Presuppositions in moral education discourse: Developing an analytic framework and applying it to several moral education traditions.

摘要

Moral education is ever more important in our schools today, but the various moral education traditions make it difficult to decide which tradition best serves our purpose and population. This dissertation develops and uses an original analytic framework to narrow the choices of moral education curricula. The analytic framework introduced presuppositions that expounded upon one's center of value or source of moral authority, the nature of people and their capacity for rational thought, the nature of society, the time orientation of tradition, and the resulting morality in action. The analytic framework was then applied to ten notable traditions: Catholic religious education, values clarification, Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental theory, five multicultural education traditions (Teaching the Exceptional and Culturally Different, Human Relations, Single-Group Studies, Multicultural Education, and Education that is Multicultural and Social Reconstructionist) reviewed by Sleeter & Grant, and Skinner's theory of behavior modification. This study presents the analytic framework in depth and offers a brief narrative of its application across traditions. The resulting synthesis offers a review of commonalities, differences, surprises, and finally, a proposal that an existing presupposition stands as the defining one in regard to differentiating among moral education traditions.