Values Education

Barbara S. Stengel

Values education suggests a range of stances toward the broad goal of moral development in young people. It may express a desire for intentional education about values to complement education about facts or imply an insistence that education (and schooling) be viewed as value-laden. Some would argue that the term is redundant, that education is always about values. Values education is also used today throughout the English-speaking world as a synonym for character education, broadly construed as the inculcation or development of prosocial character traits in children and adolescents. As a distinctive approach to moral education, however, values education is typically associated with values clarification and, less often, with a family of other efforts that share a focus on critical reflection in the process of moral development. This entry looks at values education, its critique, and some alternatives. Values clarification was born with the publication of Raths, Harmin, and Simon's ...

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