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Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 569e578

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Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tate

Teacher education, preservice teacher beliefs, and the moral work of teaching

Matthew N. Sanger a,*, Richard D. Osguthorpe b

a Idaho State University, College of Education, Stop 8059, Pocatello, ID 83209-8059, USAbBoise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725-1745, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 24 May 2010Received in revised form16 September 2010Accepted 11 October 2010

Keywords:Moral educationTeacher beliefsTeacher education constructivismCharacter education

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 208 282 5739; faxE-mail addresses: sangmatt@isu.edu (M.N. Sanger), r

edu (R.D. Osguthorpe).

0742-051X/$ e see front matter Published by Elseviedoi:10.1016/j.tate.2010.10.011

a b s t r a c t

This paper presents a case for attending to preservice teachers’ beliefs that are relevant to the moral workof teaching within teacher education research and practice, and examines what it would look like to doso. The case for attending to candidate beliefs is grounded in a learner-centered approach to teachereducation and in the literature on the role of beliefs in teacher learning and change. The authorsdemonstrate how attending to preservice teacher beliefs is particularly critical for the task of preparingcandidates for the moral work of teaching, and present a conceptual framework that can guide that taskand teacher education research and practice designed to support it.

Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction

The basic issue that motivates this inquiry is the scarce attentiongiven to the moral work of teaching within programs of teachereducation. As Sockett and LePage (2002) suggest, “Moral language ismissing in classrooms, but it is also missing in the seminar rooms andlecture halls of teacher education” (p.171, emphasis added).Willemseet al. suggest why, despite long-standing and widely-held concernamongst educators for themoralworkof teaching teacher educationresearch and practice (still) fall short of productively addressing it:

Although we agree on the importance of research focused onthe moral dimensions of teacher education programs and theimportance of preparing student teachers with regard to themoral aspects of education, we also see twomajor problems: (1)the absence of a clear theoretical framework and (2) the lack ofempirical research upon which to build. (p. 446)

In the paper that follows, we address Willemse et al.’s first, andwe believe most fundamental obstacle to systematic, intentional,andmeaningful efforts to prepare teachers for what has been calledthe moral work of teaching (Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2005; Sanger &Osguthorpe, 2009; henceforth MWT). We do so by providinga theoretical framework for teacher education research and prac-tice that is substantively guided by the beliefs about the MWT that

: þ1 208 282 4575.ichardosguthorpe@boisestate.

r Ltd.

preservice teachers bring to their teacher education programs.Getting to that framework will take some time, however, as we laythe groundwork for its content and use.

We begin by providing a general argument for why teachereducators and researchers of teaching and teacher educationshould substantively address the MWT in the first place. We thenelaborate a learner-centered approach to doing so. This approach isinformed by a range of broadly constructivist approaches toteaching and learning, drawing in particular upon the literature onteacher and preservice teacher beliefs. In the process, we argue thatthere are a number of important reasons why those beliefs shouldbe a central focus of our efforts to prepare preservice teachers forthe MWT, and of research intended to inform that process.

Throughout this paper, we focus on and use the language ofpreservice teacher education practice, and in particular, the task ofaddressing preservice teacher beliefs as a part of initial teacherpreparation programs. We do this, in part, for economy of thoughtand writing, but believe that the general points made below areequally important for teacher professional development.

We conceptualize the MWT using a broad and inclusive view ofthe moral domainda complex aspect of human life that involvesissues of what is good, right, and virtuous in what and how wethink, feel, and act (Darwall, 1998), in who we are, and how werelate to others. In turn, the MWT is taken to be the elements ofpractice that are within, or meaningfully connected to, the moraldomain. These elements prominently include all those things thatgo into being a morally good person as a teacher, and also in theeffects teachers have on the moral functioning and development ofstudents. We elaborate this conception of the MWT later in our

M.N. Sanger, R.D. Osguthorpe / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 569e578570

inquiry, fleshing out what it might look like to prepare preserviceteachers for the MWT well by addressing the beliefs that are rele-vant to that work.

