The Ethics and Citizenship Program: a Brazilian experience in moral education

Abstract

This article describes the Ethics and Citizenship Program, a moral education project developed by the Brazilian government to promote education in ethics and citizenship in Brazilian fundamental and middle schools through four key themes: ethics, democratic coexistence, human rights and social inclusion. Some findings from a research project that investigated whether such a program did in fact promote the ethical and citizenship awareness of participating students are outlined. As an introduction to the paper’s main concerns, the Brazilian socioeconomic context is characterised, followed by a description of the historical background of moral education in Brazil.

Notes

1. The HDI is an index used to rank countries by level of ‘human development’, considering life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment and GDP per capita.

2. Although the terms ‘ethics’ and ‘moral’ are used interchangeably by many authors, due to the Greek and Latin roots of the words, in the E&C Program they are differentiated: ethics refers to the ideas and principles that underwrite the moral life; and moral refers to the norms, rules and laws that regulate human social behaviour; both aiming at individual and collective well‐being.

3. A law approved in 1990 by the Brazilian Senate, which considered children and adolescents as citizens and gave adults the obligation to guarantee and promote their full protection.

4. An award organised by three Brazilian Ministries and two civil society organisations.

5. This research project was funded by Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP).

6. As university professors, the authors were invited to work as special consultants of the Ministry of Education for the Ethics and Citizenship Program and assumed responsibility for writing the resource packs and the teacher training throughout the country.

7. We should like to acknowledge the help of Kenya Gonsalves, Ana Maria Klein, Moyses Baptista, Brigite Haertel and Lucivane Garrido.

8. Further data are available from the authors.