The influence of moral education on the personal worldview of students

Abstract

This article researches whether approaches to moral education aim to influence the development of the personal worldview of students. An example of a Dutch moral education programme is presented and the findings are used to analyse various approaches to moral education. Our analysis demonstrates that every approach aims to influence the personal worldview of students because of underlying ontological beliefs. This is the inevitable and minimal influence a moral education approach has on personal worldview. Our analysis also demonstrates that two approaches go further: Aristotle’s virtue ethics and Kantian deontological ethics. Both aim to contribute to the personal worldview development because they aim to influence the broad moral views (ethical and teleological matters) students have.

Keywords:

• personal worldview
• broad morality
• virtue ethics
• deontological ethics

Notes

1. The focus of this contribution is confined to moral and worldview education. These can be conceived of as domains of the overall aim of education in primary schools (public and denominational) that can be conceptualised in terms of personhood formation/identity development/subjectification, qualification and socialisation (Biesta & Miedema, 2002; Biesta, 2010; Miedema, 2014).

2. We encounter for example ‘bricolage’, which is the use of words, symbols or rituals from different traditions to construct a personal religious worldview (Hervieu-Léger, 2006).

3. These theories are chosen for three reasons that we will explain more extensively later in the article: First these two theories represent two dimensions of morality: the deontological and the aretaic dimension (Carr, 2006). Second, both theories are widely applied in schools. Finally these theories seem suitable examples of respectively a theory that aims at more than narrow morality (character education and the emphasis on moral goodness) and a theory that is restricted to narrow morality (deontological ethics and the emphasis on rules and obligations). In education these theories can be applied in various ways.

4. The programme is based on views of Dewey and Kohlberg. Dewey believed that schools have a fundamental role to play in promoting democracy in a society and that children learn through active participation in collective activities. Kohlberg investigated how schools could be turned into places where real-life moral judgement could be learned and practiced (Henry, 2001).

5. Brezinka (1994) makes a distinction between education as an intentional concept and education as an effect concept. In the former, education is seen as a means of achieving intended aims. When the intended aim is not realised, one cannot speak of ‘education’. In the latter, the effect of education, not the intention, is crucial. Thus, unintended pedagogical relations and situations may subsequently generate positive educational outcomes or effects (Brezinka, 1994).

6. Virtue ethics as a basis of character education and deontology are not discussed as specific methods or programmes for moral education but as two important theories that are applied in schools.

7. Aristotle suggests that the virtuous person has intellectual virtues too: capacities of understanding, judgment, and reasoning that enable people to find truth. Practical wisdom is the intellectual virtue of good judgment (Curren, 2010).

8. Virtues and the exercise of them are a necessary condition for flourishing but not sufficient. Other goods as health and wealth are important as well.

9. Aristotle uses ‘teleological’ to describe that something (a process, action, etc.) is directed at a final cause. In this article, including the part about Aristotle, we use ‘teleological’ to describe the meaning in or of life.

10. Note that this does not mean that the ontological views themselves are not controversial. We will return to this in the concluding section.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacomijn C. van der Kooij

Jacomijn C. van der Kooij, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Department of Research and Theory in Education, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Doret J. de Ruyter

Doret J. de Ruyter, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Department of Research and Theory in Education, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Siebren Miedema

Siebren Miedema, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Department of Research and Theory in Education and Faculty of Theology, Department of Praxis, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.