The Values Cop-out and the Case for Character Development in Moral Education

Abstract

The Review of the Queensland School Curriculum has recommended the provision of a Draft Charter of Values for Queensland schools. The values charter is intended to underpin the curriculum content and processes also recommended by the Review. In this paper it is argued that the Review’s stance on values and moral education may turn out to be ineffectual because it fails to address the hard and central issue of how character is formed. The central theme is that forms of moral education which focus on the development of particular virtues are, by their very nature, action-oriented, and therefore have a better chance of affecting student behaviour than approaches confined to values education.