Character education: Determining barriers to implementation

Research suggests overwhelming support for character education. From school boards to superintendents and building principals, to teachers, to parents, people understand educating children is more than just teaching them to read and write. Due to the social and educational support for character education and the positive results it has on schools and individuals, many educators desire to more fully implement character education programs in their schools. While this is true, the research also suggests very little implementation taking place in the vast majority of schools around the nation. Therefore, this study sought to identify the primary barriers keeping school districts and individual schools from implementing character education programs. Surveying 53 school superintendents from the state of Oregon and 125 teachers from a rural school district in Oregon, helped identify the barriers to character education implementation. Lack of funding and lack of training surfaced as key barriers to implementing character education for both teachers and superintendents. The teachers added the fact that they do not have enough time or room in their curriculum for added programs as another major obstacle to implementing character education. The results of this study point toward ways of overcoming these barriers.; Key Terms: Values education, moral education, citizenship education.