Understanding and Facilitating Moral Learning in Adults

Abstract

The concept of moral learning, curiously absent from the literature of “adult education”, is explored in this paper. First, the contention that adult education is a field of moral practice is developed and two established modes of practice, “acknowledging learners’ experience” and “using discussion circles” are examined and seen as complex and flawed. Five core processes of moral learning are described, and critical reflection on the validity of the moral norms assimilated in childhood and adolescence, for the contexts of adult life, is found to be central to moral learning in adults. Finally, the paper ends with two caveats about its own scheme of moral learning.