ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1662663
This article is part of the Research TopicDiscourse, Conversation and Argumentation: Theoretical Perspectives and Innovative Empirical Studies, Volume IVView all 8 articles
Seeds for democracy: understanding European values in educational dialogues
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- 2Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France
- 3University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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An analytical framework for observing ethical learning in schoolchildren during social interaction has been recently developed. It comprises two tools for appraising ethical thinking and behaviour: dialogue on ethics (DoE) and ethics of dialogue (EoD). Studying the effectiveness of a project aimed at promoting ethical learning of socially-oriented values – empathy, inclusion, and tolerance – within the context of dialogic education, has appeared as providing a complex picture: the relation between children's DoE and their EoD was positive where the topic posed for discussion presented a dilemma. In contrast, it was negative when the discussion was conceptual, and the teacher was dominant. In the present paper, we describe a case study to illustrate and explain these results. The DoE/EoD analytical framework was adopted to observe when and why ethical thinking and conduct could be coordinated. The case study shows that ethical learning in its epistemological and behavioural dimensions can be promoted or inhibited in contexts of dialogic education, depending on design principles.
Keywords: Dialogic education, Ethical learning, Classroom talk, Democratic education, Educational dialogue analysis
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 17 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Schwarz, BAKER and Brandel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Baruch B Schwarz, baruch.schwarz@mail.huji.ac.il
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