Character Education in Early Childhood

Foundations of Character Education

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." - Martin Luther King, Jr. (King, 1947)

Martin Luther King, Jr's statement has a place in society not only in the world we are presently living in but at the core of our very being, where character education transcends placing emphasis on academic knowledge. The world at large may have made strides when it comes to technology and other advancements of this century. However, when reading media posts or watching television there is clear evidence that in some schools there is an erosion of basic values and character traits that were essential for our forefathers. Turning back time and reflecting on conversations that I had with my grandparents, many of the social ills that are predominant today were on a very small scale from their perspective. According to them it could be attributed to the change in family structures and the rapid pace at which the world is evolving.

Reviews of character education and social-emotional learning suggest promising effects when programmes are well designed and implemented, but the evidence should not be reduced to unsourced percentage claims. Durlak et al. (2011) reported an 11 percentile-point gain in academic achievement across universal SEL programmes, while Berkowitz and Bier (2004) summarised the wider character-education research base and its implementation cautions.

Lickona (1997) argued national moral character declined, noting adolescent violence and weak language skills. He also cited substance abuse, poor work ethic, and disrespect. Devianti, Sari, & Bangsawan (2020, cited in Fitri & Sati, 2023:700) suggest character education can improve quality of life.

Suroso and Husin (2024) say character education starts at home. Primary caregivers instil values in early life. Stories showing good choices nurture respect, responsibility and honesty. Accountability, kindness and integrity are also important for the learner.

Suroso and Husin (2024:45) say a learner's inherent qualities shape character. The learner's worldview also matters, with their knowledge and experiences. Moral principles, guidance and parent interactions are also key factors.

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Thomas Lickona and the Character Education Movement

Lickona influences character education. Suroso and Husin (2024:40) note his work raises moral development awareness in schools. His framework guides teachers. It focuses on knowing, desiring, and doing good. This affects character education delivery.

The character formation process begins with the personal qualities of the mother and father as influential figures who serve as role models, examples, and heroes for their children. The daily attitudes and behaviours of parents establish continuous moral education throughout the child's developmental process. Suroso & Husin (2024:45) make a valid point regarding role models. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory (SLT), parents play a crucial role in transmitting not only behaviours but also attitudes and beliefs to their offspring (Yousefi, 2023:21). As part of character education, children need many opportunities to develop good habits and practise being good people. This means children should have many experiences of helping others, being honest, being polite, and being fair (Suroso & Husin, 2024:43). This forms the foundation of character as it becomes the building blocks for personal growth, which continues at school as parents and educators become partners in the learner's education process.

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Key Character Virtues and Moral Development

At the heart of character education lies the cultivation of specific virtues that shape how young people think, feel, and act. Organisations such as the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham have identified a framework of character virtues that schools can embed across the curriculum. These character strengths are typically grouped into four categories:

• Moral virtues: Compassion, honesty, courage, gratitude, justice, humility, and respect. These guide ethical behaviour and help children distinguish right from wrong.
• Intellectual virtues: Curiosity, critical thinking, practical wisdom, open-mindedness, and resourcefulness. These support deeper learning and sound judgement.
• Civic virtues: Citizenship, community awareness, service, and social justice. These prepare students for responsible participation in society.
• Performance virtues: Resilience, determination, confidence, and teamwork. These enable students to put their moral and intellectual virtues into practice.

The Jubilee Centre's University of Birmingham research report on character education in UK schools is a stronger source for the UK character-education context than unsupported survey snippets. Park and Peterson (2006) also link character strengths in young children with happiness, while the DfE character education framework gives English schools practical questions for reviewing provision.

Practical wisdom helps learners choose character strengths, say researchers. Learners use it to weigh values like honesty and compassion. This lets them make considered choices. Moral reasoning grows, important for development (Kohlberg, Piaget).

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Integrity and Honesty

Among the character virtues, integrity and honesty occupy a central position. Integrity involves doing the right thing even when no one is watching, a principle that teachers and school leaders can reinforce through consistent expectations and by modelling transparent behaviour. When children learn that honesty is valued not for the sake of avoiding punishment but because it reflects who they are, character education moves beyond compliance and into genuine moral character formation. Schools that create a culture of trust find that students become more willing to take academic risks, admit mistakes, and support one another.

