Moral education and citizenship education at pre-university schools

This survey investigates the objectives, practical application and learning outcomes of moral education at three pre-university (VWO) schools with differing views on citizenship. We explore teachers’ and students’ pedagogical, socialpolitical and moral development objectives, and how they deal with values and dialogue, and with diversity. We go on to investigate how the objectives materialize in practice, and teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the learning outcomes. The results show that moral education may be interpreted in a predominantly social way, as a combination of social and autonomy development, or with a clear emphasis on autonomy development. Students tend to differ little in what they want to learn from moral education. Differences in practical application and learning outcomes they mention happen to correspond with the school they attend. It is surprising that students and teachers emphasize different aspects. Indeed, students are more socially aware and politically engaged than teachers.