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Designed for those wanting to be teachers, administrators, or other educational practitioners, this work shows how the study of educational philosophy should and can be of considerable practical value. The author provides students with a method―one of questioning―and a set of principles of moral agency for assessing the purposes and decisions of educational practice. Students can see the practical value of educational philosophy through case studies which include: a school district committee's efforts to write a mission statement; a disciplinary hearing for a middle school student; a teacher's instructional evaluation; a high school committee trying to reform an occupational studies program; and an elementary school committee examining how to improve students' academic performance.Each case study contains background information and a description of the facts of the case, an identification of the central topic, a specification of the features of moral activity that appear in the case, a questioning of the case from the standpoint of the generic norms of moral agency, and recommendations on what needs to be done in the case. (view table of contents)

Since World War II the regulation of conduct in the United States has become problematic. This condition has been recognized by ordinary citizens in the soaring crime rates, illegitimate births, neglect of the public good and increase in special and individual interests, preference for fame, fortune and power, gross immoral acts by public figures, and fascination of the media and the audience with spectacles of evil. The troubled control of social behavior in the nation is suggested by the fact that our society has no commonly accepted set of standards that can guide our actions. Heslep penetrates the bazaar of competing normative principles that Americans subscribe to in search of those logical and feasible standards of behavior that will conquer our nation's moral crisis. He then constructs an idea of character education for Americans, applying it to recent policy recommendations and to cases of individuals with moral education needs. (view table of contents)