From Passive Observers to Moral and Democratic Leaders
Education for democratic citizenship encompasses cognitive as well as moral characteristics. The responsibility for cultivating these democratic virtues is placed upon the shoulders of educators who are required to create and encourage democratic social life. These characteristics are constantly challenged in present society, in which subject-matter goals and instrumental skills are gaining more importance than socially-valued goals, thus tipping the scales in favour of cognitive skills. Promoting cognitive skills by itself cannot sufficiently influence the formation of a social disposition and could ultimately create, in Dewey`s words, ‘egoistic specialists’ who lack the moral and democratic virtues needed for the creation of genuine social life. This book emphasizes the pedagogical task of education in this regard, and strives to pay greater attention to the obligations of education as a moral socializing agent. This book offers four perspectives on which the education system needs to focus its attention in order to enhance democratic and moral values: Teachers’ and students’ concepts of moral and democratic education; curriculum design; democratic teaching instructional methods; and teacher education. This volume provides a valuable text for a wide audience of students, teachers, policy-makers, curriculum designers and teacher educators to use as an updated reference book for pedagogical and research purposes.
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