p. 89). Yet, values education research is characterised by the near absence of political, social, cultural and ideological analysis. This is a paradox, as researchers and writers addressing the issues of moral crisis would necessarily need to explain social, political and economic conditions responsible for such a phenomenon (see also Arenas et al., 2009).

Moral Dilemmas

We can easily reach a consensus, at the most abstract of levels, on such values as fairness, obedience, loyalty and kindness. The Nuremberg and other trials for crimes against humanity demonstrated that obedience and loyalty to a given regime is sometimes a vice. Individuals have been executed for being obedient and following the orders of various political leaders/dictators. As Snook (2003) points out, even such a value as ‘loyalty’, when translated into practice, can be problematic:

… loyalty - surely we should be loyal only to those who deserve it? It is debatable whether citizens should be loyal to governments that break their word once elected. Should students be loyal to a school that treats them unjustly? Should ethnic minorities be loyal to institutions that have grossly discriminated against them? Should a woman be loyal to the man who abuses her? Should staff be loyal to educational institutions which have rejected the basic values of the academic life?

…. The lesson is that one should be obedient only to worthy authorities. We have to ask if our “democratic” governments of recent years have been worthy of our obedience…

Virtues such as freedom, justice, truth telling and kindness are general moral principles, or abstractions. They, in themselves, cannot explain daily applications. Hence, values education need to be practical, as individuals confront their values, societal values, choices and their applications in everyday life. Furthermore, a critical understanding, analysis and evaluation of moral principles such as freedom, human rights, social justice and responsibility in classroom pedagogy constitutes the essence of morality and value education and should form the foundation of moral education of an individual. Here, the focus is on translating abstract moral principles into everyday life.

The methodology and methods of values education in schools, which advocate that values need to be taught, rather than left to chance, could be Durkheimian in the sense that morality must be taught rather than caught. Marsh (2011) describes values education as the development of students’ understanding of challenges and ‘making choices about how to respond’. The National Framework for Values Education (2005) in Australia articulated two distinct styles of Values Education: the first develops abstracted and shared values and virtues; the second develops the critical thinking skills required to develop the students’ ethical judgements and understanding of values. Understandably, there is constant tension in the content, philosophical and pedagogical approaches, process and product of values education.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) (2015) in the State of Victoria (Melbourne) produced a set of guidelines for Values Education in the school curriculum. The guide is not intended to be prescriptive (i.e. schools have flexibility in choosing their approach to values) and it is not intended to be specific stand-alone teaching (rather, it should be incidental teaching points within everyday learning contexts. The National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools (DEST, 2005) provided a policy statement for an overarching framework for developing a vision for values education in schools. It identified the following nine core values for Australian schools:

  • Care and compassion

  • Doing your best

  • Fair go

  • Freedom

  • Honesty and trustworthiness

  • Integrity

  • Respect

  • Responsibility

  • Understanding, tolerance and inclusion.

The Melbourne Declaration (2008) stated that it was the schools’ responsibility to ensure that young people are taught national values such as democracy, equity and justice; and personal values such as honesty, resilience and respect for others.

Incorporating Values into the History/HUMANITIES Curriculum

Values Education in Humanities and Social Sciences

Humanities and social sciences can assert a special interest in values learning that directly supports active citizenship in our participatory and pluralist democracy. Butts (1988) identified twelve core values that had to be taught, as a part of students’ preparation for citizenship in a genuinely democratic society. The values are divided into two clusters: these that deal with the obligations of citizenship and those that define the rights of citizenship. Accordingly, we have an important citizenship obligation to support:

  • justice for all,

  • equality of opportunity,

  • legitimate authority,

  • participation,

  • truth,

  • patriotism.

The rights of citizenship include:

  • the right to freedom,

  • diversity,

  • privacy,

  • due process,

  • property,

  • human rights

Objectives of Values Education in the Classroom

Approaches to values education in the Humanities and social sciences curriculum should serve at least two general goals:

  • To help students make the most of their lives (within reason, as ‘Sky is not the limit’).

