Hello Johan, learning of values is very important.  Here, we slot this into Moral classes in school, although students learn this mainly at home or at a religious institution.  This learning is important because it affects the emotional quotient of a student, becomes a basis for our attitudes, and often stays with us until adulthood.  We remember that we gain employment based on hard skills, but current employers are looking for soft skills, ability to collaborate and get on with colleagues, employees with good values.  We have heard that we are hired for our skills, but we may be fired for our attitudes. Thanks.

Hi Miranda.

That is a good angle - the need in a workplace for values and "soft skills". I think that is true for the Norwegian workplaces too - there are an increasing focus on the attitudes and the value system of employees.

Hello Johan,

a very good question and challenging in respect to metrics. I agree with Miranda's sentiments and I'd say that most educational establishments include some sort of vision or goal statement about the values they aim to impart to students.

Measuring the outcome is probably rare as I think this sits in the 'too hard' basket of most institutions, including education ministries. One reference  from Australia (secondary school level) is at http://www.curriculum.edu.au/values/val_vasp_final_report,30121.html. The project and final report were interesting but in my view failed to produce useful indicators.

The Economist provides regular updates on employment and salary scales of alumni from major universities. I wondered if a similar sort of statistic could be produced from alumni occupation and philanthropy lists? The 'commercial in confidence' barriers might be fairly extreme but you might be able to get statistics on alumni 'community engagement' and philanthropy from some institutions. I also wondered whether some of the larger NGO's or philanthropic foundations may be able to provide stats on donors?

Voting is voluntary  in most countries and of course access to polling data is restricted but sample polling reports, if published, might provide some basic data to from which to extrapolate engagement in governance. 

In last resort you could infer impact of education value from the good governance indicators (e.g. from WB) in a country. You'd have to take account of the average lag between leaving education and attaining some sort of leadership  position in the community.but it could be possible (access to data) for some countries.

Good luck, Lorinne

Like Aristotle, I believe that moral acts are primarily based on values, not on learning.

Paul

Values can be - crucial this, sometimes - incorporated into a habitus when a person admires the virtuous actions of the Other. But I still maintain, like the ancient sage I cited, that one cannot teach values. They must be felt in the heart, not reasoned in the head. Paul

Thank you Lorinne, Paul, Maryam and Harshvardhan and for the views and relevant documents. I also look for articles and material on definitions of the concept of values.

Values, as with our first language, are 'soaked up' from the models we have regular access to.  That is why it is so important for schools to model the values they hope to respect and pass on.  If students are to value, say, "freedom," then they must have reasonable and plentiful options through which they can exercise that value in their daily practices.  Such values are seen (or not), then, in their everyday actions.

This discussion on values is very interesting and  has enlightened me on the importance of values.  The reference materials have really been interesting  to read . I still have a concern and that is how do those of us who work for  Christian universities promote these same values when we are struggling to maintain out basic values. We must remember that values are not static entities and must be understood that they are an integral dimension of  the shifting terrain of contemporary humane life.  Change rapid change is occurring today on every level of society and in every part of the world. 

For those of us from the developing world, we are  seeing  a radical change in the value system of students, who cannot understand that the very clients they are dealing with  as still holding on to the old traditional values.

Thomas, I agree with you that  it is important for us to model values to our students but can we do this effectively when we  spend so little time with them during their academic life.  How does the student nurse become an excellent nurse when she does not see me practice nursing but only demonstrating it in the classroom?

You model "caring" for example in how you care for them as students of nursing.  Best not to conflate "values" with "practices" that serve certain values; that exist because of certain values.  In this case, "caring" is the value, and nursing is a practice that should manifest that value.  While you cannot model it in situ, you model it in relations with students--how you related to them, how well-prepared you are in your teaching, how well you listen to their needs, how well you care for yourself,  etc.

Hello Johan,  

Good question.  This is such a good question that there is a massive gap in research on it, thus reflected in Thomas' response, especially using the example of nursing.  I am in a similar "helping" profession.  My research on affective leadership development strikes at the core. 

I think higher education would like to say "it" doesn't cultivate values, but "it" decieves itself.  Doing so is inevitable.  In fact the lack of such cultivation is a value. When it comes to the praxis of the professions, all of these professionals must take an oath (values).

Many medical schools today in the USA still require their students to "take" the hippocratic oath.  

Check this:

http://guides.library.jhu.edu/c.php?g=202502&p=1335759

I am a military man, I take an oath to suppport & defend before I am permitted to take my first "step" in to the profession.  

