ABSTRACT
The formation of character could be said to be the aim that all general education has historically set out to achieve. It is an aim that has often not been explicitly stated, instead it has simply been assumed. Most traditional approaches to character education emphasize the role of habit, imitation, modeling, instruction, rewards and punishments, and authority in the formation of character and regularly invoke Aristotelian ethics in justification. Some of these educational approaches have been interpreted as both coercive and teacher-centered and are seen in sharp contrast to the advocates of child-centered approaches based on moral developmental research which is characterized by a belief in the child’s ability to gradually bring their “behaviour under the explicit guidance of rational deliberation” (Narvaez & Lapsley, 2005, p. 141).1 Therefore, to enter on a discussion about character and, even more, about character education is to enter a minefield of conflicting definition and ideology. It is an educational theme about which there is much fundamental disagreement and division. The disagreement is about whether traditional character education is a legitimate aim of schooling. Can there be said to exist such a thing as a regular and fixed set of habitual actions in a person that constitutes his or her character? In order to begin an answer to this question we must start with the early Greek and Christian ideas of character.
