Date of Award

10-16-2023

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Education

First Advisor

tavis jules

Abstract

In the past 15+ years in the fields of psychology, philosophy, education, and at a federal level within the U.S. Department of Education, there has been a push to incorporate social emotional learning in schools, namely through character education (Berkowitz, 2021; Federal Commission on School Safety, 2018; Hatchimonji et al., 2020; Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, 2022). Character education as an educational reform works to accomplish the functions of education through a focus on building good character, sometimes categorized as soft skills. Many schools have incorporated curriculums of character education to provide a more holistic education. Through the many efforts of educating the whole child, we must consider if we are really working toward building good people or if we are only encouraging our students to feign goodness for better success. As character education’s key features and practices are rooted in core concepts presented in Aristotle’s virtue ethics and work to meet the needs of schooling today, this thesis examines how character education embodies Aristotelian ideas and responds to the functional goals of education. This thesis will conduct a thematic analysis of character education lesson plans and corresponding guiding frameworks to answer the research questions. This thesis concludes with a discussion of how character education, in responding to the needs of schooling, is in tension with the Aristotelian ideas it is founded upon.

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