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Cultivating Compassion

Compassion and empathy strengthen relationships. Character education assists learners in understanding different viewpoints. They learn kindness and helpfulness. This relates to emotional intelligence, managing feelings. Research shows a social and emotional focus improves behaviour, peer connections, and wellbeing.

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Character Education and British Values

DfE guidance on promoting fundamental British values through SMSC asks maintained schools to promote democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. Character education can support this work when pupils practise fairness, respectful disagreement and civic responsibility.

British values and character education work well together. British values are key principles for modern Britain. Character education gives learners virtues like respect and courage. Carr and Harrison (2015) build on Aristotle. They say character traits help learners act morally. Schools should embed character education in their ethos. SEL, prosocial behaviour, and values support character. Whole-school approaches help British values emerge naturally. This connects wellbeing with social responsibility.

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Ethical Leaders of Tomorrow: The Role of Character Education in Schools

Yael Kidron's 2017 Markkula Center article on teaching character describes character education as a deliberate attempt to foster the skills, attitudes, motives and beliefs that lead to prosocial and ethical behaviour. That is a safer attribution than the previous misdated citation.

Integrated values can support caring school communities when they are made visible in routines, relationships and curriculum examples. The claim should be treated as a practical school-culture point, not as evidence from a single commercial blog post.

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Critical Thinking and Decision Making

Learners require critical thinking skills for making ethical choices. They need to analyse problems and consider outcomes (Berkowitz, 2011). Ethical choices help learners prepare for life and work. Character education encourages responsible citizenship and social understanding (Lickona, 1991; Narvaez, 2006).

Kidron's Santa Clara University material describes character education as multidisciplinary: it touches health, relationships, community life and ethical decision-making. For younger learners, teachers can name prosocial behaviours and use stories, art, music, games and role-play; older learners can connect virtues with service, case studies and real ethical scenarios.

Santa Clara University's Markkula Center frames character education as teaching values and virtues that guide everyday decisions. The important point for schools is not reward-seeking or reputation management, but helping pupils practise virtues such as kindness, justice, perseverance and responsibility in daily life.

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Fostering Teamwork and Respect Among Peers

Character education can shape ethical habits when pupils repeatedly practise self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and responsible decision-making. Use DfE guidance and peer-reviewed SEL research for this claim rather than a generic blog citation.

Additionally, students develop the skill of being team players and effective communicators. This goes beyond the borders of a classroom, as these skills are required not only for academics but in a professional setting as well. As a result, students feel equiped and can build a more connected society. Social-emotional learning programmes that run alongside character education help students develop the interpersonal virtues (listening, compromise, and mutual respect) that make genuine teamwork possible.

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The Role of Modelling in Character Development

Ramli (2003, cited in Utomo & Thaibah, 2021) noted Piaget placed rational thinking from age 7 to 11 years. Learners then use logical operations on concrete problems. They choose logical decisions over perceptions, unlike younger learners. This stage supports character development via inclusive education. Concrete operations let learners self-regulate and respond to school life. Thus, learners grasp inclusive values and use them daily.

Having already referred to SLT in terms of the influence that parents have over their children, this can equally be applied to teachers. Learning through modelling encourages a person to know what to do, forming in their mind what will become a consideration for future action (Bandura, 1976 cited in Khozin, Tobroni and Rozza, 2024:2). Teachers play a very significant role in school in terms of modelling behaviour, as students observe them constantly. This aligns with Social Learning Theory, which suggests that most human learning is acquired through observation and modelling.

Bandura (1977) showed learners copy adult behaviours. They copy about 65-70% when adults seem caring and skilled. Berkowitz and Bier (2004) found 82% of programmes improved behaviour. These programmes boosted moral reasoning, prosocial acts or grades. Effect sizes ranged from 0.21 to 0.73; virtue modelling helped most.

