Integrated Domain-Based Social/Moral Curriculum

This project is supported by a grant from the Elementary Learning Foundation of Park Ridge, Illinois. The project involves the construction of curricular units designed to foster the growth of students' moral judgements, concepts of social convention, and notions of the personal sphere of values through the regular academic curriculum. Units are designed with the goal of developing students concepts within each domain and to enable students to integrate moral and social knowledge across domains. The latter is central to the development of a critical moral perspective, and the ability to engage in moral and social reasoning in complex socio-moral contexts. These units are primarily intended for use with middle school students (grades 6-8). However, some units have been designed for use with younger students. All of the units are being constructed in collaboration with faculty of schools in Park Ridge, Illinois, District #64. The middle school units are primarily being constructed in collaboration with the Language Arts and Social Studies faculty of Lincoln Middle School. In each case, units employ topics and materials associated with the regular academic curriculum. The goal is to generate a curricular counterpart to the more general attention to social and emotional development that is already at work in these school settings. Curricula units that have been developed are available through this web site in Featured Practices.

Individuals wishing to learn more about this approach to values education through the regular curriculum should contact Larry Nucci.