The Knightly Virtues programme [offers]…the opportunity to creatively explore great stories of knights and heroes and the virtues to which they aspired…The hypothesis is that the traditional chivalric ideals of knighthood provided a particularly noble and exalted distillation of moral ideals that are no less educationally and otherwise relevant to today than they were at the time of their conception.(Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, n.d.)
Eustace learns a powerful character lesson when he is transformed into a dragon.(Narnian Virtues: A Character Education English Curriculum, n.d.)
‘Grit’, ‘resilience’ and ‘character’ are current buzzwords for a number of politicians, educators and authors, especially in the UK and the US. A number of bestselling books have been published by north American authors in recent years praising the benefits of individual character development, including Brooks’s (2016) The Road to Character, which urges readers to focus on developing what he calls the ‘eulogy virtues’, i.e. those character strengths we would like to be remembered for rather than the ‘résumé virtues’, i.e. the achievements and skills which lead to success in the jobs market; Tough’s (2013) How Children Succeed, which argues that ‘success’ in life is brought about through perseverance, curiosity and self-control; Dweck’s (2012) Mindset, which emphases the importance of hard work, training and resilience for academic achievement; and Duckworth’s (2016) Grit , which claims that persistence and resilience is a bigger predictor of success in life than IQ or talent. Education for character has risen up the political agenda in a number of countries, especially the US and the UK, as governments and educators have sought to find ways to improve children’s life chances and address various societal challenges. Schools are viewed by advocates of character education as having a crucial role to play in improving individual character, and this is regarded as the best means to develop a better society.
The US has seen the development of the Knowledge is Power Programme (KIPP) schools, which have been running since the mid-1990s and which operate in deprived areas and place character development at the heart of their ethos. And both Republican and Democrat politicians have expressed support for character education. The then US President, Bill Clinton, stated in his 1996 State of the Union address that he was ‘challenging all schools’ in the US ‘to teach character education’ (Clinton 1996) and George W. Bush significantly increased funding for character education programmes when he was President (Hudd 2004: 113). Considerable interest in character education has also been seen in various other countries, including Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan (e.g., Arthur et al. 2017; Cranston et al. 2010; Kristjánsson 2015; Tan and Tan 2014; Winton 2008a). In the UK, a number of politicians have expressed strong support for character education, most notably former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan (e.g., Morgan 2017). Damian Hinds, Education Secretary between January 2018 and July 2019, also made clear his commitment to character education, arguing that it is essential that schools instil ‘character and resilience’ in young people to enable them to deal with the challenges of life. Indeed, in May 2019 Hinds set up ‘an advisory group on how we can best support schools in their work to build character’ (Hinds 2019) viewing this as a key way of improving social mobility (Snowdon 2019).
In this book, we take a critical look at this trend, challenging the principles and practices championed by those who promote the deliberate development of individual character-building in schools (e.g., Arthur 2003, 2010; Kristjánsson 2015). We build on an existing critical literature (e.g., Kohn 1997; Purpel 1997; Winton 2008b) and an emerging critique of character education in the British context (see Allen and Bull 2018; Bates 2019; Kisby 2017; Spohrer and Bailey 2018; Suissa 2015; Walsh 2018 for criticisms of particular aspects). This book critically analyses the theoretical ideas underpinning character education and the teaching resources produced by character educators in Britain, who put forward the development of ‘character’ as the way to address a very wide range of social problems. 1 As Davies et al. (2005: 349) put it: ‘Almost nothing is beyond the scope of character education.’ However, we strongly reject the idea of character education as some sort of panacea for various social ills, real or imagined. Indeed, as we argue in the book, character education in Britain is best viewed as deeply flawed in both theory and practice.
This book also draws attention to the role played by the controversial philanthropic organisation the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), which has provided, and continues to provide, almost all of the funding that supports the work underpinning the development of character education in Britain, thereby enabling one organisation, created by one very wealthy individual, to exert significant influence over government policy, educational practice, and academic networks in this area. In particular, the JTF has contributed very substantial financial assistance to two major initiatives in Britain, first, the creation of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham, which is the leading centre for the promotion of character education in the UK, and second, the Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum project at the University of Leeds. In the book, we examine the character education teaching resources produced by the Jubilee Centre that focus on the actions of heroic, historical figures and the material produced by the Narnian Virtues project at Leeds, which draws on C. S. Lewis’s Narnia novels to develop a character education curriculum, as well as resources produced by other character educators.
There is a substantial academic literature discussing character education, which variously addresses the underlying rationale for character education, its relationship to virtue ethics, the pedagogic strategies that could be employed, the connections to other educational agendas, the strengths and criticisms , and the possibilities for evaluating its success. As a consequence, it can be quite difficult to maintain clarity about what exactly is being defended, and the debate can become rather diffuse. For example, Kristjánsson (2015) accepts some of the criticisms levelled against character education as being true of some US-based programmes, but not of the Aristotelian character education he promotes in the UK. One of the benefits of examining the specific examples of character education in the UK, is that it helps to overcome the vagueness that is associated with the construction of theoretical models. Instead of engaging in philosophical discussions about what it could be, this book largely focuses on critiquing what is happening in the UK—what does policy actually say, what does government and philanthropic money actually fund, and what resources are being used in schools? In addressing ourselves to current practices in the UK, we aim to provide a case study of what character education looks like, and also to consider the nature of character education as it is encountered by teachers and students. However, our hope is that this constrained case study will also shed light on some of those more abstract discussions about character education in general.
The Structure of the Book
The book is structured around three core sections. In Part I (Chapters 2 and 3), we set the scene for this national case study by exploring what character education is and why it is problematic, before examining how it has emerged in UK education policy, and which of the problems appear to be most acute in this policy framework. In Part II (Chapters 4 and 5), we turn to review specific examples of character education projects in the UK, with a view to considering what kinds of things teachers and students do, and what they are likely to learn, when they enact character education policy . In Part III (Chapter 6), we consider citizenship education as an alternative way to pursue some of the espoused aims of character education and argue that it actually addresses some of the same concerns far more effectively. Throughout, we engage with the research about impact wherever it is available to ensure that the discussion is grounded in reality and reflects the experiences of children and young people. Finally, in our conclusion (Chapter 7), we provide a brief synopsis of the arguments developed in the book and reflect on what can be lea...