MORAL DEVELOPMENT IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES

This paper discusses the successes and lessons learned from Middle School Visions, a character education program implemented by Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics in five North Carolina middle schools between 2005 and 2008. A number of the program’s components aligned with “best practices ” as defined in the character education and youth development literature. Program components that focused on building relationships between students, staff, and community members met with high anecdotal success among teachers and principals. This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses in program design and implementa-tion, the measurement of “success ” in the character education literature, and the challenges of school-based research. It also considers examples of less individual-istic and more community-based approaches to the moral development of youth. The Occasional Paper Series dukeethics.org