This book presents a number of fundamentally challenging perspectives that have been brought to the fore by the national tests on religious education (RE) in Sweden. It particularly focuses on the content under the heading Ethics. It is common knowledge that many teachers find these parts difficult to handle within RE. Further, ethics is a field that addresses a range of moral and existential issues that are not easily treated. Many of these issues may be said to belong to the philosophical context, in which “eternal questions” are gathered and reflected upon. The first chapters highlight the concepts of ethical competence and critical thinking. In the following chapters the concept of ethical competence is analyzed with regard to teachers’ objectives and to students’ texts, respectively. These chapters pursue a more practice-related approach and highlight specific challenges identified from both teacher and student perspectives. Next, the book raises the issue of global responsibility. What kind of critical issues arise when handling such matters at school? Further, can contemporary moral philosophers contribute to such a discussion? In turn, the book discusses the role of statistical analyses with regard to national tests, while the closing chapters present international perspectives on the book’s main themes and concluding remarks. The book’s critical yet constructive approach to issues regarding assessment in ethics education makes a valuable contribution to an ongoing debate among researchers as well as to the everyday communication on testing in schools and classrooms. As such, it will appeal to scholars in ethics education and researchers in the field of assessment, as well as educators and teachers interested and engaged in the task of testing ethics in school contexts where curricular demands for valid and authoritative evaluation may provide important guidelines, but may also pose challenges of their own.

This volume focuses on professional ethics and the moral dimensions of inclusive education. Grounded in an examination of international conceptualizations of ethics and inclusion, this book will provide a comprehensive analysis of current understandings of professional ethics in the context of inclusive education.

Focusing on ethical challenges in program evaluation, this innovative book features six case-study scenarios that end at a point where the evaluator faces a significant decision about how to proceed. For each case, two distinguished evaluators offer insights on the best course of action to choose, and why. "What If?" boxes modify the details of the scenarios, inviting readers to reflect on whether these changes alter the ethical implications of the case. Six additional cases are presented with questions that guide readers to develop their own ethical analyses. The book is organized to follow the progress of an evaluation, from the entry/contracting phase through the utilization of results.

The author gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift-a schoolwide embrace of an "ethic of excellence" and with a passion for quality describes what's possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. The author tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.

Every school has a mission statement based on values and ethical beliefs. Ethics for Teachers and Middle Leaders sets out a way of thinking through the key issues of ethics in teaching and shows how a school’s ethical values can be translated by students and staff into action. It is designed to help rehearse certain ethical dilemmas and guide teacher leaders in helping others to think through and develop appropriate behaviours. Chapters consider the role of ethics in all aspects of school life including teacher professionalism, teaching methods, lesson planning and assessment. This book not only examines everyday concerns such as class management and presenting curriculum ethically, but also touches upon emerging issues in e-learning, career building, leadership and school governance. Packed full of real examples from schools and opportunities to reflect, the book will help readers to understand how their behaviour, decisions and advice to others might be guided and to avoid some of the common pitfalls in school. This insightful book will instil confidence in teachers and middle leaders as they face such ethical dilemmas in their daily work.

Toward Assessing Business Ethics Education, edited by Diane L. Swanson and Dann G. Fisher of Kansas State University, is a sequel to their book Advancing Business Ethics Education in the Ethics in Practice IAP book series. The focus on assessment in this second book is a timely response to the urgent search among business schools for ways to teach and assess ethics at a time when the public’s faith in corporations and business schools has been undermined greatly by the failure of both to respond to widespread corruption and scandals in the business sector. Although no one expects business education alone to resolve these problems, the distinguished scholars represented in this book advocate that business schools should at least do their part by exposing their students to decision models that incorporate ethical dimensions on behalf of corporate stakeholders and society at large. As the book’s title conveys, it is then important to assess key learning objectives to insure that business students graduate knowing ethics fundamentals and armed with the ability to recognize ethical dilemmas and possible solutions during the course of their careers. This book will speak to all who are interested in accountability for business ethics education, especially business school deans, university administrators, faculty members, students, and prospective employers. This audience will find that the enterprise of assessing business ethics education is advanced in three ways. First, the book functions as a venue for distinguished scholars to share the innovative ways that they are assessing ethics coverage in courses and degree programs. Second, these authors identify what needs to be assessed and the means for doing so. Third, the book serves not only as a guide to assessment, but also as a platform for expanding and improving ethics coverage in business schools. Moreover, an important take away for readers is the provision of a simple formula, first advocated by Diane L. Swanson and William C. Frederick (University of Pittsburgh) in 2005, for delivering ethics education that minimizes assessment errors. By following this formula, business schools can provide assurances that ethics will not be assessed as being sufficient when it is woefully inadequate or even missing in the curriculum and that it cannot be distorted, diluted, or trivialized by uninformed coverage and still pass inspection. Avoiding these assessment errors is critical in an educational environment in which weak accrediting standards for ethics go hand in hand with spotty, uniformed coverage that would not be tolerated for other business disciplines.

Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialog in K-12 Classrooms is a textbook in the fields of pre-college philosophy and philosophy of education, intended for philosophers and philosophy students, K-12 classroom teachers, administrators and educators, policymakers, and pre-college practitioners of all kinds. The book offers a wealth of practical resources for use in elementary, middle school, and high school classrooms, as well as consideration of many of the broader educational, social, and political topics in the field, including the educational value of pre-college philosophy, the philosophies of education that inform this philosophical practice, and the relevance of pre-college philosophy for pressing issues in contemporary education (such as education reform, child development, and prejudice and privilege in classrooms). The book includes sections on: the expansion of philosophy beyond higher education to pre-college populations; the importance of wondering, questioning and reflection in K-12 education; the ways that philosophy is uniquely suited to help students cultivate critical reasoning and independent thinking capacities; how to develop classroom communities of philosophical inquiry and their potentially transformative impact on students; the cultivation of philosophical sensitivity and positive identity formation in childhood; strategies for recognizing and diminishing the impact of social inequalities in classrooms; and the relationship between introducing philosophy in schools and education reform.