Reflections on the Publicness of Character Education in the UK
Since 2010,character education has gaining significant territory in public policies.But there has been academic debate regarding whether character education is over-ly individualized,lacking the spirit of publicness.Supporters of character education argue that character education incorporates education of individuals'civic virtues.Furthermore,character education is committed to solving social conflicts through facilitating society mo-bility.However,the critic literature disagrees these arguments.First,it indicates that'char-acter'is predominantly viewed as a set of soft skills to be developed in order to boot individ-ual labor market outcomes and wider economic growth.Such perspective could be viewed as a way of manipulating individuals'subjectivity.It also serves to protect the status quo of so-cial structure,hiding social conflicts.Second,critics point out that the emphasis on cultivat-ing individuals'civic virtues manifested in daily social interaction.It serves reproducing adapters of given social structure,rather than critical and reflexive agents of positive trans-formation.With a nod of the critics'argument,we believe that publicness of character edu-cation should not be inferred from quantifiable private benefits.Rather,whether individu-als'subjectivities can be defended and safeguarded by the education process is the core of pursuing public good.
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