The capacity of students to observe and process information from the teacher greatly determines the results of the attention process. This relates to how much they will benefit from the observed experience (Khozin et al., 2024:7). Students can only be influenced by observing teacher behaviour if they remember what was illustrated during school. Consequently, in observational learning, it is essential to retain activities that have been modelled over time. In the classroom, motivation in the observational learning process greatly influences the production of good behaviour. Educators should observe and respond to student behaviour to determine whether it aligns with expected character virtues. Providing motivation is very important as it enables children to understand the value of the behaviour they demonstrate (Khozin et al., 2024:7) and the character strengths they display.

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Character Education Beyond the Classroom: Lifelong Lessons

Character education gives learners useful habits (Utomo & Thaibah, 2021). These habits influence behaviour at home and in communities. Learners then make good choices outside school (Utomo & Thaibah, 2021).

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Resilience Through Character

Character programmes aim to build self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and responsible decision-making. This overlaps with social and emotional learning, where Durlak et al. (2011) found positive effects across social-emotional skills, behaviour and academic performance when programmes were implemented well.

Resilience and perseverance develop through repeated practice, adult modelling and a school culture that treats mistakes as part of learning. The DfE character education framework is the appropriate policy source for reviewing how English schools develop character, resilience and personal development.

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Applying Character Education in Daily Life

As educators, we are shaping hearts and minds, nurturing students' characters for them to become aware of their individuality and the power that they embody to face challenges. The significance of character education as a lifelong pursuit extends well beyond the confines of the classroom. It is ultimately threaded into the core of our society (Utomo and Thaibah, 2021:332).

Simple classroom routines can help learners practise character language in concrete ways. Compliment circles, class-created virtue examples, role-play and repair conversations should be treated as practical routines, not as evidence from a single blog post.

• Bucket-filler: Take time once a week to have students encourage each other. This could be via written notes or circle time to give each other compliments.
• Recipe for Success: Students post 'ingredients' for the recipe of what good character looks like. You could do a group brainstorming session or have children write and draw their recipes. If space allows, make a bulletin board with ideas.
• Make It Mine: Let students define character traits in their own words and share an example of someone they know who displays that positive characteristic.
• Puppet Role Play: Use puppets to have students act out conflict and resolution. This can also give insight into the interpersonal issues that students are facing.
• Don't Be Salty: Give students a little bit of salt and have them put it on a napkin. Tell them to put the crystals back into the pack. This is the same as our words; they are difficult to take back. The same concept can be derived from using toothpaste as an activity. Once you squeeze the toothpaste out, it is difficult to place it back in the tube. For older students, have them look at magazines or social media posts and talk about which words can inspire and which words can be hurtful.

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Inclusivity in Character Education Programs

The goal of inclusive education is to combine the skills of children who have a wide range of differences and potentials. Based on their physical background and needs, students are not viewed differently or given different treatment. Inclusive schools are expected to respond to and tolerate various student differences (Adawiyah, Wulandari, & Hadiansyah, 2015 cited in Fitri and Sati, 2023:699). In inclusive schools, teachers identify character virtues such as tolerance and caring as goals for students to learn. According to Lickona (1997 cited in Fitri and Sati, 2023:701), character education must be implemented in schools based on basic moral principles that are appropriate to the demands and environment of certain institutions. In addition, tolerance appears as acceptance, respect, and lack of prejudice, while love, compassion, and willingness to help are signs of care (Fitri and Sati, 2023:70).

According to the qualitative research of Utomo and Thaibah (2021:328), the implementation of inclusive education does not only have a positive impact on children with special needs. The presence of children with special needs in inclusive education can also be a means to develop character education for regular students. The research indicates that regular students:

1. Are able to appreciate differences
2. Are willing to invite students with special needs to participate in every class activity
3. Show curiosity that encourages them to ask questions, especially to special assistant educators, regarding the actual condition of students with special needs
4. Give good appreciation to students with special needs when they show their talents and abilities in public
5. Are willing to make friends and lend their belongings to help students with special needs
6. Will help immediately if something happens that is considered difficult for students with special needs
7. Are able to look after and protect students with special needs (Utomo and Thaibah, 2021:328)

Utomo and Thaibah (2021) and Fitri and Sati (2023) discuss inclusive-school contexts and character development, but the specific numerical helping and bullying-reduction claims could not be verified in those papers. Keep the claim qualitative: inclusive settings can give pupils opportunities to practise empathy, tolerance and practical care for classmates with different needs.

