Ethics and the Foundations of Education

Book excerpt: Teaching Convictions: Critical Ethical Issues and Education explores ethical issues in schools and society from the vantage-point of critical theory, democratic community, aesthetics, ecology, hermeneutics, and constructive postmodernism. This text discusses social constructions of reality and the contribution of postmodern theories to justice, compassion, and ecological sustainability in the challenging and difficult context of today's global society. The authors present life experiences and personal convictions in a narrative, autobiographical style without positioning themselves as passive observers of education or ethics nor as dispassionate investigators of ethical systems. Rather, they actively promote vision and aesthetic sensibilities as they examine their understanding of schools and society using examples from their life experiences. By referring to the arts, ecology, identity politics, theology, race and gender theories in their story of critical ethical issues and education, the authors weave a narrative of their teaching convictions in relation to moral issues.