Of Good Character by James Arthur

Of Good Character by James Arthur

There has been across the world a resurgence of interest in 'values education' (values education is known internationally by a number of names) at school education, research and policy levels. In Australia the Australian Values Education projects led to the government initiating a number of large scale curriculum developments and resources projects as part of its expressed policy to introduce values education programmes in all schools. UNESCO has its own values education programme, entitled Living Values that functions in 84 countries. In the United Kingdom, the introduction of the National Curriculum in England has led to a major effort to develop what is variously described as a 'moral' or 'ethical' perspective. In England, the education of the moral child has been both an underpinning aspiration of the National Curriculum and a focus of particular curricular subjects, most notably citizenship education. The purpose of this book is to make a contribution to this emerging field, and to do so in two ways. First, it presents a substantial body of empirical evidence, the results of the largest UK study to date of what parents, pupils and teachers are thinking and doing in the area of moral education and, more specifically, 'character education'. Second, it seeks to elucidate more clearly what those involved in the debate mean by the terms used. The terms used in relation to moral and character education are not fixed, and are sometimes used apparently in different senses, by different contributors, and for different purposes. As a result of these two features, the present work offers some suggestions about possible ways forward in developing concrete proposals for moral education, in particular in identifying an appropriate language that can be used by practitioners in situations 'on the ground'.

Professor James Arthur, OBE, is the founder and director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues in the University of Birmingham. He was previously Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor (Staffing) 2015-2019 and Head of the School of Education 2010-2015.

Dame Julia Cleverdon served for 16 years as Chief Executive of Business in the Community, and then as Special Advisor to The Prince's Charities from 2007 to 2013. She co-founded Step Up To Serve and the #iwill campaign, following a review she and Amanda Jordan completed for the Prime Minister. She has held voluntary roles chairing Teach First, the Transform Society, the National Literacy Trust, Vice Chair of the Fair Education Alliance and Board member of NCS Trust and the Careers & Enterprise Company.

Baroness Nicky Morgan of Cotes is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2019 to 2020. A member of the Conservative Party, she was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Loughborough from 2010 until 2019. She served as Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities from 2014 until 2016.

Lord James O'Shaughnessy is a former Downing Street aide. He was Director of Policy to Prime Minister David Cameron from May 2010 to October 2011 and was created a life peer in 2015 before being appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care in December 2016. He founded the charity Floreat Education, dedicated to building character and the virtues in schools.

Sir Anthony Seldon, British educator and contemporary historian, is Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham. As an author, he is known in part for his political biographies of John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. He was Head of Brighton College and headmaster of Wellington College, one of Britain's coeducational independent boarding schools. He is the co-founder of Action for Happiness and Chair of the National Archives Trust.