The Research Of New Character Education Movement Of America

In the1980s, in the face of a serious moral crisis, the U.S. government, and academia stronglyadvocate the return and revival of traditional character education to address the serious moral problems ofAmerican society. The revival of the character education that is the new character education stresses theleading role of the core values, focusing on the moral consensus, using the inclusive and comprehensivemethods and approaches, integrating social forces, including schools, families, and communities, andstriving to educate young people’s good character to improve young people’s ethical behavior forcultivating qualified citizens. In our country, it is undeniable that the mainstream values of young peopleare still healthy and positive, but due to the development of diverse valuesconflicting young people’s ownmoral values; the real interests temptation also leads to the youth disoriented and their values trend topractical and utilitarian values. These factors have led to our young people’s various ethical problems. Theoriginal ethics mode and ethical approach has not been able to meet the need of new era to overcome theseproblems. This study attempts to analyze new character education of America from the whole aspects inorder to provide a good paradigm for our youth moral education. This paper states from the followingseveral parts in detail:Part I: Introduce this paper including reasons and the significance of choosing the title, the existedproblems, the related concept about the researches, and the research direction and methods, etc.PartⅡ: The rise of new character education of America. This part of discusses from the generation andthe decline of the traditional character education to analysis background of the rise of the new charactereducation. This part emphasizes the causes of the rise of new character education from three aspects:rethink the traditional moral education, requirements of the development of modern moral education andserious moral crisis of the rise of a new character education, and then discusses the status of thedevelopment of new character education.Part Ⅲ: The theory of the new character education of America. This part of discusses detailed thetheory of the new character education of America. It discusses the content and features, goals and structure,methods and approaches, and the practice principle of new character education, and emphasizes thepractice principles of new character education according to “eleven principles of effective character". Part IV: The practical exploration and development tendency of new character education of America.This part of takes the high-quality schools in the United States-"Blue Ribbon School" as examples toexplore the practice of new character education from three aspects: the formal curriculum, informalcurriculum and hidden curriculum. And then analyzes the development tendency of new charactereducation from the theme of the times, citizens tendency, legalization tendency.Part Ⅴ: Evaluation of new character education of America. This section discusses the modern valuesand limitations of the new character education. It emphasizes modern values from traditional virtues, thediversity of approaches, integration of social forces, results-oriented assessment which are impacted by thenew character education.Part Ⅵ: The enlightenment of the new character education of America to the young people in ourcountry. This part questions the causes of the moral problems of the young people in our country bycomparing with the social mores in America. And then analyze the causes by discussing the behaviors ofyoung people for young people’s moral education by referring to the measures of new character education.