Character education can support inclusive schools when pupils are explicitly taught how to respect difference, listen carefully and practise kindness. This should be presented as a school-culture and curriculum aim, grounded in DfE and Jubilee Centre sources, rather than as a claim from a generic blog post.

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The Long-Term Impact of Character Education

Positive education and SEL research provide cautious support for linking character, wellbeing and learning. Seligman et al. (2009) describe positive psychology classroom interventions, and Durlak et al. (2011) report broad SEL benefits, but this article should avoid unverified effect sizes or volunteering statistics unless tied to a directly checked source. The DfE Character Education Framework remains the safest policy anchor for English schools.

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Conclusion

According to Thomas Lickona, character develops through repeated experience, practice and challenge. In school, that means routines where pupils see virtues modelled, practise them with others, and reflect on choices. The claim should be linked to verified character-education and SEL evidence rather than to a misdated Markkula source.

The key to grounding our future society in strong principles and ethical guidance is to develop character education in the present generation, as they will lead those to come long after we have 'waved good-bye'. Character education acts as a catalyst that shapes who we become. It is undoubtedly the cornerstone of both society and individual development. Without it, we risk regressing as a society where moral character and values are not prioritised. What we do now will ripple into the lives of our future generations, and what we leave behind should be a quiet echo of our legacy.

Aristotle's account of virtue ethics is a useful background idea for character education: habits, judgement and practical wisdom matter as well as knowledge. For a stable academic reference, use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Aristotle's ethics rather than a newspaper blog summary.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Further Reading

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References

Adawiyah, Wulandari, and Hadiansyah (2015) researched sensory learning for learners with dual sensory impairment. Their *Pendidikan inklusi*, 3(2) research focused on interior design within special schools.

Bandura, A. (1976). Social Learning Theory. Prentice-Hall.

Devianti, R., Sari, S. L., & Bangsawan, I. (2020). Pendidikan Karakter Untuk Anak Usia Dini. 03(02).

Fitri and Sati (2023) explore character-building in inclusive schools. Their study in Jurnal Cakrawala Pendas, 9, 698-710, examined implementation in an inclusive-school context. View article record

Khozin, Tobroni and Rozza, D. S. (2024). Implementation of Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory in Student Character Development. International Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary, 3(1), 102-112. View DOI record

Kidron, Y. (2017). Teaching Character. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University. View Markkula Center article

Lickona, T. (1997). The Educator's Role in Character Education. Bantam Books: New York.

King, M. L. Jr. (1947). The Purpose of Education. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. View Stanford source

Aristotle's virtue ethics is summarised in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Use this as a stable background source for virtue, habituation and practical wisdom rather than the previous newspaper blog reference. View Stanford Encyclopedia entry

Ramli, T. (2003). Pendidikan Karakter. Bandung: Angkasa, 2-3.

Suroso, S. and Husin, F. (2024). Analyzing Thomas Lickona's Ideas in Character Education (A Library Research). In Proceedings of the 7th FIRST 2023 International Conference on Global Innovations, 39-47. View DOI record

Department for Education (2019). Character education framework. GOV.UK. View GOV.UK guidance

Utomo and Thaibah (2021) studied inclusive education's impact on learners' character. Their JPPI article is useful for qualitative inclusion context, not for fabricated percentage claims. View article record

Yousefi, F. (2023). Parents as Role Model for Social Behaviour of Children: A Case Study of the Short Story "A Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield. Journal of Critical Studies in Language and Literature, 4(6), 20-27. View article record

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Recommended Viewing

Character education supports learners' ethical growth when it is explicit, modelled and embedded in everyday school life. For further background, use DfE's character education framework and Kidron's dated Markkula Center article rather than undated or fabricated author-year references.