The Values and Character Dispositions of 14-16 Year Olds

This research examines the formation of values in six secondary schools in the Hodge Hill constituency in Birmingham. It will collect qualitative and quantitative data that builds on contemporary research and practice about a competency based curriculum and personalised learning to:

• Develop a pedagogy for the integration of character formation in the core curriculum, learning and ethos in different types of school

• Evaluate the impact of the intervention on student outcomes and teachers’ practices

• Disseminate the findings through ‘next practice’

Introduction

This research on values, attitudes and character development in secondary school comes at a time when values, accountability, integrity, responsibility and citizenship in public life are an increasing focus of concern for Government, the media, and the electorate as well as in academic discourse. Flows of labour, migration and capital in a globalised economy and the acceleration of business and technological processes have caused disquiet when considering the moral disposition of individuals who have to subsist in them. Using this as a context the research has several main aims:

• To document the key values and attitudes of pupils in schools in an inner constituency in Birmingham.

• To investigate who/what shapes the development of young people’s character, with specific interest in the role of schools.

• To identify the factors that inhibit positive character development.

• To explore and discover appropriate forms of education with character as interventions in the development of the school curriculum.

Background

There is a wealth of philosophical, theological and social science literature on the subjects of values and character education, but what bearing is this having on contemporary society, and importantly here, education? Certainly there have been claims that character has been eroded in the recent era. However, one area where character is still integral to its aims is education. Education might be said to be concerned with the formation of character and values, and with the differentiation between the basics of right and wrong.

The twentieth century has produced research findings in various disciplines that promise a significant progress for understanding character education and values. In particular, cognitive psychologists have held that emphasis on the structure of moral reasoning might offer the best way of developing moral dispositions (Arthur, 2007; Arthur et al ., 2006). Kohlberg’s six stages of moral reasoning, from the heteronomous action to the final stage of self-chosen universal ethical principles have been regarded as is seen a significant contribution to our understanding of the discourse on moral education; although this model has had its critics and Kohlberg has also dropped certain aspects of his theory. DeRoche and Williams (1998) suggest the concrete provision of what amounts to a ‘moral compass’, which would be used to traverse the ‘moral highway,’ with all mapping for this highway drawn by the school and agreed by the local government. The metaphor of the compass can be taken to mean a package or curriculum of objectives in teaching education with character that would provides guidance when negotiating the world and its many challenges.

In the contemporary era, Arthur (2003) suggests that we are witnessing an alarmist tendency that responds to what he sees as a deterioration of the moral condition of children in Britain. But there are pressures that impede the healthy development of character. John Dupré’s (1991) Rational Choice Theory argues that a ‘belief-desire model of action’ results in a behaviour of self-interest and that individuals use whatever means possible to achieve their end in line with what they see around them. Simmons and Simmons (1994) highlight the materialistic values of English teenagers in their concern with money, possessions and physical appearance. Lickona (1996) suggests that altruism is rare and has been superseded by self-interest.

In response to the need for character development, Kupperman (1991) suggests three stages of character and value formation. First is the formation of good habits without serious moral reflection: secondly, a period during which the individual begins to question and to develop a moral perspective of their own; and thirdly, the formation of strong personal identity with the capacity to make independent moral judgments. Audi (1997) also writes that virtue should be enacted not just explained and Rusnak ( 1998) wants an integrated strategy so that thinking, feeling, and acting come to the fore in the development of character and values.

Recent evidence suggests that whether behaviour is defined as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ may depend on the situation in which a person finds themselves, and that students make moral judgements as to what behaviour is appropriate by looking at the context and the consequences (Vajda and Hajnal, 2005). Some studies suggest that the family plays the most important role in influencing students’ values, and that the students places particular value on the loyalty and trust of friends (Taylor, 1996; Francis and Kay, 1995). At this stage in a pupil’s development it is key to determine the importance of peer relationships in the educational environment s that a better understanding of the forms character education could take in the future.

Current alarm about the moral condition of our young people is partly based on the concern with the role of parents. The Communitarian position assumes a parenting deficit (Etzioni, 1993) and regards the school, after the family, as the next source of moral instruction. The Communitarian position argues that ‘schools can provide essential moral education without indoctrinating young people’ (Etzioni, 1993: 8).

A dimension of character education that is not doctrinaire has been Outward Bound Education. In Britain this has been to the fore in courses such as the Duke of Edinburgh Awards which was extremely popular between the 1950s and 1970s. The Outward Bound approach to character building encouraged young people to grow through activities such as hill walking, rock-climbing and sailing. This approach was character education by doing, through teambuilding and an atmosphere of mutual support. Opportunities for this type of character education declined after the 1970s in response to a fall in demand (Arthur, 2003). Perhaps revisited this approach to character may hold a key to the character development of inner city teenagers.

It has been argued that the ethos of the school is paramount in character formation. Ryan and Bohlin (1999) suggest that creating a ‘community of virtue’ serves to create a strong school identity and a sure sense of purpose. They argue the benefits of a shared vision, an opportunity to serve, a sense of tradition, and shared commitment to the care of others. Without these they suggest a school cannot become an outstanding school, producing cohorts of good characters-or, by implication, successful students.

