Moral Education

This chapter positions moral education as concordant with the moral component of religion, but does not equate moral education with socialization into the particular norms or conventions of any specific faith tradition. Research findings have revealed that deeply religious children and adolescents make a similar set of distinctions between religious conventions and moral prescriptions regarding fairness and the welfare of others. This research forms the basis of a critique of the proposition that religiously devout people maintain a separate “morality of divinity.” The chapter reviews research on moral education designed to stimulate development of these universal moral understandings of fairness and welfare through developmental approaches to classroom rules and discipline together with practices that foster responsive engagement and transactive forms of discourse to stimulate the development of a critical moral perspective. This developmental approach to moral education is compatible with the basic moral core of religious systems but may be viewed as challenging to religious traditions and customs that sustain social inequalities.