The Foundations and Futures of Education series focuses on key emerging issues in education as well as continuing debates within the field. The series is inter-disciplinary, and includes historical, philosophical, sociological, psychological and comparative perspectives on three major themes: the purposes and nature of education; increasing interdisciplinary within the subject; and the theory-practice divide.
Around the world there is concern about the climate of values in which young people are growing up. Liberal ideas about personal morality and the value of individual choice are spreading worldwide, but often meeting resistance from more traditional values. Everywhere people look to education to promote the right values and help stem the tide of values that are seen as threatening. But what is it that we should be expecting education to do?
This book, written by a philosopher of education, casts new light on that question by seeing values education, not as a separate activity within schools, but as an aspect of education that both reflects the surrounding climate of values and can help to change it. Graham Haydon argues that all of us - whether as teachers, parents, students or citizens - share in a responsibility for the quality of that ethical environment.
We must ensure that what happens in schools will:
· enable young people to appreciate the diversity of our ethical environment
· help them find their way through its complexities
· contribute to developing a climate of values that is desirable for all.
This book shows that values education is too demanding to be left to parents and too important to be entrusted to government initiatives. For teachers engaged in values education - including those teaching citizenship, personal and social education, or religious education - this book brings a fresh perspective to what they are doing, within a realistic view of their responsibilities. For students of education it shows that practical issues can be illuminated by insights from philosophy.