The two-dimensional mechanism of moral education: an explorative study at a primary school and high school in China

This explorative study is concerned with the issue of establishing a two-dimensional “mechanism” of moral education, relating to (1) connections and continuity from primary to high school (vertical dimension) and (2) collaborations between parents-teachers-community-government (horizontal dimension). We use a primary school and a high school affiliated with a major Chinese university as an illustrative case. In a two-step approach, the textual analysis of the two schools’ official documents on moral education informed 24 interviews with teachers at the two schools. The research aims are guided by three main questions: (1) How has the two-dimensional mechanism been addressed by educators from the two schools?; (2) What are the major challenges that teachers face in the process of developing the two-dimensional moral education mechanism?; and (3) How are the dimensions similar or different compared with the Western perspective? We found that the horizontal dimension is addressed similarly to that in the West, while the vertical dimension is addressed quite differently from that in the West.