The Moral Dimensions of Language Education
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THE MORAL DIMENSIONS OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
Like other kinds of teaching, language education is fundamentally and, some would argue, primarily moral in nature. By “moral,” we mean that it involves crucial yet difficult and ambiguous beliefs and decisions about what is right and good for learners and others. The moral dimensions of teaching inhere in certain key facts. First, all teaching aims to change people; there is an implicit assumption that this change is for the better. Second, there are limitations on the degree to which science, research, and objective facts about teaching and learning can guide teachers in the decisions they make; the great majority of teachers’ work in actual classrooms has to be based on teachers’ beliefs about what is right and good for their learners—that is to say, it is rooted in moral values. Third, like any relations between human beings, relations between a teacher and her students are moral in nature, revolving around key issues such as trust and respect. The innate power differential between teacher and students merely reinforces this basic fact. The moral landscape of the language classroom is rendered even more complex than in other contexts by the fact that the teaching of languages by definition takes place at the intersection between different national, cultural, and political boundaries, representing often radically different sets of values. Furthermore, the different cultures and value systems represented in classrooms, like the individuals taking part in language education, are not equally positioned in terms of cultural capital (see also Kelly Hall, Language Education and Culture, Volume 1) but, quite the opposite, are usually in unequal relations in ways frequently involving race, gender, sexual orientation, and other crucial differences.
E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S : F I N D I N G S F R O M G E N E R A L E D U C AT I O N
As the preceding paragraph suggests, work on the moral dimensions of language teaching has largely been grounded in work on morality in general education. In this section, we review the principal contributions to this line of research. S. May and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: Language Policy and Political Issues in Education, 95–104. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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B I L L J O H N S T O N A N D C A RY B U Z Z E L L I
John Dewey, in his seminal book, Moral Principles in Education (1909), drew an important distinction between the teaching of morality—the explicit teaching of specific moral values, and the morality of teaching—the ways teaching is imbued with moral significance. Despite the importance of Dewey’s early writings in this area, little attention was paid to the morality of teaching until the early 1980s. The publication of Tom (1984) marked the beginning of a renewed interest in the moral aspects of teaching. Tom critiqued the long-held view of teaching as an applied science, according to which research in the social and behavioral sciences will yield
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