Dr Konstanze Spohrer from the Sociology of Education team recently met with Prof Jessica Ringrose and Dr Patrick Bailey from the Institute of Education, University College London, to discuss a research project on character education in UK schools. The background of the project is the renewed attention character education has attracted from policy makers, non-governmental organisations, and research in the UK and internationally. In England, the government launched a character education grant scheme in 2015 and has set out further plans to promote character development in schools in its 2016 White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere.
The planned project aims to examine how character education is understood and put into practice in schools in different regions of the UK. Of particular interest will be how policies and discourses on character inform local practice and shape the identities of young people from a range of gender, ethnic, and social class backgrounds.