2. An argument for attending to the moral work of teachingin teacher education

Sockett and LePage (2002), and Willemse, Lunenberg, andKorthagen (2005) are part of a growing, international list ofscholars who have noted and problematised the gap betweeneducators’ concerns for the MWT and the lack of substantive,explicit attention to it within teacher education (e.g. Bergem, 1992;Berkowitz, 1998; Beyer, 1991; Campbell, 2003; Howard, Berkowitz,& Schaeffer, 2004; Jones, Ryan, & Bohlin, 2003; Mahony, 2009;Narvaez & Lapsley, 2008; Oser, 1994; Oser & Althof, 1993;O’Sullivan, 2005; Ryan, 1987; Ryan & Bohlin, 2000; Sanger, 2008;Sockett, 2006, 2009; Thornberg, 2008; Willemse, Lunenberg, &Korthagen, 2005; Willemse et al., 2008). Despite this growing,thoughtful collection of papers, this literature typically lacks whatwe consider a full and explicit argument justifying the attention ofteacher educators and researchers to this particular domain. Wetherefore begin by providing that argument.

Ourmost basic assumption rests upon one of the stronger pointsof consensus in the education literature today, namely, thatteaching is an unavoidably moral endeavor (Fenstermacher, 1990;Hansen, 2001a, 2001b; Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993; Oser,1994; Sockett, 1993; Tom, 1984). Based upon the strength of thatconsensus, and what we believe is the sound reasoning behind it,we take this assumption as given.

To justify attending to the MWT, we not only need to show thatit is ubiquitous and unavoidable, but of some significant value orimportance. Support for this claim comes from at least threesources. The first is an argument regarding the proper aims ofeducation and/or the nature of teaching. There are innumerableversions of such arguments that have been articulated from Platoonward that might serve our purpose here. One version, whichcomes in a variety of forms, from a wide range of perspectives,claims that education (and schooling as a means to it) serves moreexpansive ends than scores of academic achievement, and thus thecontributions that teachers make to the moral life of classrooms, tothe moral lives that our Pe12 students lead, and to the character ofour society, are critical (e.g. Brighouse, 2006; Dewey, 1916; Giroux,1988; Noddings, 1984; Whitehead, 1929).

The second source of support for the idea that theMWT is of someimportance comes not from the philosophical argument above, butfromempirical evidenceworldwide that people actually subscribe tosome version of it. This evidence can be found in historical accountsfrom the U.K. to the U.S. and from China to Africa, which show thatschools have had a substantive moral mission since their inception,and that the public has largely supported that mission (e.g. Arthur,2008; McClellan, 1999; Swartz, 2010; Wanxue & Hanwei, 2004).Additional empirical evidence comes from contemporary surveyresearch showing that the traditional moral purpose of teaching andschooling is still widely supported today, including those workingwithin teacher education (e.g. Jones et al., 2003; Xiaoman & Cilin,2004), and more anecdotal reports documenting that this work isvalued (e.g. Beyer, 1997; Campbell, 2003; Howard et al., 2004;Narvaez & Lapsley, 2008; Oser & Althof, 1993; Oser, Dick, & Patry,1992; O’Sullivan, 2005; Ryan, 1987; Sockett, 2006, 2009; Sockett &LePage, 2002; Stengel & Tom, 1995). As we discuss further below,another source of empirical evidence suggesting that people valuetheMWT, is the literature addressing why people choose to becometeachers in the first place (e.g. Book & Freeman, 1986; Brookhart& Freeman, 1992). That research suggests that teachers arecommonly drawn to the profession because of its moral nature.

The final claim in our argument justifying attention to theMWT within teacher education research and practice is that thereis a substantive educational task for teacher educators in thisdomain, answering the potential criticism that such a project,while desirable, is a practically fanciful one. In response we pointto two bodies of knowledge that are particularly relevant to theMWT. One body lies primarily within moral and educationalphilosophy and teacher education (e.g. Bull, 1993; Campbell, 2003;Fenstermacher, 1990; Goodlad, Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990; Hansen,2001a, 2001b; Jackson et al., 1993; Mahony, 2009; Noddings,1984; Sockett, 1993; Strike & Soltis, 2009). This body of workexplores teaching’s basic moral nature, elaborating the many waysin which moral value is manifest in the work of teachers. Forexample, Jackson et al.’s Moral Life of Schools Project documentedthe many, often subtle and implicit ways in which messages aboutmoral value arise in classroom contexts, providing an “observer’sguide” to recognizing the sources of moral messages withinschools (1993). Similarly, Richardson and Fenstermacher’s Mannerin Teaching Project elaborated a range of ways in which the moralvirtues of teachers are made visible in how they conduct them-selves in their classrooms (2001). Strike and Soltis (2009) havealso illustrated the basic elements of major moral theories’ placewithin teaching practice, including a series of cases for educatorsto work through to help understand how those theories can guidepractice (and their limitations in doing so). Further, based in thecontent of contemporary philosophical ethics (Darwall, 1998;Darwall, Gibbard, & Railton, 1997), and experiences engagingcollege-aged students in inquiries into that domain, we havereason to believe that naïve forms of relativism, subjectivism, andabsolutism are common among the college and universitystudents that occupy preservice teacher education programs(Mahony, 2009; Ternasky, 1993).

