Abstract

This thesis examines a character education program at a local Montreal elementary school. Character education as a necessary component of the classroom, has dominated the field of moral education for many years. The theories of Thomas Lickona, William Damon, and Anne Lockwood, have established different approaches to incorporating character education into the classroom. Although these theories have had a wide influence on the support for character education in today's classroom, the forms these programs have taken has been criticized for being too traditional and not serving the changing needs of today's classroom. Noddings work as an ethicist of care has been critical of these theories for their reliance on an ethic of justice as opposed to an ethic of care. This thesis draws on the model put forth by Lickona for educating for character to demonstrate the practical nature of a character education program. The thesis also incorporates Noddings' ethic of care in determining if the students are engaged in the program and if Lickona's model is being put into action through individual relations between the students.