  • To preserve and improve our evolving democratic society.

Other, more specific goals include:

  • Helping students to appreciate one another’s cultural differences.

  • Helping students and teachers to identify cultural stereotypes as presented in the media, when teaching values of cultural diversity.

  • Teaching students to avoid using language that is insensitive, offensive, embarrassing or damaging (Boyer, 1990, p. 3).

  • Helping teachers develop multiple perspectives, conceptualizations and behaviors, when teaching values education.

  • Teachers should aim to foster respect, tolerance and equality among diverse students, as equal members of their school

  • Helping students to understand that our social responsibility extends beyond local and national boundaries.

Humanities and social sciences curriculum focuses on how students learn to think about, uphold and apply values. This allows children to view values as a valuing process of feeling, thinking, expressing and acting by which people make or imply judgments about what is desirable, good or bad, moral or immoral. Gilbert (2011) suggested that there are different elements in teaching values in the classroom:

  • Understanding values principles- Values that derived over centuries through religion, and social policies, and politics. Analyzing the value of democracy—refers to the integrity and rights of all people and promoting equal opportunities and equal participation.

  • Logical and empirical analysis- applying values in real life contexts and with the belief that certain actions will have certain effects.

  • Empathy, tolerance and open mindedness- being open to the views of others without judging (p. 89).

  • Caring—acting in ways that promote and enhance moral or ethical behaviour.

Values can be incorporated in the area of Humanities and social curriculum and generally works well in an inquiry based approach (IA), and constructivist learning and teaching, focusing on citizenship as the area of study. Marsh (2011) argued that there were 4 subject groups designated to teach values in Humanities and social sciences which are:

  • Democratic process: promoting ideals of equal participation and access for individuals and groups

  • Social justice: including the concern of welfare, rights and dignity for all, empathy with multicultural families and fairness

  • Ecological and economical sustainability: quality of peoples’ lives and the natural environment

  • Peace: promoting positive relations with others and the world (Marsh, 2011).

Classroom Strategies for Teaching Values

In the Humanities and social sciences F-6 classroom some of the many approaches to values education are:

  • Values Inculcation. Instilling socially desirable values in students – through direct teaching, including story-telling, or indirectly through routine practices in the classroom, role models, reinforcement, praising, simulation and role playing to instil values in students.

  • Values Clarification allows students to be more socially aware and become critical thinkers. It also helps students understand and accept everyone’s values and beliefs. Includes practical activities to clarify feelings towards person/event/issue.

  • The Social Action and Participation. This approach to values education assumes that individuals learn values best by practicing them. There are numerous examples of social action and participation projects, including EfS (education for sustainability), ‘circles of democracy’ in the classroom, human rights education etc. (Goodman, 1994).

  • The Trait approach refers to values that are classified more important than others and involves teaching a set of qualities such as honesty, loyalty and compassion.

  • Service Learning approach – activities at school and in the community. According to Freakley (2008), schools should provide experiences as opportunities to practice making a choice of actions.

  • Cognitive Development Approach is where values education is seen as a movement through stages. This helps students to improve reasoning and to not differentiate right and wrong decisions. Includes dilemma activities, small group discussions, decision making tasks to further develop students’ values.

  • Role Plays explores multi-layered values in complex moral scenarios. It is responsible for finding solutions in spontaneous unrehearsed dialogue (see Brady, 2011a: Brady, 2011b).

  • Empathy Approach involves an informed understanding and interpretation of cultural diversity, or the values of others in different cultures.

  • The Time-Traveller Approach involves looking back at historical events, locating them in a time continuum, and relating to current events in history.

Students can be given responsibility, can make decisions, and can develop their own views in relation to what has happened in the past. They can set up classroom governments, and look at questions of human rights and individual and corporate responsibility in current events (Turner, 2011). Classroom activities may include:

  • Using children’s literature to provide examples and exercise values (Martin, 2009).

