Vol 12 Nr 2022:2 (2022): Nordidactica 2022:2

Teaching and learning ethics in the Humanities and Social Science school subjects

In some of the Nordic countries, there is a school subject where discussions on ethical questions are central in the curriculum. For example, the subject that in Finnish schools since the 1980’s is the alternative to the non-confessional subject Religion is named ‘Secular Ethics’. Obviously, school subjects like ‘kristendomskundskab’ in Denmark, ‘religionskunskap’ in Sweden, andreligion og livssynsfag’ in Norway are subjects where ethical questions are as if by definition in the curriculum. The same applies also to the subject Philosophy. However, educational aims connected with development of the students’ moral judgment and processing of ethical issues can be present also in school subjects such as History, Biology, Economics, and Drama.

For this issue of Nordidactica, contributions were invited that focus on teaching and learning ethics in the school subjects History, Social Studies, Religious Education, Geography and Philosophy, and in cross-disciplinary settings that these subjects are part of. The contributions could be theoretical, empirical, or methodological. The invitation resulted in the following five articles that we are delighted to present.

Carla Nielsen's article, “Preparatory remarks concerning an 'existence didactics' in ethics education in the subject Christianity (Kristendomskundskab) in the Danish primary and lower secondary school”, deals with the existential perspective of the Christianity curriculum in Denmark. In their article, “Students’ performance in ethics assignments in the Finnish Matriculation Examination 2017–2021”, Mika Perälä and Eero Salmenkivi discuss Finnish students’ knowledge in metaethics and normative ethics. The article “Ethics as intended, actualized and evaluated content in the subject Christianity/Religion in teacher education”, by Hanne Fie Rasmussen, Julie Nørgaard and Pernille Julie Östergaard Nielsen, discusses ethics as incorporated in other subjects in the Danish teacher education programme. In her article Maren Lytje discusses what knowledge content to use in order to support democratic education in History teaching. The paper “Fiction-based ethics education in Swedish compulsory school – reflections on a research project”, by Karin Sporre, Christina Osbeck, Annika Lilja, David Lifmark, Olof Franck and Anna Lyngfelt, takes its starting point in a research project on fiction-based ethics education. 

Publicerad: 2022-06-28