Recent reflection on the professional knowledge of teachers has been marked by a shift away from more reductive competence and skill-focused models of teaching towards a view of teacher expertise as involving complex context-sensitive deliberation and judgement. Much of this shift has been inspired by an Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom…

This paper reports findings from a study about school staff's perceptions of the preferences for social interaction that young people have with similar and different others. This tension was explored empirically using scenarios of moral dilemmas to conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with school staff from special and mainstream…

This paper considers the ethics of educational technology in terms of whether or not selected media and methods are beneficial to the teacher and student, or whether other motives and criteria determine the selection. Communications media have proven themselves to be powerful and efficient tools, used like "dynamite" for getting the most…

In this paper, we consider the relationship between the existence of private schools and public attitudes towards questions about educational provision. Data from the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey suggest that parents who choose to send children to private schools may become more entrenched in their support for more extensive forms of…

Launched in 1995, the GoodWork Project is a long-term, multi-site effort to understand the nature of good work across the professional landscape and to promote its achievement by relevant groups of students and professionals. In this essay, the authors review the goals and methods of the initial research project and its most salient findings. They…

Opposition to university fees is often framed as a defence of higher education as a "right" rather than a "privilege". However, the basis and nature of this right is unclear. This article presents a conceptual exploration of the question, drawing on an initial analysis of international law. An argument is put forward for a right to higher…

Cosmopolitanism has become an influential theory in both political and, increasingly, educational discourse. In simple terms cosmopolitanism can be understood as a response to the globalised and diverse world in which we live. Diverse in nature, cosmopolitan ideas come in many forms. The focus here is on what have been termed "strong" ethical…

In this paper I develop an alternative to prevailing moral development assumptions in early childhood education. Drawing on a Bakhtinian theoretical framework, theories of identity formation, and examples from my longitudinal research study of child-adult play, I reframe development as a lifelong process of coauthoring ethical identities that may…

One problem faced by teachers of citizenship is that "politics" is negatively valued. The concept is actually ambiguous in value. The paper sets out a neutral, a negative, and a positive meaning of the term. It then goes on to explore the way that even on the positive construction there can seem to be ethical problems with politics. This explains…

Qualities of personal character would appear to play a significant role in the professional conduct of teachers. It is often said that we remember teachers as much for the kinds of people they were than for anything they may have taught us, and some kinds of professional expertise may best be understood as qualities of character. After (roughly)…

In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills in England published its Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners (DfES, 2004). It was preceded by Excellence and Enjoyment: a strategy for primary schools (DfES, 003). "Excellence and enjoyment" seems to constitute an ambiguity, even a contradiction. The government's view is otherwise. It…

In 2004, the Department for Education and Skills in England published its Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners (DfES, 2004). It was preceded by Excellence and Enjoyment: a strategy for primary schools (DfES, 2003). "Excellence and enjoyment" seems to constitute an ambiguity, even a contradiction. The government's view is otherwise. It…

This paper sets out to explore apparent contradictions between claims or assumptions to the effect that: (i) teaching is a profession; (ii) good teaching involves the cultivation of positive personal relationships with pupils; (iii) professional relationships should be of an essentially formal or impersonal nature. It is argued that the very real…

We argue that the privatisation of education needs to be understood through an ethical lens, and suggest a broad framework through which privatisation policies and practices might be ethically audited. These policies and practices it is suggested are creating new ethical spaces and new clusters of goals, obligations and dispositions. Whatever the…

This paper considers the relationship between distributive justice and vocational education. It examines both the way that the very notion of a vocational education carries implications for distributive justice and how the meaning of justice itself might be shifting towards one of inclusion. The argument, which is based on the recent work of…