The JME’s 50-year contribution to moral education: A content analysis 1971-2021

ABSTRACT

In celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the Journal of Moral Education (JME) in 2021, this study explores moral education research trends and changes as reflected in JME from 1971 to 2021, with special attention to significant changes in the last decade, a period of rapid digitalization and increasingly complex socio-cultural contexts, both local and global. Moral education trends, as reflected in the 1261 articles published in JME, were investigated using content analysis of disciplinary approaches, keywords, research methodologies, as well as the national and gender backgrounds of the first authors and JME editorial teams and trustees. The main findings point to specific and important issues, central research topics, and neglected areas in moral education and development over the past five decades. The review offers JME and the field of moral education some considerations for the development of moral education, observations on research method paradigms, insights on gender equity, and attention to cultural diversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Content analysis
• Journal of Moral Education
• moral education

Acknowledgments

I should like to thank the following for their support in this project:

1.Three anonymous JME referees for their valuable comments and Professor Emeritus Stephen J. Thoma for his suggestions on the draft manuscript.

2. Scholar coders: Professor Yen-Hsin Chen, Professor Yi-Lin Chen, Dr. Mei-Chen Chu, Dr. Li-Min Lee, Professor Yen-Yi Lee, Dr. Yu-Chi Li, Dr. Hsiao-Ling Lin, Dr. Hsin-Chang Tsai and graduate students: Wei-Yao Chuang, Guan-Ling Huang, Yen-Ting Kuo, Ying-Hsiu Lin.

3. Research assistants: Yang-Li Chang, Chia-Chen Lee, Yu Hsiao, Li-Chia Hsu.

4. I should like to acknowledge the support and critique of my colleague, Dr. Monica J. Taylor (Editor of JME (1976-2011), JME Trustee, Honorary President of the Asia-Pacific Network for Moral Education, and President of the Association for Moral Education (1998-2001)), in the presentation of this paper and for our joint work on the 40th JME review, upon which this paper draws.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The AME, with which the JME had an informal association since the mid-1970s, has been formally affiliated since 1998; and the APNME, with which the JME was closely associated from its foundation in 2006, has been formally affiliated since 2018. ‘Affiliation’ for AME and APNME members includes a discounted subscription to JME and, additionally for AME, normally the publication of the annual Kohlberg Memorial Lecture in JME.

2. Since there have been two changes of editor during the last decade it might have been informative to consider how editorship may or may not have influenced changes. However, as there is an overlap with a legacy of papers for publication and commissioned SIs at the handover of editorship this is not clear cut. Thus, it seemed more useful to take chronological decades as the basis for analysis and to comment on particular changes. External indices, such as citations, impact factors and leading scholar indices, were not included in this study because the focus was on content analysis and the external indices data are relatively new and hence incomplete for the past 50 years.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angela Chi-Ming Lee

Angela Chi-Ming Lee is a Distinguished Professor of National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan. She has served as a JME editorial board member for more than 17 years. She is interested in theoretical and empirical research on moral development, moral atmosphere and the development and evaluation of professional curricula of civic and moral education She has published seven books (in Chinese) and more than one hundred papers in Chinese and English.