Character development
History of PI and Character Development at MLFTC
Innovation is the central focus for ASU, and because innovating in education involves making the kinds of decisions that will affect the lives and learning of students, educators, families and communities, it is imperative for us at MLFTC to forge a way of making decisions worthy of the trust and confidence of the people affected by them. Thus we wanted to create a clear, intentional process for how character and values could inform decision-making in education.
We engaged in a process of co-creating a shared language with faculty, staff, students, and community partners. We started with a framework from the Jubilee Centre at the University of Birmingham (Jubilee Framework, 2019). Our learning community was explicit in its belief that context matters, and we needed to “ASU-ize” this work. In other words, we needed to tie our notions of character — what it is and why it matters — to ASU’s defining characteristic of innovation, and thus Principled innovation was born. However, even as we are inspired by the literature around character and virtues, the faculty, staff and students at MLFTC share a view of character not as virtues they perceive to be dogmatic but as assets required to achieve purpose, and character education as a process learners actively pursue through practice and action.
Character development
Character is an “individual’s set of psychological characteristics that affect that person’s ability and inclination to function morally” (Berkowitz, 2002, p. 48), and thus character development can be traced back to its roots in moral education.
Principled Innovation draws from a wider and more critical perspective that moves beyond conventional thinking (c.f. Nucci, 2008) and can be linked to ideas of “post-conventional moral reasoning” which is the “willingness to apply morality to evaluate societal convention and the social system” (Nucci, 2016, p. 296), a pressing need if we are to realize equity and social justice.
Character is important both at the individual and social level, for developing self-efficacy and self-esteem, prosocial and democratic values, among other benefits (Berkowitz & Bier, 2004; DOE, 2005; Shields, 2011).
Within the Principled Innovation framework, character development has human flourishing as its primary purpose, and in current literature, this encompasses values education along with moral and character education (Berkowitz, 2002) as well as citizenship or civic education (Banks, 2017; Shields et al., 2013).
Four-dimensional model of character
The character of a person has mostly been studied through moral and civic dimensions, or through the roles we play as a good neighbor and good citizen respectively; however, it is also important to include intellectual and performance dimensions, all of which are overlapping and interrelated (Baehr, 2017; Shields, 2011). Baehr (2017) makes the case that while Aristotle distinguished between moral and intellectual virtues, all four dimensions highlighted above can be included in Aristotelian “virtues of character” (p. 1157).
At MLFTC, we view character as assets required to engage in principled practice and achieve purpose. We believe that when individuals practice Principled Innovation, their actions exhibit the empathy and humility inherent in moral character; the desire to serve others that is part of civic character; the truth-seeking impulse of intellectual character; and the problem-solving commitment of performance character. Our ethical framework for innovation and decision-making is thus guided by these four dimensions of character assets:
Moral character assets
Empathy, honesty, humility, and fairness help us keep sight of the irreducible dignity of all people and of the realness of their experience.
Civic character assets
Altruism, civility, inclusivity, and perspective taking help us serve and understand others. Ultimately, we thrive not by ourselves but in community.
Intellectual character assets
Critical thinking, truth-seeking, curiosity, and reflection keep us honest with ourselves and with one another. They help us acknowledge and resist bias, pursue truth and distinguish fact from opinion.
Performance character assets
Collaboration, creativity, courage, and resilience help us marry the quality of our actions to the strength of our convictions. They help us navigate uncertainty and transform good intentions into good outcomes.
Character Development in Educational Institutions
Character development is as important in higher educational institutions as it is in schools (Lamb et al., 2022), and while educators agree, studies show that they find it challenging to address moral and ethical concerns in the classroom and thus require a pedagogical framework for developing their self-efficacy in nurturing character development (Jubilee Framework, 2017; Shields et al., 2013).
Character Development Frameworks
How best do we develop character in students and moral reasoning in teachers? While the literature on character, particularly democratic citizenship, draws from Dewey and other philosophers, Aristotle’s conceptualization has shaped Principled Innovation in a significant way. Specifically, Principled Innovation draws from the Neo-Aristotelian model of moral development as outlined in the Jubilee Framework.
Aristotle on moral development
Aristotle’s concept of moral development focuses on eudaimonia, and thus includes the notion of well-being through a flourishing virtuous life (Jubilee Framework, 2017; Kristjansson, 2015). Virtues can be understood as the unique set of “skills that people need to live well” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 28). This conceptualization is particularly useful in the educational context as this model emphasizes the respect for and use of ordinary language to understand virtues, and the instrumental goal of higher grades is a byproduct rather than the aim of such moral development (Kristjansson, 2015).
Jubilee Framework for Character and Virtues
The Jubilee Framework (2017) draws directly from Aristotle’s conceptualization of moral development and thus forefronts human flourishing: character education is not about fixing individuals but creating “the social and institutional conditions within which all human beings can flourish” (p. 2). The Jubilee Framework provides multiple pathways to developing character and virtue in what is termed “the neo-Aristotelian model of moral development” (p. 2 and p. 7); it traces the trajectory of development from habituated to reflectively selected virtues. The Framework raises an important point about character education, that it is always ongoing in a school whether the school has an intentional or planned program for character education or not. Jubilee outlines eleven key principles for character education drawing from the beliefs that character is “educable” and important to learn. It includes practical wisdom as an “integrative virtue” bringing together the moral, civic, intellectual and performance virtues (See Four-dimensional model of character) and such wisdom is developed through critical reflection and experience. The framework conceptualizes “virtue literacy” as including the interrelated components of virtue perception, knowledge and understanding, and reasoning (p. 8).
Baehr, J. (2017). The varieties of character and some implications for character education. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 46, 1153–1161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0654-z
Banks, J. A. (2017). Failed citizenship and transformative civic education. Educational Researcher, 46(7), 366-377. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X17726741
Berkowitz, M. W. (2002). The science of character education. In W. Damon (Ed.), Bringing in a new era of character education, pp. 43-63. Hoover Institution Press Publication Number 508. http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/ files/documents/0817929622_43.pdf
Berkowitz, M. W., & Bier, M. C. (2004). Research-Based Character Education. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591(1), 72-85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716203260082
Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. (2017). A framework for character education in schools. https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Framework-for-Character-Education.pdf
Kristjánsson, K. (2015). Aristotelian character education. Routledge.
Lamb, M., Brant, J., & Brooks, E. (2022). Seven strategies for cultivating virtue in the university, in J. Brant, M. Lamb, and E. Brooks (Eds), Cultivating Virtue in the University, (pp. 115-156). Oxford University Press.
Nucci. L. (2008). Nice is not enough: Facilitating moral development. Pearson Education.
Nucci, L. (2016). Recovering the role of reasoning in moral education to address inequity and social justice. Journal of Moral Education, 45, 291-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2016.1167027
Shields, D. L. (2011). Character as the aim of education. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(8), 48-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171109200810
Shields, D., Althof, W., Berkowitz, M. W., & Navarro, V. (2013). What are we trying to achieve? Developing a framework for preparing character educators. In M. Sanger & R. Osguthorpe (Ed.), The Moral Work of Teaching: Preparing and Supporting Practitioners, (pp. 164-180). Teachers College Press.
US Department of Education (DOE). (2005). Character education: Our shared responsibility. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/character/brochure.pdf