VALUES EDUCATION - A FRESH LOOK AT PROCEDURAL NEUTRALITY

The need for education in moral values is increasingly being recognise d today, but how is it to be conducted in schools? In particular we co nsider the appropriateness or otherwise of a teacher assuming the role of a neutral chairperson in discussion. Advocacy of such a stance is especially associated with Lawrence Stenhouse who saw neutrality as a procedural device in order to empower students' own involvement. We po int out many of the insights of Stenhouse's approach, but also some of its disadvantages which subtly encourage a popularist form of relativ ism. We suggest the substitution of procedural neutrality with a diffe rent approach, that of critical affirmation. Here the teacher advocate s a stance alongside everyone else. This, however, is done in a way th at affirms pupils, and their right to personal views, whilst subjectin g all views, including the teacher's own, to a close scrutiny, especia lly regarding implications for the views of others.