The other body of literature that suggests that there is indeeda substantive educational task in preparing teachers for the MWTsheds light on moral development and functioning, and how thoseprocesses might be influenced within the context of schooling(e.g. Berkowitz, 1997; Hoffman, 2000; Killen & Smetana, 2006;Kurtines & Gewirtz, 1995; Lapsley, 1996; Nucci, 2001; Nucci &Narvaez, 2008; Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999; Solomon,Watson, & Battistich, 2001; Turiel, 1998). In the same way thatthe psychology of learning and development has yielded practicalinsights into the development of curriculum and instruction inliteracy, mathematics, science, social studies, and other domains ofacademic content learning, the psychological literature providesa growing basis for understanding how educators can positivelyaffect students’moral functioning and development. This literaturenow includes a number of strong empirical studies of programs thatdemonstrate positive effects (see Berkowitz, 2002; Halstead &Taylor, 2000; Solomon et al., 2001; Watson & Battistich, 2006).The prospects for research informing educational practice continueto grow as studies of moral psychology have also grown outside ofeducation (e.g. Sinnott-Armstrong, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c).

Together, these bodies of literature paint a picture of morality asnot only complex and ubiquitous in teaching practice, but some-thing we have a great deal of knowledge about. That knowledgecould be a resource for teachers to use in guiding their thought,planning, and practice (e.g. Nucci, 2008). The presence ofsubstantive resources that could inform practice suggests there isindeed a task for teacher educators in this domain, not in simply“delivering” that information to preservice teachers, but in makingsystematic use of it in the design and enactment of initial teacherpreparation programs. However, these resources have yet to beextensively utilized for this purpose (Jones et al., 2003; Sockett &LePage, 2002; Willemse et al., 2008), and recent qualitativestudies have shown that teachers perceive the task of moral

M.N. Sanger, R.D. Osguthorpe / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 569e578 571

education to be both unplanned and unconscious, and that teachersgenerally lack substantive professional knowledge related to moraleducation (Thornberg, 2008).

3. Attending to preservice teacher beliefs relevantto the MWT

If we accept that teaching is unavoidably moral in nature, thatthe MWT is an important part of the education of Pe12 students,and that teacher preparation programs have a largely unrealizedpotential to contribute to teachers’ capacity to carry out the MWTin effective and responsible ways, we arrive at the very substantivequestions of what the nature of that contribution is, and how it canbest be made.

We propose that for teacher educators, and for researchers ofteaching, attending to preservice teacher beliefs relevant to the MWTis one important component of the answer to these questionsdonethat illustrates a more general approach to preparing teachers forthe MWT that is appropriately learner-centered, informed bytheory and research, and grounded in a comprehensive conceptualframework that is well suited for this domain (which we discussbelow).We begin the next segment of our inquiry by discussing theimportance of attending to beliefs as a part of the teacher educationprocess in general, before considering their particular relevance topreparing teachers for the MWT, and then move on to discussa framework that can productively guide our efforts to identify,understand, and address those beliefs.

3.1. The importance of beliefs

Perhaps the most well established basis for claiming thatteachers should meaningfully attend to the beliefs of learnerscomes from constructivist views of learning, and associatedapproaches to teaching and teacher education. Given the extensivebody of work addressing constructivism and its influence ineducational thought and practice, we focus on what we take to becommon, and fairly uncontroversial ideas that are relevant to ourcurrent inquiry.

Donovan and Bransford’s (2005) popular synthesis of learningresearch is illustrative, opening with a list of established learningprinciples:

1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions abouthow the world works. If their initial understanding is notengaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and infor-mation, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revertto their preconceptions outside the classroom. (p. 1)

This claim is reminiscent of Ausubel, Novak, and Hanesian’s(1978) more general claim, that “If I had to reduce all educationalpsychology to just one principle, I would say this: The mostimportant single factor influencing learning is what the learneralready knows. Ascertain this and teach him/her accordingly”(p. iv).

Stepping back for a moment to address the terms involved, wetake beliefs to encompass a broad category that includes whatDonovan and Bransford term “preconceptions” and “under-standing,” along with a number of other related concepts thathave been the focus of attention in philosophy, psychology, andeducational scholarship, such as various forms of knowledge (seePajares, 1992; Pintrich, 1990). Our broad use of the term iscaptured well by Rokeach (1968), who defined beliefs as “anysimple proposition, conscious or unconscious, inferred from whata person says or does, capable of being preceded by the phrase,‘I believe that.’ ” (p. 113). Following Rokeach, we take beliefs toinclude or have links to cognitive, affective, and behavioral

elements, implying that they play a complex role in influencinghuman action, including teaching practice. We must underscorethe complexity just mentioned, particularly as it applies to theposited relationship between belief and action (Fishbein & Ajzen,1975), and the possibilities for affecting that relationship withinprofessional education (Rest & Narvaez, 1994). A full explication ofour own position and how it responds to possible criticisms is farbeyond the scope of this paper. We can say here that we do notassume that changes in beliefs will necessarily result in a consis-tent, predictable change in a teaching practice. Rather, we believethat there are sufficient psychological and moral reasons forapproaching teacher education and development as a process ofengaging the beliefs of learners.

The psychological basis of this view is most directly supportedby the literature on beliefs and their role in learning, includinglearning to teach, which is consistent with the general construc-tivist position described above. For example, in his review of theconcept of teacher beliefs and their role in educational researchPajares claims that:

Few would argue that the beliefs teachers hold influence theirperceptions and judgments, which, in turn, affect their behaviorin the classroom, or that understanding the belief structures ofteachers and teacher candidates is essential to improving theirprofessional preparation and teaching practices. (1992, p. 307)

Supporting his claim, Pajares later continues:

Self-efficacy, for example, is a cornerstone of social cognitivetheory.Studies on attribution beliefs and locus of control arealso prominent in investigations of student thought processes,and interest in epistemological beliefs is growing. Subjectspecific beliefs, such as beliefs about reading, mathematics, orthe nature of science, are key to researchers’ attempting tounderstand the intricacies of how children learn. (p. 308)

Subsequent empirical research has supported Pajares’ claims,including ongoing studies of the self-efficacy beliefs of teachers,and the influence of those beliefs on teaching practice (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2007; Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998).Summing up his review, Pajares again points up the importance ofinquiries into teacher beliefs, and provides some very generalguidelines for such work:

When they are clearly conceptualized, when their keyassumptions are examined, when precise meanings are consis-tently understood and adhered to, and when specific beliefconstructs are properly assessed and investigated, beliefs can be,as Fenstermacher (1978) predicted, the single most importantconstruct in educational research. (p. 329)

We discuss Pajares’ point regarding the need to identify specificbelief constructs further below, taking a moment to consider thebasis of Fenstermacher’s rather strong claim about the importanceof beliefs for educational research in the quote above, and some ofthe moral reasons for considering the beliefs of preservice teachers.

At the time Fenstermacher wrote the cited work, a central focusof his scholarship was the question of how research mightproductively inform teaching practice. To address this issue, hedrew upon Thomas Green’s incisive philosophical analysis ofteaching (1971/1998), in which Green distinguishes centralconceptions of teaching that fit the work of teachers in Pe12schools, from more peripheral conceptions such as training,conditioning and indoctrination. Green argues for a view ofteaching that has at its core, a process of informing learners’ beliefsso that those beliefs are as reasonable as possible, given what weknow. Further, in Green’s sense, teaching is ideally carried out ina manner such that the learner recognizes the reasonableness of

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the beliefs she holds (and holds them for that reason), and ina manner that respects her capacity to do so.

Fenstermacher found Green’s ideas very fruitful in consideringhow research might inform teaching practice, namely, througha process of eliciting teachers’ beliefs about their work andengaging those beliefs in a dialogue informed by our best under-standing of teaching and learning. This process is undertaken in theinterest of developing not only sound beliefs, but critical andautonomous thought and practice. In our view, this is a verypromising model for preparing teachers for the MWT. AsFenstermacher and Richardson (1993) suggest, this model:

.allows teachers to take control of their justifications, andtherefore take responsibility for their actions. No longer are theysatisfied with justifications based on external mandates andpressures that may involve premises that contradict their own(‘the School Board says I have to do it this way’). And they areeven less willing to change a practice on the basis of an admo-nition that begins with the phrase, ‘Research says.’. They willbegin to demand an analysis of the premises that underlie theseexternal mandates, just as they are willing to do so with theirown practices. (p. 112)

An important strength of this model of teacher education liesnot only its potential to inform the content of preservice teacherbeliefs and their capacities for critical reflection/autonomy/self-regulation, but also in the moral value of the process by whichthose beliefs are addressed. As described by Green (1971/1998), andFenstermacher and Richardson (1993), this approach is guided bynotions of respect for human beings, their subjective experience,and their capacity to form and act on their own judgments. Thus,this approach embodies the dual focus of Oser et al.’s felicitousphrase of “effective and responsible teaching” (1992), reflectingboth Oser’s and Fenstermacher’s long-standing efforts to maintaina meaningful place for considerations of moral value in how wecarry out the education of our fellow human beings.

Thus, even if we assume that the content of educators’ beliefsare far from sufficient for predicting practice, we claim that theexplicit discussion of what educators believe, why they hold thosebeliefs, and the practical implications of the beliefs held, must serveas the primary currency of teacher education. In making this claimwe again refer to Green’s analysis of teaching (1971/1998), and thecontrasts he draws between this discursive endeavor grounded inrespect for persons and epistemic warrants, and non-rational formsof conditioning and indoctrination. While the emotional andintuitive influences on action must be meaningfully accounted for,and even exploited in promoting effective and responsible teachereducation, we do not see any alternative to addressing the complexroots of action via explicit and respectful discourse. Building onthese general ideas about the importance of beliefs in teaching andteacher education, we now explore why preservice teacher beliefsabout the MWT are particularly critical to attend to.

3.2. The centrality of beliefs relevant to the MWT for teachingand teacher education

Richardson’s work on the role of teacher beliefs and teacherchange supports and extends the ideas above (1996, 2003). Onethread of that work builds upon Rokeach’s (1968) claim that somebeliefs have a greater “psychological centrality” in a way that isparticularly apt for consideration for our inquiry into preparingteachers for the MWT. Richardson argues that addressing preserviceteachers’ prior beliefs is especially important when psychologicallycentraldor substantive, deeply held views, based upon experi-encedexist. Such beliefs, Richardson and Placier (2001) claim,should be “the focal point of [teacher] change efforts,” so that they

can be explicitly processed in light of new information presented(p. 913). Doing so is important because educators may not be fullyaware of the beliefs they actually hold, and because such centralbeliefs can be highly resistant to modification, particularly if theyare not confronted in an explicit, meaningful way.

Arguably, few domains harbor more deeply held beliefs, basedupon life experience, than those at the nexus of teaching andmorality. Unlike students in professions such as medicine or law,preservice teachers enter initial teacher preparation programs after12 or more years of daily first-hand observation of the practice oftheir chosen profession (Goodlad, 1984; Lortie, 1975). Intersectingthat rich source of beliefs about teaching and learning is perhapsthe most deeply seated domain of beliefs one can hold, namely,what is morally good, right, and virtuous.

Our claim that attending to the beliefs of preservice teachers isparticularly important in preparing them for the MWT, can beextended by examining an illustrative, yet easily overlooked set ofbeliefs relevant to this domain, viz., those related to why educatorschoose teaching as a career. While the literature documenting thesebeliefs is rarely analyzed in explicitly moral terms, many of itsthemes strike us as distinctively moral in nature.

For example, Joseph and Green (1986) found over 90% of therespondents in their study agreed that the desire to be of service toothers explained their choice to become teachers. Likewise, Serow,Eaker, and Ciechalski (1992), found the preservice teachers in theirstudy, “followed a lengthy tradition among education majors bylisting relatively altruistic reasons for their attraction to teach-ing.The desire to help people (92%) and to work with the young(87%) were options cited most frequently.” (p. 140). And in theirreview of the literature on characteristics of preservice teachers,Brookhart and Freeman (1992) concluded that most people choseteaching as a career for altruistic reasons. Goodlad (1984) alsofound “The large majority of our sample, at all levels, tended to beidealistic and altruistic in their views of why they chose to teach” (p.173). Goodlad’s study was part of a line of research that led him toview teaching as essentially moral in nature, as he and hiscolleagues expressed in their influential book The Moral Dimensionsof Teaching (Goodlad et al., 1990).

Finally, many educators claim they feel “called” to serve childrenand society in a way that suggests just how central the moral workof teaching is to their view of themselves as educators. Hansen(1995) asserts, the language of “calling” suggests a vocation thataims at something more than mastery of subject matter, buta fulfillment of one’s purpose and identity in carrying out work thatis of value (see also O’Sullivan, 2005; Ryan, 1987; Ryan & Bohlin,2000).

These studies clearly suggest that preservice teachers come toteacher preparation programs, at least in part, because they believethat teaching is a fundamentally moral endeavor (even if they do soimplicitly). Recalling Richardson and Placier’s point that suchbeliefs are especially important to address in the context of teacherchange (2001), we find ourselves hard-pressed to think of a morerelevant set of beliefs for initial teacher preparation programs toaddress, than those providing the reasons why teachers enter theprofession in the first place. However, while the question “Why doyou want to be a teacher?” is a commonplace in teacher educationclassrooms, the moral bases of those reasons seem to be system-atically ignored (Oser, 1994; Oser & Althof, 1993; Sockett & LePage,2002; Thornberg, 2008; Willemse et al., 2005, 2008). Summing uptheir studies within their own programs of teacher education,Sockett and LePage concluded that:

Teachers do not lack moral sophistication because they are notmoral people. Just the opposite, most teachers are drawn toteaching because of their moral commitments. Moral language

M.N. Sanger, R.D. Osguthorpe / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 569e578 573

is missing in classrooms, but it is also missing in the seminarrooms and lecture halls of teacher education. (2002, p. 171).

Similarly, Willemse et al. (2008) conclude:

.that there is an urgent need to enhance the further develop-ment of a ‘moral language’, as well as the conditions necessaryfor moral reflection on the part of teacher educators, . Thecurrent situation limits the teacher educators’ communicationwith student teachers about moral issues and thus the learningopportunities for student teachers. Thisdin the enddhas itsconsequences for their future teaching and the moral educationof students in schools. (p. 464)

Other studies support this notion that initial teacher prepara-tion programs routinely neglect the MWT (e.g. Jones et al., 2003).

Clearly, this runs afoul of all of the constructivist work onteacher learning and teacher education discussed above, placingpreservice teachers and the teachers they become at risk ofa number of negative outcomes. Perhaps the most relevant amongthese is the potential frustration of trying to make sense of andpursue teaching in terms that don’t match one’s own basic beliefsabout the nature and purpose of teaching. Within teacher prepa-ration programs, this disjunction bodes ill for effective learning onthe part of preservice teachers, as teaching practice is commonlyframed in technical terms of producing academic learning andclassroom management (see Tran, 2010; Watson, 2008), ratherthan in terms of amoral language that builds upon and enriches thebeliefs that typically draw people to the profession.

For practitioners who make it through those programs, wesuggest this ongoing disjunction may contribute to not only frus-tration, but perhaps, attrition. As Goodlad (1984) claims: “If onegoes into teaching with expectations of being able to teach and beof service and then is frustrated in realizing these expectations,dissatisfaction sets in and quitting becomes an alternative” (p. 172).Or as Hansen (1995) claims, “a sense of service by itself can rarelysee one through challenging conditions. One needs at least somedegree of institutional backing, just as one needs sound preparationto perform the work itself” (p. 153).

Our objective and focus is to support sound preparation for theMWT, enhancing teachers’ knowledge and skills so that they canrecognize, interpret, analyze, evaluate, plan, and enact the moralwork they engage in everyday in a way that is not only effective andresponsible, butmeaningful and fulfilling. This follows a great deal oftheoretical and empirical work suggesting that if teachers have therelevant knowledge and skills for the work they are engaged in, andcan effectively analyze their work in terms of that relevant knowl-edge, they can purposefully identify and work to solve the problemsof that work, exhibit resilience and persistence in the face of chal-lenges, be more successful in meeting those challenges (see Ball &Cohen, 1999; Yost, 2006), and we suggest: stay in their positions asclassroom teachers.While this line of scholarshiphasbeen applied toacademic instruction and classroommanagement, we believe its usein preparing teachers for the MWT is not only apt, but also essential(see LePage et al., 2005; Richardson & Fallona, 2001; Watson, 2008).

Fortunately, as we have suggested above, there are resourcesavailable for engaging preservice teachers in inquiries that do notframe teaching in morally sterile terms, but rather as a practice thathas a number of complex, engaging, and explicitly moral dimen-sions that we know quite a bit about. What we are missing areproductive means for conceptualizing and connecting preserviceteacher beliefs to those bodies of knowledge, and their use in teachereducation. Willemse et al.’s (2008) declaration cited at the openingof this paper bears repeating at this point:

Although we agree on the importance of research focused onthe moral dimensions of teacher education programs and the

importance of preparing student teachers with regard to themoral aspects of education, we also see twomajor problems: (1)the absence of a clear theoretical framework and (2) the lackof empirical research upon which to build. (emphasis added,p. 446)

We agree, recalling Pajares’ claim, that “when specific beliefs arecarefully operationalized. their study becomes viable andrewarding” (1992, p. 308). Thus a significant part of the challenge,we suggest, is clarifying just what kinds of beliefs might be relevantto the MWT, along with how they might best be addressed in thecontext of teacher education. Below, we propose a framework forconceptualizing theMWT in away that can assist teacher educatorsand researchers of teaching and teacher education in addressingthese issues.

4. A framework for addressing teacher beliefs relevantto the MWT

Sanger and Osguthorpe (2005) originally proposed the MWTframework as a tool for analyzing approaches to moral education.One of the basic ideas behind the framework was:

to move beyond the limits of the most common, simple analyticframes (e.g. indirect versus direct, autonomous versus heteron-omous, traditional versus progressive, care-based versus justice-based). Given the complexity of morality, moral psychology andeducation, along with the diversity of approaches to workingwithin these overlapping domains.[the authors] argue[d] fora framework that appropriately reflected this complexity andthat trackedmeaningful sources of explanation for anyapproach.(2009, p. 17)

As they explained:

The goal here is to categorize and explain in away that identifiesand maintains important sources of theoretical and contingentexplanation. (2005, p. 60)

The framework consisted of four categories, which were treatedas sources of explanation that should be considered in analyzing,comparing, evaluating, enacting, and designing studies of, moraleducation. Originally, these categories were framed in termsof “assumptions” rather than “beliefs,” and truly acted as a frame-work accounting for the variety of assumptions that were a part ofany approach to moral education, without importing any specifictheoretical content:

1. Psychological assumptionsa. regarding what the salient features of our moral psychology

are; andb. regarding the nature of those features, how they develop,

and/or how they are likely to respond to various environ-mental variables

2. Moral assumptionsa. regarding the nature and scope of morality (metaethical

assumptions); andb. regarding what is good/right/virtuous/caring (normative

assumptions)3. Educational assumptions

a. regarding nature and scope of teaching and education insociety; and

b. regarding the aims of education4. Contingent factors

a. personalb. historicalc. social

M.N. Sanger, R.D. Osguthorpe / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 569e578574

d. politicale. institutional (Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2005, p. 63)

While the first three major categories are fairly self-explanatorytypes of assumptions, the last, “contingent factors” deserves somefurther explanation. It was included to acknowledge, and promptthe consideration of, non-theoretical sources of explanation thatare a part of any approach tomoral education theory, research, and/or practice, being that the assumptions made in the first fourcategories are made by people in particular contexts.

We take a slightly modified version of the original MWTframework that preserves the original framework’s accounting forthe breadth and complexity of the moral domain and the MWTwhile tracking important sources of insight into that domain. Butrather than explaining the key elements of a particular approach tomoral education, we use it here as a framework for two pedagog-ically linked tasks: 1) to identify and prompt the consideration ofpreservice teacher beliefs that are relevant to the MWT, and 2) toidentify and prompt the consideration of resources that might beeffectively and responsibly used to elicit and process those beliefswithin the context of teacher education.

The appropriateness of this shift in use is supported in ourdiscussion below. That discussion relies heavily on anecdote andargument, and as we discuss in our concluding sections, it will needto be fleshed out and supported by empirical studies documentingthe content of the beliefs held by preservice teachers, as well as theeffectiveness of efforts to elicit and process those beliefs in waysthat might positively influence subsequent teaching practice. Wenow review the basic components of our modified version of theMWT framework, briefly illustrating each of the main categories interms of its application to preservice teacher beliefs.