  • Classroom activities should provide experiences as opportunities to practice making a choice of actions (Freakley, 2008).

  • Setting a positive role model—you are a role model for the students in your classroom

  • Being truthful and honest: The best way to encourage truthfulness in students is to be a truthful to them. Encourage them to also be truthful to others in the classroom.

  • Generating serious questions that will promote dialogue about values—telling students what values they should have won’t be very effective. Asking them ‘curious’ questions will allow discussions that will eventually lead to values. ‘What did you think about that fight? What do you think he should have done? Will be more effective than, He shouldn’t have started that fight!’ (Brandenburg, 2011)

  • Encouraging students to be involved in helping others. Students learn values by practicing them (Brandenburg, 2011).

Values Education and Academic Achievement

Recent research has produced evidence of the nexus between values education and academic achievement. Berkowitz (2011) argues that recent empirical research demonstrated that fostering the development of ‘positive, ethical, pro-social inclinations and competencies in youth’ resulted in improvement in their achievement. Tarabashkina and Lietz (2011) in examining the impact of values and learning approaches on student achievement, confirmed findings of earlier research about the relationship between personal values and approaches to learning. In addition, Tarabashkina and Lietz (2011), discovered the existence of a very strong positive effect which emerged from the achievement value, demonstrating that students who identified strongly with the achievement value also displayed high levels of strategies and motivation that characterize achieving approach to learning (Tarabashkina & Lietz, 2011).

Lovat et al. (2011) in their research on the impact of students’ values on academic achievement, demonstrated the effects of values education on enhancing students’ academic diligence, through the more positive ambience it creates in the school. Similarly, Lovat (2017), having evaluated current research finding, dealing with values education and academic achievement, suggests that values education, properly implemented, is likely to impact positively on a range of educational goals, emotional, social, moral and academic.

There is also a new insight regarding the nexus between neuroscience, feelings, emotions and values education Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007) stated that advances in neuroscience are ‘highlighting connections between emotion, social functioning, and decision making’ that change our understanding of the role of affect in education:

In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that the aspects of cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within the processes of emotion; we call these aspects emotional thought (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007).

Lovat et al. (2010) suggested that a contemporary understanding of values education, or values and wellbeing pedagogy, fits well with recent neuroscience research:

Notions of cognition, or intellect, are far more intertwined with social and emotional growth than earlier educational paradigms have allowed for. In other words, the best laid plans about the technical aspects of pedagogy are bound to fail unless the growth of the whole person – social, emotional, moral, spiritual and intellectual, is the pedagogical target (Lovat et al., 2010).

Recently several neuroscientists like Churchland (2018), and Narvaez (2014) have argued that moral education possesses rare potential to activate those emotional and social centres of the brain that, taken together, can influence the form of sound reasoning associated in educational research generally with effective learning. Narvaez’s (2014) research shows that this stimulation relies on both the learning ambience and what she refers to as efficacious pedagogy, a pedagogy that is morally bound and focussed on eliciting moral content from the curriculum. Lovat (2017) suggests that it is research of this type that would appear to highlight yet again the significant role that moral education can play, by activating students’ emotional and social dimensions, and in enhancing all educational goals. Research findings also show that that good practice pedagogy must be directed to the whole person. Furthermore, it is the process of cognition that activates a range of emotional, social and moral impulses.

Evaluation

For some educational philosophers and writers values education is the essential part of school pedagogy (Peters, 1967; Carr, 1993; Cummings et al. 2001; Brady, 2011a, Zajda, 2014, 2018b: Zajda & Majhanovich, 2021). For other prominent educational philosophers, the nexus between values education and pedagogy is much contested and problematic (Phillips, 1979; Straughan, 1982; Ryle 1972). The debate as to whether values education should be taught in schools, is further complicated, by fads and fashions, as Winch and Gingell (1999) argued, that moral education seems to be ‘subject to changes of fashion’ (p. 147). For instance, when Hare (1963) was popular in the UK, his theory of moral education was very popular, and when MacIntyre (1981) re-invented the Aristotelean pedagogy of values education, it became very popular approach to virtue theory, which was based on Aristotle’s Nichomachaean Ethics. Kohlberg (1981) criticised the virtue theory approach for advocating ‘a crude deontological approach’ to values education (don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cheat). According to Kohlberg, virtue education as part of moral education, requires deliberation and reflection, where complex moral choice (or moral dilemma) is involved (see Winch & Gingell, 1999, p. 245).

