Editors’ Notes

What is the nature of moral and character education in the field of teacher preparation? Who is responsible for teaching moral and character education? And whose understandings of morality and character are privileged in teacher preparation curricula? These questions serve as an entryway into a new scholarly dialogue feature of Action in Teacher Education. In the dialogue that leads the articles in this issue, authors Daniel Lapsley and Ryan Woodbury offer a conceptual argument for intentionality in moral-character education and implications for teacher education. This is then followed by commentaries from Joel Westheimer, Nel Noddings, and H. Richard Milner, IV and co-author Lori Delale-O’Connor, and finally a reply by Woodbury and Lapsley to three commentaries. Action in Teacher Education has a history of publishing scholarship in moral and character education, and the two related concepts are often treated synonymously. Studies and essays investigating character education in a 1999 themed issue of the journal explored theories of morality and what it means to act ethically in schools and classrooms. Mary M. Williams and William Schaps from San Diego State University edited the 1999 issue. Together, the six articles offered lenses on character and moral education and foreshadow issues the authors in this current issue are contending with in their work. In what follows, we briefly summarize the six articles from that 1999 issue, drawing connections to the scholarly dialogue in this current issue. Jones, Ryan, and Bohlin (1999) sought to describe the state of character and moral education in teacher education through a national sample of 600 teacher education programs. The authors hypothesized that character and moral education are “an underaddressed topic in teacher education curriculum” (p. 12). Findings showed strong support for character and moral education yet little agreement on what the concept means, or how to teach it. Weber (1999) also lamented a lack of agreement on how to define character and moral education. He argued that school districts are interested in this topic, and that it should be carefully integrated into liberal arts and professional practice curricula by universities. However, Berkowitz (1999) surveyed scholarship to detail six obstacles that prevent integration of character and moral education into preservice education. Among the most salient obstacles were defining the topic, finding space for it in an already content saturated curriculum, and even disagreement about whether it should be taught at all. The arguments of these three articles are echoed in Lapsley and Woodbury’s contention (this issue) that moral education is immanent in the curriculum of teacher education, but not tied to specific standards. Further, they argue that pedagogical complexity is implicit in the three scenarios they propose as approaches to teaching moral education. Clearly, scholars are still working through these complex issues. Working from a constructivist stance informed by Piaget’s theories on children’s moral reasoning, Devries (1999) collected video data in three kindergarten classrooms over two days. Two of the classrooms were characterized as more authoritarian and the third as more constructivist. His analysis suggested that in teacher-centered classrooms with a heavy emphasis on content, moral reasoning is not cultivated. Rather, moral education becomes coercive and conformity is valued over independent thinking. Mathison (1999) explored some of the same topics mentioned previously, including attitudes toward character and moral education, preparedness to teach it, and how it is defined. Based on surveys of 287 preservice and inservice teachers from four large metropolitan areas in the United States, Mathison found that both groups perceived character education as key for