Ethics education in initial teacher education: pre-service provision in England

Ethics education exists in most professions internationally, yet is less prevalent in teacher education. This article reports on research exploring how ethics education is provided in university courses of initial teacher education (ITE) in England that was conducted as the second phase of an international survey study which considered the prevalence of ethics education in teacher education in five countries. Participants from the initial survey, all involved in the delivery of ITE programmes in English universities, were interviewed for this second phase of the research. Our key findings are that ethics is not offered as a stand-alone course in any institution, but is embedded in various ways within the curriculum. Ethics education is diffused among different areas of the curriculum and the activities used to develop ethical understanding are diverse. Barriers to providing ethical education include student resistance, lack of time, the complex nature of the provision and external demands.