Most all practicing attorneys in the USA must take an oath.

Check this:

https://www.calbarxap.com/applications/calbar/pdfs/code_section_6068.pdf

Values such as support, defend, respect, and keeping confidence are required.  But the question, YOUR question is how are these values fostered through the education process.  If they are held in such high esteem, how are they fostered or identified?

Similar traits are intentional in business professionals. Consider this from Oracle and the Harvard Business Review:

http://www.oracle.com/us/media1/steps-effective-leadership-dev-1657106.pdf

I could share much more if, you would like.

I believe that values should underpin education in terms of the ability to appreciate the Other. That means those beyond ourselves. If we don't do this we risk objectifying the Other as an instrument of our own ambitions and a means to an end. Values mean that we treat individuals as ends in their own right. Democracy is based on taking into account that other people have opinions as valuable as our own. So if we don't put human values at the foundation of education we are ultimately lost.  Dave.

While values are involved in matters of ethics, the latter is a discipline of its own and has different answers:  duty ethics (treat others as ends in their own right: Kant), consequentialism (the utility or usefulness served for others), and virtue ethics (Aristotle). Values also go beyond questions only of ethics: value in the arts, for example, and political valuing (a current issue).  Much of schooling "transmits" the value-judgments of the past or status-quo, rather than seeking to "transform" and improve society: e.g., taking for granted the market economy despite its negative effect on the environment.  Perennialism (as an educational philosophy) argues that the values to be taught are those that are  "perennially" valuable and never change. And what seems to be the biggest value of all, money (wealth for its own sake) goes unquestioned save by religious sages, some philosophers, and of course the ordinary worker struggling to meet expenses. Education (especially "schooling") can never be value free: the eternal question in our information society is,  What of all that can be taught is most worth teaching?  And that, of course, always involves decisions of values and, as a consequence, conflicts of values and value systems (which is why schooling is always such a hot topic.)

BTW, not all professions take an oath: e.g., teaching, banking. And even those that do, don't always abide by them: malpractice  (malpraxis) in medicine.

Values are first taught though modelling, all too often unconsciously, by our parents. There some evidence that our moral compass is set at an early age. Thereafter we talk and write about other peoples’ behaviors but little beyond the abstract. Unfortunately, are rarely we given opportunities to practice the desired behavior in a controlled environment followed by a debriefing.

Yes, as a very important part of the powerful hidden curriculum, values serve as a sustaintable, intrinsic and inspiring motivator. 

Hello Johan,

Good luck with your work.

You might be interested in the importance placed on the learning of values in the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan as it strives to maintain traditional values using its governing philosophy of Gross  Natoinal happiness.  See, for example, these:

Sherab, K., Cooksey, R. & Maxwell, T.W. 2013. School collective efficacy beliefs for GNH Education: Scales, clusters and patterns of relationships. Journal of the International Society for Teacher Education 17, 1, 48-60.

Sherab, K., Maxwell, T.W. & Cooksey, R. (2015). Congruency and comparisons of the vision and mission statements across four case study schools. Bhutan Journal of Research and Development, 4, 1, 69-79.

Sherab, K., Maxwell, T.W. & Cooksey, R. 2014. Implementation of Gross National Happiness Education in Bhutan: The case of an efficacious ‘Zhabdrung’ Primary School. Bhutan Journal of Research and Development 3, 1, 1-15.

Tom

Thank you for all the very succinct and interesting answers. I write the final part of my thesis from my home office and it can become lonely at times. Researchgate is my coffee room with collegues to ask the question I am working on right now. What a rewarding coffee room with collegues literally from all over the world.

Genevieve - your comment about values as "an integral dimension of the shifting terrain of contemporary humane life” describes my work with young adults in Norway to the point.

Your comment Jack that "higher education would like to say "it" doesn't cultivate values, but "it" decieves itself" is alarmingly true and maybe the main reason for asking this question. As Thomas puts it "Education (especially "schooling") can never be value free".

To define the center of values in education as "the ability to appreciate the Other" sounds true to me, David. That is the real goal and the aspiration of our educational effort. The value "appreciation of the other" is the basis for all democratic development and holding on to this goal will keep us from getting lost.

The example of Bhutan sounds really interesting, Tom. I look forward to reading about it.

A good question.  AS it happens the journal I edit has just published an issue looking at the problem of identifying something our government says should be taught, British Values, and you might find some of the papers of interest (see link below).

