The current controversy over the teaching of values and the role of religion in our public schools is an important and much discussed topic. Stock-Morton's work represents not only a valuable historical investigation, but a useful resource for the review and consideration of our present-day dilemma. France is the only country which has attempted to teach an official secular morality and Stock-Morton's is the first study to describe and trace the development of that effort. During the nineteenth century, the impetus for a practical, secular moral teaching arose, primarily through the concern of those who sought the liberalization of French society and politics. The educational dilemma faced at that time arose from the opposition of the Catholic Church to liberal government. Gradually liberals and radical reached a consensus on the necessity of teaching ethics in the schools while eliminating the presence of the clergy. Their solution and its philosophical basis were anchored in the Enlightenment and the Revolution, but developed in the context of nineteenth-century political and philosophical change. In the 1880s, when the republicans were able to inaugurate universal, free, and secular education, secular ethics became a required course for all. The history of morale laique is significant at a time when our own country is rife with controversy over the role of religion and the teaching of values in the schools. Stock-Morton's thoughtful study represents an important contribution to the literature for those concerned with these significant issues.

What is secularism? -- Secularism in Western societies -- Secularism diversifies -- The case for Secularism -- The case against Secularism -- Conceptions of Secularism -- Hard questions and new conflicts -- Afterword: the future of Secularism

The author argues for much greater attention to ethical education and responds to sceptics who say that it can't be done in the face of a pluralistic secular society badly fragmented over values. Seeking always for themes and issues that unite rather than divide, the author provides a conceptual foundation for ethical education broad enough for building consensus among teachers and parents, yet focused enough to provide guidance for highly specific learning activities. The second half of the book takes the reader through a carefully devised series of steps by which a school community might proceed in building their ethical school. The final chapter reminds of the many difficulties to be met along the way, but offers encouragement to strengthen the resolve of the school community. The book concludes with two helpful appendices: the first provides detailed information on exiting initiatives already underway in ethical education, the second offers an annotated bibliography of books and essays which are available for those educators who need or want to read more on the topic of ethical education.

This book explores an undeveloped area in postmodern thought: organizational ethics. Ethical debates and analyses usually focus on a particular act or action, an actor, and/or how a secular society should address any of those particular persons or events. In the Post Modern age, ethical decisions and policies are characterized by moral and cultural pluralism. However, there is a second factor that complicates ethical and policy decisions even further. This book argues that in the postmodern age ethical decisions often need to be understood as part of the decision making of organizations and bureaucracies. Organizational decisions often have direct bearing on the choices made by individuals. Two areas that exemplify postmodern issue are the areas of health care and education. For example the decision making of Admissions Officers in American higher education, are influenced by decisions that have been made by the university about the size of the class and the diversity of the class. Health Care organizations make policy decisions that affect every aspect of a patient’s care from admission to treatment and the types of care that are or are not offered. Both education and health care are the object of the significant investment of resources, both areas are value laden in postmodern, pluralistic societies, and yet we do not have a comprehensive method to understand them or evaluate them. This book is of interest to bioethicists, physicians, nurses, health care policy students, educational policy experts, students and government regulators.

The term ‘moral’ has had a chequered history in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly due to the legacy of colonialism and Apartheid (in South Africa). In contrast to moral education as a vehicle of cultural imperialism and social control, this volume shows moral education to be concerned with both private and public morality, with communal and national relationships between human beings, as well as between people and their environment. Drawing on distinctive perspectives from philosophy, economics, sociology and education, it offers the African ethic of Ubuntu/Botho as a plausible alternative to Western approaches to morality and shows how African ethics speaks to political and economic life, including ethnic conflict and HIV/AIDS, and may be an antidote to the current practice of timocracy that values money over people. The volume provides sociological tools for understanding the lived morality of those marginalised by poverty, and analyses the effects of culture, religion and modern secularisation on moral education. With contributions from fourteen African scholars, this book challenges dominant frameworks, and begins conversations for mutual benefit across the North-South divide. It has global implications, not just, but especially, where moral education is undertaken in pluralist contexts and in the presence of economic disparity. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Moral Education.

In the current climate, and in an age of increasing hostility towards religion and the study of religion, religious education is a much-debated area. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of contributors from the USA, Britain and Ireland, and Australia, representing a variety of religious perspectives, Does Religious Education Matter? provocatively demonstrates that it is vital that religious education is presented as it ’really’ is: a valuable and rich resource that, when taught and engaged with appropriately, stimulates essential qualities for global and responsible citizenship: critical thinking, tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding.