https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6880-859X
![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to identify how key actors in school practice understand character education (CE) and virtue education (VE) in Latvia. For addressing the research question (‘What advanced understanding of CE and VE do the key actors of school education hold?’), the study uses qualitative analysis and synthesis of participants’ (N = 700) (pupils, parents, pre- and in-service schoolteachers, and school heads) opinions about the meaning of and differences between CE and VE. The inquiry elicited participants’ views regarding the essence (purpose, ‘why’), manifestations (educational focus, ‘what’), and the practical implementations (kind of activities, ‘how’) of CE and VE. The results point to the education of a ‘virtuous character’, as a synthesis of CE and VE balancing their individual and social dominants and focusing on pupils’ friendship attitudes, relationships, behaviours, and actions, which are the sources of well-being and flourishing and are internalised through substantive long-term actions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Initially (in 2015) the amendments mentioned explicitly only the values ‘family’ and ‘marriage’. The most recent amendment (October 2022) listed ten values: life, human dignity, freedom, family, marriage, work, nature, culture, the Latvian language, and the Latvian State. All the ten were already mentioned in the Cabinet of Ministers’ Regulation No. 480 (CoM, Citation2016).
2. Virtues are defined in Part II-7 as ‘expressions of free thinking and action by an individual’. Twelve virtues are listed: respect, solidarity, justice, virtue, fairness, freedom, responsibility, studiousness, caring, empathy, moderation, and courage.
7. In 2021, there were 217,271 pupils in Latvia, and 1/3 of them studied in Riga (n = 74,744). https://data.stat.gov.lv/pxweb/en/OSP_OD/OSP_OD__sociala__izgl__vispskolas/IZG210.px/table/tableViewLayout1/.
8. In this study, ‘willpower’ refers to the person’s strong determination in character and has an individual dominant connotation, while ‘moral strength’ refers to the person’s moral excellence and force to implement moral principles and has a social dominant connotation.
9. Following Lazurskij’s personality theory, ‘attitudes’ are a system of value orientations to the surrounding reality and ‘relationships’ are interaction structures with the surrounding reality (Honcharova & Larionov, Citation2018). The category system distinguishes also ‘behaviour’ and ‘acting’, with the latter going beyond the behaviourism paradigms of reflexology of Thorndike and classical conditioning of Pavlov and being based on the biosocial foundation pioneered in the 1930s by early Vygotsky and Rubinstein.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Irina Maslo
Irina Maslo as an innovative schoolteacher defended in 1987 her doctoral theses about out-of-school activities for active work-life participation and in 1995 became habilitated doctor on the basis of international accreditation of innovations for learning-supported schooling organisation and school curricula at the national (Latvian) and international level. She is a professor at the University of Latvia since 1997 and has worked as director of the Scientific Institute of Pedagogy, the Master’s degree study program ‘Educational Treatment of Diversity’, accredited twice in Latvia and Spain, and the doctoral school ‘Strengthening Human Capacity and Life-Wide Learning in Inclusive Contexts of Diversity’. She has supervised 16 defended doctoral theses, strengthening the theoretical foundation for practical innovations in Latvian educational practice.
Manuel Joaquín Fernández González
Manuel Joaquín Fernández González is a doctor of pedagogy, a leading researcher at the Scientific Institute of Pedagogy of the Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art of the University of Latvia. In 2020, he graduated from the MA Character Education program at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues of the Department of Education and Social Justice of the University of Birmingham. He is currently holder of a 3-year grant from the Latvian Council of Science for investigating character and virtue education at school in Latvia. He is also an expert in social sciences (education sciences) of the Latvian Council of Science.
Svetlana Surikova
Svetlana Surikova is a doctor of pedagogy, a leading researcher at the Scientific Institute of Pedagogy of the Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art of the University of Latvia. Currently her scientific interests are related to the research of professionalisation of adult educators, teacher professional development, character education, etc. She is an expert in social sciences (education sciences) of the Latvian Council of Science.