See JET Editors on You Tube

http://ow.ly/4nmm8H

Read the latest edition on British Values via http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjet20/current

Hello Johan – I like your metaphor of Researchgate as global collegial coffee room breaking up the occasional loneliness of the long-distance higher degree research student!

As several of the contributors to this strand have noted, values need to be lived, modelled and exemplified in a whole school culture and ethos as well as taught. I have heard it said – only semi facetiously – that learning about citizenship and democracy in schools can be equated with learning about holiday camps whilst in prison. This shouldn’t be the case (and probably isn’t in most Nordic schools) but how far do we provide opportunities to respect and listen to student voices? They are citizens now, not citizens in waiting.

Values education is incorporated in the Australian school curriculum through cross-cutting General Capabilities and Cross –curriculum priorities. The former include:

-          Personal and Social Capability (incorporating Social awareness);

-          Inter-cultural understanding; and

-          Ethical understanding

Notions of respect and tolerance naturally infuse these elements of the curriculum. They also infuse what have been oxymoronically identified as the cross-curricular priorities of:

-          Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander histories and cultures

-          Asia Engagement; and

-          Education for Sustainability

And then again, the values that you identify are also sometimes important elements of the defined learning areas of Civics and Citizenship, History, and Geography.

The worry is that important qualities and values which should be ‘everywhere’ can appear so big and ubiquitous as to be ‘nowhere’.

I note that few of the responses have yet picked up on your question of how values such as respect, tolerance (and empathy?) might be measured and assessed. There is a reason for this – it is in the hard basket (check out the literature on assessing empathy!). Isn’t it daft how we seem to endlessly measure some measures of academic achievement to the nth degree but find it so hard to value the really important things……?

I am beginning to believe that teaching values, such as those to which you refer, may be as important as the skills and content of education otherwise.  I would also count valuing education as one of those goals.

I am afraid that I already shared my experience with actually effectively being taught values by sports - a rarity in this country right now.  I posted it in reply to one of your other questions.  The coach's name was Wilbur Braithwaite.  Decades later, one of his former students can still quote "And if I should win let it be by the code with my faith and my honor held high, and if I should lose let me stand by the road and cheer as the winners go by."

I do have a an interesting example of a video clip which models how the value of tolerance and respect can be balanced with the rights of believing differently, and of worship.  It shows a young lady of faith being challenged in class for her beliefs.  She responds in ways which bother her, and looks for better ways to respond.   It shows her receiving council and direction, and then shows her changing her behaviors.  In today's society of polarized diatribes, it is a refreshing view.

Here it is:  https://video.byui.edu/media/Elder+Von+G.+Keetch+%E2%80%9CAn+Example+of+the+Believers%E2%80%9D/0_rfhne2cs

Start at 4:27.  It is interrupted twice by the speaker.  (It is a part of a devotional, which is not required to make sense of the video, but doesn't hurt at all.)

Hi Johan,

This is in continuation to what Tom Maxwell mentioned. You could also check my thesis on researchgate:Gross National Happiness Education in Bhutanese schools: Understanding the experiences and efficacy beliefs of principals and teachers. A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2624.3046

I think you can go to this video as a part of the answer : https://youtu.be/pexyd4qXShk

democratic respect and liberty as best education in the world !

These are extremely important values into today's diverse student population. These can be measured thru collaborative learning in which the teacher observe these qualities among group members as they interact or have peer evaluation on them.

Best regards,

Debra

Hugely important, but recall that morality cannot be taught. It must be felt (cf Aristotle) with the heart, not the cognitive aspects of mind. Paul

Values are better developed by showing in one´own practice examples of behavior worthy of imitation. Learning values by rote is dressage. Paul

The basic end of any education any way is to impart the values of life among students ,& this may have its roots right from the primary education which may establish a virtue of value at the higher level of education .

Every human being must have the value of life within himself so that he can become a worthy human being not for himself only but also for his family ,his associated group & social surrounding .

Any individual with his basic norms of his life line he can certainly have a traits of Tolerance ,& Respect .

Such individual can certainly become a worthy citizen & such citizen may prove to be a worthy model in democracy as we all know that Democracy is the government of the people,by the people & for the people .

This is my personal opinion 

The Boy Scouts of America is an interesting model for teaching its values starting at a young age of 7 or 8 through around 20 years.  They have a nice progression of complexity, detail and responsibility.

