Topic: Values: The Return to Education
Hartmut von Hentig
The Ethos of Upbringing –What are its elementary components?
The actual or supposed increase in disorderly behavior among children and adolescents has given rise to the claim that “upbringing” has been neglected in comparison with “education” and “training” – especially in the latter´s large institutions, the state schools. Endeavours to create a balance between the three tasks lead ever more frequently to somewhat archaic recommendations of strictness (“discipline”), guidance (“authority”), and stringency (“laying down limits”), which are passed off as being original and fundamental elements of the process of upbringing. This leads us to ask: what are the elementary components of upbringing? By drawing on the ancient Greeks and by going beyond Wolfgang Klafki´s differentiation between “fundamental”, “elementary” and “categorial”, the author defines elements as necessary, neither divisible nor exchangable components of a whole. He describes and substantiates ten such elements which together make up the basic position, the ethos, of upbringing.
Gertrud Nunner-Winkler
Processes of Moral Learning and Understanding
Other than it has been decribed in classical models, the building-up of morals is not a uniform process with an always clearly dominant learning mechanism (conditioning, internalization, construction of rules), rather, it is the result of the interaction of diverse learning processes. Through implicit learning processes, in particular, (e.g. telling from moral linguistic usage or from interactive experience) children from an early age acquire an appropriate congnitive understanding of moral target values. The acquisition of formally operational cognitive competences during adolescence allows for an increasingly more appropriate moral judgement, however, it simultaneously promotes an – initially radically exaggerated – moral relativism. Moral motivation is built up only slowly. A committment to morals developed within the family does not remain stable throughout a person´s life. Other influences (such as the composition of the circle of friends, the democratic participation in school affairs, the moral integration of the community, expectations related to sex roles, a political life free of corruption) decide on how important morals are to an adolescent. For, in contrast to the (historically proceeding) forms of early internalization or habitualization, the modern form of moral motivation is initiated through understanding and is based on voluntary self-committment which can be revoked during adolescence.
Matthias Gronemeyer
How does evil find its way into man – and how does it find its way out again? Aphilosophical commentary on Serkan A. and Spyridon L.
At present, neuropathology is undergoing a boom, i.e. the attempt to put delinquent behavior down to malfunctions of the perpetrator´s brain. This approach supersedes the environmentalism of the 1960s and 70s, which considered above all the perpetrator ´s social environment to be responsible for the latter´s delinquency. Both positions consitute an attack on the concept of freedom of will, which is a prerequisite of our morality and thus of the moral attribution of actions. The author defends the Kantian position of freedom of will against the attacks mentioned and pleads for an enlightened (self-)education on the basis of Artistotelian ethics.
Margit Stein
Approaches to Moral Education at Secondary Schools and their Connection with Structural Conditions of Schooling
The development of value orientations among young people as well as approaches to value promotion in school have only rarely been the focus of empirical pedagogical research. So far, most surveys examined how schools develop subject-related competences and how they trigger learning development in teaching-learning-processes, as is shown by the renaissance of research on school achievement and teaching. Within the framework of this study on values, schools (n = 576) were asked about school-related structural conditions, educational objectives, value projects, and the experiences involved. The structural conditions of a school - such as type of school, characteristics of the student body, and problematic constellations at the individual school - show a significant connection with the school´s objectives and the possibilities of approaches to a moral education.
Thomas Gensicke
Adolescent Zeitgeist and Change in Values
The author examines the long-term change in values among adolescents in comparison to the total population. On the one hand, results reveal a comparatively stable adolescent system of values which does not differ fundamentally from that of the overall population. However, under the heading of “consumerism”, problematic trends become apparent, too. The changes in the conditions of socialization children and adolescents are faced with will have the more unfavorable consequences the greater the distance from education and the lower the social stratum of their social origins. This finding becomes even more explosive due to the fact that the German educational system puts comparatively large obstacles in the way of the social advancement of adolescents from the lower social strata (and among these above all of adoelscents with migration background).
Esther Dominique Klein/Svenja Mareike Kühn/Isabell van Ackeren/Rainer Block
How central are centrally standardized exams? Final exams at the end of the upper secondary school level compared both nationally and internationally
In almost all of the German Laender, the centrally standardized „Abitur” (school leaving certificate and university entrance qualification) has been introduced as an instrument of standard maintenance; however, the differences in its implementation are often quite significant. The procedures are described and compared with regard to specific categories and are then, in turn, compared to 15 OECD countries with centrally standardized exit exams at the end of the upper secondary school level. This reference-guided perspective reveals the siginificance of the degree of standardization of exams as opposed to the concept of “centralization” with regard to differentiating analyses of the effects of control achieved through this reform element on the level of both school-related and teaching-related processes.
Rolf Strietholt/Ewald Terhart
Assessing Student Teachers –An explorative analysis of instruments for assessment in the second phase of teacher training
The issue of the possibilities of a reliable assessment of the professional competences of teachers is being discussed controversially not only in the scientific debate but also within teacher associations and among the public. This debate often neglects the fact that an assessment of (prospective) teachers has been taking place for decades: namely within the framework of the second phase of training, the “Referendariat” (teacher training) or teaching practice. Following a short survey of recent research results regarding the present situation in the “second phase”, the authors report on a research project analyzing the assessment patterns and manuals used by instructors (heads of departments, heads of seminars for advanced students) during the “second phase”. On the basis of 201 assessment patterns and 87 additional questionnaires on the development and application of these patterns, a survey is given on the practice of assessment during the “Referendariat” (teacher training). The results show, among other things, that a large part of these instruments is based on a concept of the teaching profession focussing on instruction, meaning that the breadth of the standards for teacher training is not depicted. With every second instrument it remains unclear how the individual act of assessment is actually carried out. In none of the cases was the test-diagnostic quality of the instruments actually verified. All in all, it becomes clear that with regard to the quality of the processes and instruments of assessment applied during the second phase of teacher training there exists an urgent need for further development.
Book Reviews
New Books