عنوان

'Silent Citizenship Educators' in Dutch Catholic Schools:

LA115840

انگلیسی

'Silent Citizenship Educators' in Dutch Catholic Schools:

[Article]

Exploring Teachers' Moral Beliefs About Citizenship in Relation to Their Conduct of Citizenship Education

Frank Willems, Eddie Denessen, Chris Hermans, et al.

Leiden

Brill

In this article we adopt a virtue ethical approach to study teachers' moral beliefs about citizenship and their relation to two kinds of teacher behaviour in citizenship education: (1) teachers' modelling behaviour, and (2) the way they arrange moral classroom discussions. We believe that a virtue ethical approach would appeal especially to religious schools, which is why we conducted our study in Catholic primary schools. Two hunderd and three teachers at 20 Catholic schools were involved. Teachers' beliefs and behaviours were defined and operationalised from a community-centred perspective, because we expected that perspective to fit the context of a Catholic school. We found that these teachers indeed hold community-centred views on citizenship, the more so if they frequently attend church. Another important finding is that teachers do not necessarily show and share their beliefs about citizenship with their students. From a virtue ethical point of view, however, they should not be afraid to do so. As moral educators, especially in a religious school, teachers are allowed, even obliged, to name, explain and defend their beliefs and values. In this article we adopt a virtue ethical approach to study teachers' moral beliefs about citizenship and their relation to two kinds of teacher behaviour in citizenship education: (1) teachers' modelling behaviour, and (2) the way they arrange moral classroom discussions. We believe that a virtue ethical approach would appeal especially to religious schools, which is why we conducted our study in Catholic primary schools. Two hunderd and three teachers at 20 Catholic schools were involved. Teachers' beliefs and behaviours were defined and operationalised from a community-centred perspective, because we expected that perspective to fit the context of a Catholic school. We found that these teachers indeed hold community-centred views on citizenship, the more so if they frequently attend church. Another important finding is that teachers do not necessarily show and share their beliefs about citizenship with their students. From a virtue ethical point of view, however, they should not be afraid to do so. As moral educators, especially in a religious school, teachers are allowed, even obliged, to name, explain and defend their beliefs and values.

2012

77-98

Journal of Empirical Theology

25/1

1570-9256

Catholic education

citizenship education

civic virtues

moral classroom discussions

moral education

teacher beliefs

virtue ethics

virtue modelling

Chris Hermans

Eddie Denessen

Frank Willems

Paul Vermeer

10.1163/157092512X635752

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y