To boot, they actually address the learning of young boys meaningfully.  They recognize and leverage the need the boys have for activity in their program - if the leaders are wise enough to follow the guides.

There are so much good material in these answers. I have to admit that I need time to read, watch and listen to the presented articles and youtube videos. 

The personal aspect of value learning, as you point out Paul (to be 'felt with the heart'), is maybe what makes this question interesting to me. In the Nordic folk high school movement there is a focus on social pedagogy, the time spent with students outside of the classroom. In a class on development assistance in Eastern Europe I bring 34 students to Moldova each year. For 8 days we live very close together, often sleep in the same room. We visit families and children homes that we support in self-help projects through the school year. This is where I see the actual values formed in my students.

Johan,  "felt in the heart" is perhaps the most important step of all learning.  I am learning that logic is fundamentally unavailable without emotion.  The idea that one thing has more value than another hinges upon it.  Meaning generally hinges upon it.

Ie.  A researcher studying a gentleman whose limbic system was damaged, after hours and hours of testing asked his subject, "I'm getting tired.  Do you want to more testing, or do you want to go home?"  With a damaged emotional center, the subject couldn't decide!

My hyperbole of that story is that I am crossing the road.  I notice that a shoe is untied.  I also notice that a semi-truck is approaching.  One is quickly easily recognized as more important than the other because of the emotional content of the consequences.

Too I have speculated that our emotional memory is a parity-check level summary of our experiences which, when time and cognitive resources are tight, allow us to make a reasonable response.

Please check this link on

Gross National Happiness Education in Bhutanese schools: Understanding the experiences and efficacy beliefs of principals and teachers.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kezang_Sherab/publications

The journal I edit has just published a Special Issue examining the problems associated with trying to teach what the UK government terms 'fundamental British values', so it might be of interest.  See the Journal of Education for Teaching, 42:4 via -http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjet20/current

Thinking further on the issue of measuring 'values': one possible way forward could be to use the Declaration of Human Rights as the 'universal' yardstick. It encompasses most of the values discussed above and can bring to the fore the obligations each individual has to the 'other'.

There have been arguments from local (political, religious, ethnic) leaderships in a variety of nations that those values are culturally biased but, over the past several decades, the citizens of many of those same countries have drawn on that document and the international treaties stemming from it to try to develop a better quality of life for themselves and future generations.

An online "questionnaire" covering basic knowledge, thinking and 'felt in the heart' could be tailored to school/education level. Such an instrument could also be scaled 'out' in a website with backing database and fairly simple automated graphic indicators.

This approach could have the advantage of raising issues around values in a transparent manner (add a moderated discussion board). It could even serve as something of a reminder for teachers, academics and other leaders that students in particular but people in general may discard the 'public script' in favor of the 'hidden' social curriculum modeled by daily behaviors of those in authority.  A bit hopeful perhaps but a value to work for?

Thank you Ryan, Kezang, David and Lorinne for very constructive answers.

It is interesting to see how both UK and Bhutan uses government-implemented programs to influence their youth toward values that are seen as desirable. The thematic issue of JET and the doctoral thesis of Kezang both deal with the content and outcome of these programs.

The vision of an online "questionnaire" covering basic knowledge, thinking and 'felt in the heart' sounds intriguing, Lorinne. It would be good with a tool that could initiate discussion and self critique in the area of what values are actually transferred in the classroom.

Empathy and knowledge must be closely related, as you say Ryan. There are some terrifying examples of knowledge without empathy, both when it comes to science and politics.

What about Norway Johan, Do you have values programme in the schools?

Kezang - your question is not an easy one to answer in a few lines, but I will try.

There is an intense debate in Norway on national values and how they should be presented in the school system. The nation is in a process where the Lutheran state church and the values defined as Christian has been the official base for the teaching of values in the schools. This hegemony has been met with strong opposition during the second half of the 20th century. Religion as a school subject has moved from a confessional base to become a more neutral, none bias subject.

Another strong influence is the refugees and other immigrants coming to Norway and the multicultural society that this is creating. There are strong nationalistic forces not unlike those presented in the thematic issue of JET. The values these groups call for in the schools system are often characterised by the use of "of simplistic and dangerous stereotypes about race and religion" as David calls it in his editorial.

There are traditions in Norway and the Scandinavian countries of democratic and none-racist values and I believe these will win through in the long run. But the question of how these values should be apart of the national education system is complex. There is an on-going need for both research and debate on the subject.