Inner city pupils often behave as if they are not stakeholders in society and it may be said that they are not. Inner city pupils are, perhaps more than most, products of their social environment. Often from vexed and sometimes chaotic family circumstances their lives may be characterised by persistent material and moral struggle. According to Martin Johnson (1999), poverty in the inner city is extensive and enduring and it creates a distinctive culture. Youth in poverty often cannot easily comprehend their material deprivation and social exclusion. Ethnic minority groups also often suffer additional exclusion on account of their different race or colour. David Purpel (1997: 149) has indicated that character educators show little concern about the cruelty of the free market and the rising inequality in society. The influence of commercial culture as Alex Molnar (1997: 163) points out is corrosive of character. He argues that character educators are more or less silent on the effect of advertising and hailing of youth towards commercial products. The link between the impact of the free market, poverty and character needs consideration as a research question.

There appears to be a lack of precise research addressing the area of character education and this is reflected in their vague and inconsistent appearances in schools or teacher training syllabuses. According to Revell and Arthur (2007) there is little common practice in relation to character education in schools or in relation to teacher training. What is required is thorough empirical investigation into the complex interrelationships between young people’s values, morality, and character development. Such research will not only be beneficial for individuals, but is likely to contribute to the general good. That there is little structure to character education in the UK is unsurprising since there has been little in the way of empirical research on education with character in either the USA or Britain (Arthur 2003).

Research questions, goals and the relevance of qualitative techniques

The main research questions are to what extent do schools assist in the formation of ‘good’ character in pupils on the verge of becoming young adults? And how do they develop character in teenage pupils and actively facilitate the skills, values, dispositions and attitudes required for becoming a good person and responsible citizen.

The research seeks to provide documentation on the central values of participating school pupils and to look at the ways in which these values are shaped, cultivated or even negated-by their teachers, mentors, parents, peer influence and prevalent societal factors. We also aim to discover what values those pupils, in arguably the most important time in their school career, will emerge from school with. One important goal of the project is discuss the characteristics of the type of person that young people aspire to become. The research will focus on what sorts of moral attitudes, dispositions, and values people have in the school environment.

The following research questions have been identified:

• What are participants’ understandings of character and of appropriate moral values for the contemporary era?

• How and in what ways do their schools aim to develop or inadvertently inhibit character in year 14-16 years?

• What are the main methods, practices and resources that are though to help form good character and virtue in year 10 pupils?

• What influences are thought to impede the formation of their character?

• What are the links between character and academic results or between their character and career expectations?

• What importance do participants attach to education?

Research sites

The Six Schools:

Hodge Hill School

Hodge Hill School for Girls

International School and Community College

Park View School

Saltley School and Community College

Washwood Heath Technology College

These research sites have been chosen because of their specific settings. All these schools are within the Hodge Hill constituency. Hodge Hill has limited post-sixteen provision. Academically, the schools present GCSE achievement of 5 A-C grades as percentages ranging from 20% to 48% based on 2006 figures as against the national average of 58.5% in that same year (direct.gov.uk). The schools were chosen to reflect a specific and uniform type of school institution-all being state run secondary schools in an inner city environment. The typical cohort consists almost exclusively of children from working class families. The mix of ethnicities within those cohorts includes Caribbean, Asian and White pupils and other groups in small numbers.

The schools selected are broadly homogeneous with certain differences, for instance Hodge Hill is a girls school and The International, Saltley and Hodge Hill Mixed schools have post-16 provision. The rate of progression to higher education from the Hodge Hill constituency currently stands at 13%. Although there is a marked homogeneity within the Hodge Hill schools each school has its own ethos, atmosphere and culture and the profiles and ‘value-systems’ of these promise interesting contrast and comparison and an opportunity to log any and all subtle divergence from the norm creating space for analysis of trends within the schools.

Participants

N= 20 participants in each of the 6 research sites

Therefore:

One school x 6 sites;

Focus Groups phase 1: 6 pupils x 6 sites n=36

Focus Groups phase 2: 6 pupils x 4 sites n=24

Staff Interviews: 3 staff x 6 sites n=18

Total=78 participants

The research team thought it important to include a wide range of pupils in the project. Such as academic pupils, sports-oriented people and vocational/practical students, pupils from different ethnic groups, young people who have encountered barriers and struggled against disadvantages. The team aims to encourage participants who have had a range of experiences that include stories of success as well as the challenges faced by participants. The participants will be chosen by random sample. The sample will reflect the pupil demographic of the Birmingham Constituency schools taking part. A number of the school teaching staff will also be invited to participate in semi-structured interviews (this number will be in the region of 10- 20 participants in total).

Methods and methodology

This research will be a longitudinal study over the course of two or three years. It will collect data that will add to contemporary research and practice around a competency based curriculum and personalised learning.

