Work

Integrating the values of social harmony and criticality: perspectives from Singapore’s approach to character and citizenship education

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Today, values education remains fundamental to the purposes of education particularly in response to global unrest, rising intolerance, and youths who are increasingly civic engaged in social justice. In this paper, we focus on values pedagogy in the context of Singapore’s Character and Citizenship Education (CCE). The first part of this paper surveys the literature on character education and citizenship education and explores how historically, each has emphasized different values. The paper then focuses on Singapore’s approach to CCE. At policy and curricula levels, shifts from the late twentieth century have encouraged the cultivation of both moral and civic values through CCE. The second part examines how Singapore teachers have sought to facilitate values pedagogy at three levels in the classroom – awareness of moral values and social-global issues, critical analysis of values and social-global issues, and active citizenship engagements in society and the world. We distil findings from a national survey of 585 Singapore secondary teachers which is the first nation-wide survey on Singapore secondary school teachers’ values pedagogy. We conclude by discussing the challenges of an integrated approach to CCE particularly in negotiating the tensions between the values of social harmony and criticality.

Source: Asia Pacific Journal of Education

DOI: 10.1080/02188791.2025.2511749

Authors: Suzanne S. Choo, Jasmine B.-Y. Sim, Bee Leng Chua

Institutions: Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education

Language: English

Topic: Values and Moral Education

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University