The Content of Their Character
Inquiries into the Varieties of Moral Formation
EDITED BY: James Davison Hunter & Ryan S. Olson
For most of America’s history, schools were established to furnish more than just academic training: They were founded to form young people of strong character and civic conscience. We rarely think of our schools that way now. Ironically, we bicker over test scores, graduation rates, and academic standards, even as we are besieged by news stories of gratuitous misconduct and cynical, callous, unethical behavior.
Might our schools provide a glimmer of hope? This is precisely the question that a team of talented scholars asked in a landmark study. To explore how American high schools directly and indirectly inculcate moral values in students, these researchers visited a national sample of schools in each of ten sectors, and The Content of Their Character provides a summary of the scholars’ findings—the stories from the schools they visited and the teachers, administrators, and students they spoke to. The results point to a new model for understanding the moral and civic formation of children and to new ways to prepare young people for responsibility and citizenship in a complex world.
Edited by James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson as part of the School Cultures and Student Formation Project of the Institute’s Culture and Formation Colloquy, The Content of Their Character features groundbreaking research: a one-of-a-kind look into the complexities of the moral and character formation of children, discovered through in-depth, on-the-ground observation and analysis.
Each chapter examines a different sector:
“Urban Public Schools” by Jeffrey Guhin
“Rural Public Schools” by Richard Fournier
“Charter Schools” by Patricia Maloney
“Evangelical Protestant Schools” by David Sikkink
“Catholic Schools” by Carol Ann MacGregor
“Jewish Day High Schools” by Jack Wertheimer
“Islamic Schools” by Charles Glenn
“Prestigious Independent Schools” by Kathryn Wiens
“Alternative Pedagogical Schools” by David Sikkink
“Home Schools” by Jeffrey Dill