Methods

The first phase of the research will entail three types of data collection and analyses. Firstly, several focus groups will be set up across the six schools. Secondly, repertory grid interviews will be carried out with a subset of students from the focus groups. Thirdly there will be semi-structured interviews with teachers with responsibility for both pastoral and academic development of the pupils. This phase aims to collect on how pupils and their teachers construed the concepts of moral virtues, values and good character. Discussion of preliminary results by the research team and Steering Group will inform the next phase of the research.

The second phase involves the design and construction of a questionnaire aimed at a statistical exploration of the research issues. The questionnaire will challenge, possibly confirm and extend the initial findings and will act to identify relationships between character formation and other relevant variables. This particular dataset will also be including data collected from the schools on pupils achievement and others demographic variables. The aim of supporting the development of a questionnaire on people’s values with the in-depth and meaningful findings of prior research is to tie the strands of qualitative and quantitative research together to form a robust sequence of research methods where approaches are closely interlinked and testing one another both empirically, and methodologically.

In the penultimate phase of the project the fieldwork will cease in order to allow for the analysis of the raw questionnaire data gathered to be analysed. Relationships between character dimensions and other relevant variables, i.e. particular school, gender, GCSE achievement, learning disposition and religious, ethnic and spiritual traditions will be recorded. A factor analytic study will be carried out via use of the statistical software package SPSS. This is a sound means of establishing any underlying themes or factors in the data that could be understood as relevant to character formation or attitudes to virtues and values.

The final phase of data collection is designed to understand in greater depth the ways in which students understand the character dimensions emerging from the preceding phase of the project. At this stage of the project it is important to listen carefully to the voices of the young people about character, virtues and values. Students will be selected as a subset of the original focus group and repertory grid participants. The interviews will be structured around the character dimensions established in the previous phase.

Methodology

The study will be informed by an ethnographic investigation lasting a total of twenty-four months. The data of the study is multi-method and collected from a variety of sources, including, focus groups, repertory grid interviews, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

The study draws from the tradition of empirical qualitative data collection in the social sciences. Especially relevant are ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967) and grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Both of these approaches emphasise the importance of gathering data based on the perspectives and experiences of participants, in our case school pupils aged between 14 and 16 and a sub-group of teachers. Investigation will be carried out into how, in a local social setting, individuals make sense of that setting and work together or not in creating a shared social reality (Gall, Gall and Borg, 2007). Ethnography is especially relevant in this research because it allows an in-depth focus and discussion of people’s experiences, meanings, values and emotions. Ethnography is particularly apposite when studying the complexity and interrelationships involved in character formation, people’s values, people’s ideas of virtue and their morality and moral choices both in school and out of school. Ethnography allows research to tease out the detail of people’s most meaningful experiences in both their childhood and education up until their teenage years.

Ethnographic research is ideal for gathering in-depth perspectives on a situation or incident. A socio-political picture of the organisational context can be constructed and interpersonal relationships assessed (Bell, 1999). Ethnographic research is particularly apposite, as it will ask participants to define what they mean by values, morality, virtue, good character and the like. Rather than the project team’s assumptions of what facets constitute values or good character, the research will elicit participants’ meanings and the social construction of values and good character, etc, by them at University and in work. It will, however, be of interest to compare participants’ evaluations of good character and values to those proposed in philosophical, sociological and theological debate.

Management and analysis of data

The data for analysis will be derived from transcribed tape recordings, note taking and questionnaire responses. The reading and re-reading of the transcripts and notes and the debriefing sessions between the researchers will identify the themes arising from the project. The accumulated raw data from both the questionnaire and the Learning Power Profiles will be entered into the SPSS database (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. In particular, latent content analysis (see Field and Morse, 1985: 103) will be used as the approach of choice since it permits themes to be developed and refined in terms of “the major thrust or intent” and “significant meanings” inferred from the data . The aim is to clearly represent the experiences of pupils and teachers, to allow experience, and narratives to come across through anecdotes and to relate those experiences to serious concerns in contemporary policy and practice. Quotations cited will also be chosen for their frequency, being mentioned by a high percentage of respondents, as well as their saliency relating to people’s core experiences and values. Confirmation of the trustworthiness, validity, reliability and importance of the findings will come from feedback from a Steering Group and from interaction with significant stakeholders.

Ethical review and consent

The British Educational Research Association guides ethical considerations in this research project. The research is subject to review and the assent of the Education Faculty Research Ethics Committee of Canterbury Christ Church University. Where required, ethical review will be sought in the host sites.

Prior to interview, all participants will be given an easily understandable summary of what the research is about as well as their rights. They will be informed that the research cannot ensure anonymity and confidentiality and participants should be warned that anonymity cannot be guaranteed. As minors under the care of an adult special care will be taken in selecting participants bearing in mind their disposition and potential vulnerability. The parents of participant will be asked to sign a consent form. Furthermore, participants will be told that they may, if they wish, choose to leave or suspend an interview at any time and not have to explain their decision.

All data and materials concerning participants will be stored securely and locked away in safe premises at Canterbury Christ Church University researchers in Birmingham.