The issue is not so much methodogical or pedagogical, as to the approaches to be used in classroom pedagogy of values education, but rather one between the ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ concerning teaching values education in the classroom. Ryle (1972), who criticised moral education in schools, argued that morality is caught not taught. He argued that if we define teaching as ‘the passing on of expertise’, then any notion of moral expertise seems ‘deeply dubious’, for if such expertise did exist we expect for it to be institutionalised (Winch & Gingell, 1999, p. 148). Straughan (1982), on the other hand, in his critique of dominant approaches to the content of values education and the structure of values education, and the contested areas and boundaries between moral reasoning and the content of morality, suggested a pragmatic approach to values education, based on what I call the 3Ms of moral education:

  • teaching that informed decisions must be made in making moral choices

  • teaching how to think for themselves as autonomous moral agents

  • teaching children to want to be moral (to guarantee moral goodness in an individual) (see also Winch & Gingell, 1999, p. 149).

To adopt Straughan’s (1982) approach to values education, especially ‘teaching to want to be moral’, which continues the role of exemplification in values education stressed by moral philosophers such as Carr (1993), Phillips (1979) and Ryle (1972). Pedagogues, as role-models, should act morally themselves and exemplify the role of moral agents or portray a moral action charisma. Snook (2003) argues that values education has to be supported but it must be ‘liberated from those who seek to cure the ills by more doses of the medicine which caused them’. As he reminds us, schools ought to practice pluralist democracy, by discussing its values:

There must be a place for the disparity of views which mark a pluralistic society. Current proponents are fond of talking of the values which we all share. More important are the values which divide us; it is conflict, not consensus which marks the values domain: young people in schools should confront these conflicts and learn to handle them rationally and tolerantly (Snook, 2003, p. 6).

Using Straughan’s (1982) approach to values education, namely ‘teaching to want to be moral’, suggests that values education to be meaningful, engaging and authentic must involve more emphasis on critical thinking, and discourse analysis and a deeper and critical understanding of democracy, equality, human rights and social justice for all. There is also a connection between values education and academic achievement. The nexus between values pedagogy and academic performance has been demonstrated in recent research findings in neuroscience.

Furthermore, Shor (1992) argued for the nexus between pedagogy, empowerment and democracy. He suggested that the values that guide education should be participatory, affective, emotional, as well as intellectual, problem-posing, situated, multicultural, dialogic, activist, democratic, and ‘desocializing’, thus challenging both existing knowledge, and the experiences that make us what we are.

The above approaches to teaching values education in schools indicate that for values education to be effective, there is a need in teacher education to educate prospective teachers in major models of values education and classroom applications, as discussed above.

Conclusion

As demonstrated above, values education in schools globally play a significant role in promoting democracy and active citizenship education, in effective, dialogical and engaging learning environments. Teaching such core values as democracy, freedom, active citizenship, intercultural understanding, human rights, social justice, and peace, consolidates our ideal of participatory democracy. In schools, both locally and globally, where values education and critical literacy are taught effectively, values should be discussed and critiqued, within the paradigm of cultural diversity, and pluralist democracy, grounded in human rights and social justice discourses. Values education has a potential to affect and change individuals in every sphere: cognitive, social, emotional, moral and educational. Values education in schools ought to represent our quest for the ideal of the morally good society, in order to promote a deeper, meaningful and critical understanding of democracy, equality, human rights and social justice for all. Values education to be meaningful, engaging and authentic in schools globally, must involve a greater sense of active citizenship education, grounded in pluralist democracy discourses.