Overview

We have put together a collection of research articles in the field of Character Education and moral development which are useful to the educators, parents, teachers and policy makers.

Changing the Character of Schools: Promoting Servant Leadership Virtues to Solve Internationally Relevant Problems in Education.

This book chapter discusses the need, history, philosophy, and research behind Servant Leadership, and its potential for meeting the challenges faced by schools in various contexts. Further, the authors describe the development and implementation of a particular character-based Servant Leadership model, Cultivating Virtue for Leadership (CViL), in the U.S.A and for Secondary schools located in Kenya.

The authors include Director of Character Education Programme, Peter Kingori together with Dr. Melinda Bier, Deborah O’Reilly and Prof. Marvin Berkowitz from the Center for Character and Citizenship, University of Missouri-St. Louis; and Dr. Satabdi Samtani from Louisiana State
University.

The Chapter is published in the Routledge International Handbook of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Character Development. Further details, and the Chapter itself can be found here

What Works in Character Education: A research-driven guide for educators

This article by Prof. Marvin Berkowitz and Dr. Melinda Bier from the Center for Character and Citizenship offers an extensive review of the research on effective practices of Character Education. The researchers concluded that effective Character education tends to include peer interactive pedagogical strategies, professional development, direct training of social and emotional competencies, family/ community participation, integration into the academic curriculum and community service/service learning among others. Further details, and the article itself can be found here

Teaching in your PRIMED

The Federal Commission on School Safety (USA) recommended the Center for Character and Citizenship ‘PRIMED model’ as a key framework in teaching Character Education Program. The PRIMED model highlights six pillars of effective Character Education: Prioritizing Character Education, Relationship building, Intrinsic motivation, Modelling good character, Empowerment and Developmental Pedagogy. Further details, and the article itself can be found here

Character Education and Parent Involvement

This article by Prof. Marvin Berkowitz and Dr. Melinda Bier from the Center for Character and Citizenship underscores the need for schools in engaging parents as partners in their work of teaching character education.  Parents play a key role in nurturing good character in the life of their children. Further details, and the article itself can be found here.

Raising Ethical Children

This article by Prof. Marvin Berkowitz from the Center for Character and Citizenship emphasizes on the need of optimal parenting with the goal of raising moral children. Berkowitz ‘Fab 5’ parenting strategies include Demandingness, Empowerment, Nurturance, Induction and Modeling. Further details, and the article itself can be found here.