Has Teacher Education Missed Out on the “Ethics Boom”? A Comparative Study of Ethics Requirements and Courses in Professional Majors of Christian Colleges and Universities

Abstract

Scholars of higher education have noted an increased attention to ethics within professional disciplines such as business and journalism. This paper explores the hypothesis that the field of education has not followed that pattern. To test this hypothesis, we review our findings from a study of curricula for professional majors in 156 Christian colleges and universities associated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the Lilly Fellows Network. Overall, we found that a majority of business, nursing, and social work majors were either offered or required to take an ethics course in their respective fields. In addition, ethics courses were required for a significant number of communication, engineering, and computer science majors. Of all the professional majors surveyed, however, education majors were the least likely to have optional or required ethics courses.

Notes

The Hastings Center survey of one-fourth of the accredited colleges and universities in the United States (623 out of 2,270) found that 89 (14%) had no ethics course at all.

We should note we were merely gathering evidence regarding American teacher education programs from a sample where, based on previous surveys, one might most expect courses in ethics education. Since our sample is comprised solely of religious colleges and universities, we do not argue that our results are generalizable to all teacher education programs in the United States. However, we do believe our study provides evidence that one would likely find similar trends.