Resources

Various concepts have been used to describe the twenty-first century – an age of hyper-globalization, post-truth, the 4th Industrial Revolution. Youths are more digitally connected than before and more civically active. Within such a context, teachers today play a fundamental role in cultivating fundamental character dispositions in students that will enable them to be more empathetic, discerning and ethically conscious.

In this presentation, the speakers report on findings from a survey on Character Education pedagogy in secondary schools as part of a two-year project on enacting values pedagogy funded by the Ministry of Education and managed by the National Institute of Education. The survey’s design was based on a character capabilities framework developed from a comprehensive literature review which details how this occurs across three key levels – awareness, analytical, agency – and in connection to personal and relational dimensions of character. A key aspect of the survey was to explore how teachers infuse character education in their various subject disciplines. Key findings indicate that teachers have moved away from a didactic approach to teaching values, a greater focus is placed on making students become aware of good values than analyzing how values are contextualized and constructed, and there are different character education pedagogical emphases between teachers of different subjects. The presentation offers suggestions on how teachers can more intentionally infuse and scaffold character education in their teaching subjects.