Janet Powney and Ursula Schlapp Teachers agree with parents that the ultimate responsibility for the development of children's values lies with parents. However teachers also recognise that they themselves have an important role to play and that fostering values is integral to what goes on in the classroom. These are amongthe conclusions to emerge from a two-year study of values education in primary schools conducted by researchers at the Scottish Council for Research in Education and funded by The Gordon Cook Foundation.
Values are the framework for our lives.
The ways we think, feel and behave depend upon the values we hold, our religious and moral beliefs. Some values vary according to the situations we find ourselves in, others are more fundamental. The development of values is a complex process and the initial stages depend on those who look after us at home and at school. The study on which this paper is based was commissioned by the Gordon Cook Foundation and set out to explore the kinds of values being taught, explicitly, or implicitly in primary schools in Scotland. It looked also at the ways in which values education takes place and at what teachers, and to a lesser extent pupils and parents, took values education to mean.