Charts and Layers/Heads and Hearts: Toward an Integrated Theory of Moral Education

Abstract

This essay explores two dichotomies that depict moral education and examines the strengths and weaknesses of the four orientations. The argument is made that in social education, the dichotomies are not in balance: Social educators emphasize stage-theory explanations and pay little attention to complex theories of human thought, feeling, and behavior; also, social educators favor reliance on cognitive responses rather than consideration of affective underpinnings of moral judgment and action. Approaches engendered by both sides of each dichotomy provide necessary dimensions to research, theory and practice of moral education.