Ethical Education : Towards an Ecology of Human Development

With contributions from renowned global scholars, this book argues that ethical education should be directed at human relationships and help students become caring. This approach goes beyond the usual focus on character, virtues and moral codes. The chapters illustrate how this new vision can transform curriculum, pedagogy and classroom practice.

Ethical education should help students become more sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of others. However, the field is dominated by the teaching of moral values as a subject-matter, or by the fostering of character traits in students, or by moral reasoning. This book proposes an alternative to these limited moralistic approaches. It places human relationships at the core of ethical education, in its understanding of both ethics and education. With contributions from renowned international scholars, this approach is laid out in three parts. Part I develops the underlying theory of ethics and education; Part II focuses on the relevant pedagogical principles, and Part III provides illustrations of emergent innovative ethical educational practices in worldwide schools. Against a backdrop of divisiveness and apathy, the innovative practices described in this book show how a new vision for ethical education might be centred around caring for students'' well-being.