In Defence of 'Non-Expansive' Character Education

I first put the notion of non-expansive character education in context by locating its place within recent trends in values education and, in particular, by distinguishing it from more expansive accounts such as civic education and critical postmodernism. I argue that the essential characteristics of non-expansive character education are, on the one hand, moral cosmopolitanism and, on the other, methodological substantivism. In the second part of the essay, I defend this sort of character education against various common criticisms, with special reference to two canonical works of the movement, by Lickona and Kilpatrick. Non-expansive character education stands out, in the end, as a reasonable middle-ground proposal with neither too little nor too much meat on its bones.