Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education

Abstract

In recent years “character education” has emerged in the United States as a leading term for school efforts to implement programmes in moral values, ethics and citizenship education. This paper sets out 11 principles to guide schools as they plan their character education initiative. These include: issues such as core ethical values and their justification, a definition of character, a comprehensive and intentional approach to developing good character, developing the school as a caring community, the relationship between character education and the academic curriculum and evaluation.