Famous people can positively influence young people by serving as examples of how to be a good person, but very little is known about which famous people youth look up to and why they do so. We coded and analyzed open-response data from 596 adolescents (M[subscript age] = 14.09 years; 58.5% girls, 57.5% White) in the northeastern United States to…

This study aimed to explore Colombian fifth-graders views about people, events, and situations involved in their gratitude experiences. The sample consisted of 120 fifth-grade children from three mixed-gender schools (one public, two private) in Bogotá, Colombia. The study used a child-centered methodology that involved a novel combination of…

The association between prosocial behavior and adolescents' social class--defined as one's parents' position in society assessed in terms of education, income, and occupation status--is far from conclusive and the moderators of the link have not been fully researched. Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development…

Justice is at the center of many definitions of character across various lines of research, yet there is little empirical research on how the justice of contexts can foster character virtues. The current study draws from a sample of 1,865 Brazilian fourth and fifth graders across two time points in 60 schools (42.7% White; 48.3% male). A…

One of the overarching problems of the world today is that too many people see themselves as dominating other groups of people, and dominating nature. That is a root problem. And thus part of a core solution builds from Kohlberg's commitment to a universal moral orientation, though extended to include not only all people but the more-than-human…

In order to help students become scientifically literate citizens, science education should allow them to gain a more concrete understanding of the potential social and ethical impacts of scientific and technological change. Using Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an imaginative tool, we designed simple hands-on activities and a digital narrative…

The purpose of the present study was to explore the issue of a perceived lack of cohesion in moral education in mainland China, and place it in an international academic context, by comparing three student cohorts: grade three and grade six in Primary School and the third year in Junior High School. The study employed mixed research methods;…

Restorative justice pedagogies, such as dialogue or peacemaking circles, allow students to learn how to share and listen with peers, set boundaries for moral dialogue, and engage constructively with each other's perspectives. This study is part of a larger project focused on teachers' professional development and circle implementation. The focus…

This mixed-methods study is an exploration of fifth and sixth grade students' interactions with an online game called "Quandary," a comic-book-esque game aimed at stimulating ethical decision-making. Building on the domain-based moral education framework, researchers designed and implemented a short-term intervention in three classrooms…

Although prosocial behavior has been regarded as a critical predictor of positive peer relationships and teacher-student relationships, more interventional studies are needed to more confidently determine causality. Dizi Gui instruction, a Confucian classical approach, was used in the current research as a prosocial behavior intervention to test…

This paper focuses on a recently conceptualized construct--sense of authentic inner-compass (AIC)--and two parenting practices promoting it: basic autonomy-support (BAS) and inherent value-demonstration (IVD). Rooted in self-determination theory, sense of AIC refers to the perception that we have self-guiding values, aspirations, and goals, which…

The highest form of virtuous behavior in the Aristotelian virtue ethics approach to character education involves practical wisdom, or "phronesis," which allows an individual to act in the right way about the right things for the right reasons. Here, we use our experiences with social-emotional and character development (SECD) in…

This study examined the application of Lesson Study for professional development (PD) for a domain approach to moral education. A comparison was drawn between the effects of Lesson Study with 17 teachers and 144 students representing middle schools in the same district as a prior study employing intensive traditional PD. In Lesson Study, groups of…

Two influential tragic incidents in 2011 are discussed in connection with the cultivation of morality in Japan. One is the suicide of a junior high school student due to bullying in his school--a scandal which eventually led to the country's redefinition of the status of moral education in the school curriculum. The other is the huge earthquake…

Conceptions of the "good citizen" have implications for defining the goals of civic education and formulating civic education programs. In Mainland China, the concept of "good citizen" is clearly defined by the authorities in the official curriculum guidelines. Teachers' perceptions of a "good citizen", however, may…