4.1. Psychological beliefs

Psychological beliefs are those regarding the features of ourmoral psychology, or howwe function and develop asmoral beings.As noted above, the literature contains an extensive amount aboutthe moral development and functioning of young people, and howit can be influenced. However, we seem to have little systematicunderstanding of the beliefs held by preservice teachers about ourmoral psychology, let alone how best to address them in light ofwhat is known in this sub-domain. The literature reviewed abovedoes suggest that preservice teachers believe practicing teachershave an influence on the moral development of students, but thereis no clear indication of the range of particular psychological beliefsunderlying such views.

To illustrate why it might be important to address such beliefs,consider a preservice teacher who holds that there is a causalconnection between the moral character of a teacher and the moraldevelopment of a student, such that a teacher’s moral character“rubs off” on or is “picked up” by a student. Given the commonperception of teachers as role models for students, this seemsplausible enough, and our own experiences as teacher educatorsindicate a version of this view is commonly held by preserviceteachers. However, such a view is arguably incomplete at best, anddistorts an extensive amount of theory and research on modeling,the psychological mechanisms behind it, and how our under-standing can be applied in classrooms to support positive moralfunctioning and development (e.g. Bandura, 1997; Warnick, 2008).

This is just a brief example of the rich opportunities teachereducators and researchers of teacher education have to both betterunderstand the actual psychological beliefs of preservice teachersthat are directly relevant to the MWT, and how we might go aboutusing what we know to prepare them for that work. The resourcesmentioned here provide examples of places for teacher educators

and researchers of teaching to initially turn to in engaging in theprocess of eliciting and processing beliefs relevant to the MWT.As we learn more about the content of those beliefs, and our effortsto address them, we would expect that those resources would berefined, complemented, and/or replaced as the evidence warrants.

4.2. Moral beliefs

Moral beliefs are those regarding the nature of morality, andwhat is of moral value and why. Inevitably, this category overlapswith the others in the MWT framework, as there are assumptionsabout what has moral value, and what distinguishes moraldiscourse implied in our definitions of moral psychology, as well asin preservice teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of schooling(below). As the original sub-categories of the MWT frameworksuggest, we might distinguish a couple different kinds of moralbeliefs: normative and descriptive (or metaethical). The first kindare the most familiar, addressing beliefs about what is good, right,and virtuous, or what has moral value, and why. The second kindare questions about the nature and function of various aspects themoral domain itself, describing the domain’s characteristics. Whilemetaethics is typically viewed as an abstract and esoteric field, wehope to briefly illustrate some ways in which preservice teacherscan and do engage in both normative and metaethical inquirieswithin teacher education.

Again, in our experience as teacher educators, normativediscussions about teaching, while making some uneasy, are notdifficult to get started. The educators we have worked with have noproblem weighing in on what the problems are with students,teaching, schools, legislation, funding, etc. Of course, one of thechallenges for teacher educators is responding to these beliefs inways that further enable learners to analyze their own positions,and the positions of those around them. But again, there is a widearray of resources to help us do so (e.g. Strike & Soltis, 2009).

Complexifying these normative discussions are beliefs thataren’t directly about what is morally good, right, and virtuous, butwhat it means to claim that something is right or wrong, and/orwhat could make a claim that “hitting is wrong” true (and in whatsense). To take a prominent example from our own discussionswith preservice teachers, we often hear them articulate some formof subjectivism and/or naïve relativism.We hear something like theclaim “morality is just a matter of opinion,” or rhetorical questionslike “who are we to tell other cultures what they should do?” aswell as various expressions of anxieties over the significance ofclashes between the moral norms that students experience athome and those that teachers might wish to support in theirclassrooms. While the topics of relativism, subjectivism, and moralepistemology continue to be the focus of many technical philo-sophical analyses, its more mundane expressionsdand the atten-dant array of potentially paralyzing beliefsdcan and should bemeaningfully and practically addressed within the context ofteacher education. Once again, there are resources that can get usstarted in doing so, but which have not been widely applied andtheir usefulness studiedwithin teacher education. For example, onepossible resource within the philosophical literature for engagingpreservice teachers in a discussion of various forms of relativism isMary Midgley’s (1991) fairly concise and accessible work, Can’t wemake moral judgments?, in which the author explores many of thebeliefs we hear expressed in our teacher education classrooms, andthe implications of holding them.

Another relevant example of the resources that might bebrought to bear on the metaethical, or descriptive moral beliefs ofteachers, comes from developmental psychologist Larry Nucci(2001), whose research using social domain theory (2001) hasexamined teachers’ responses to various kinds of transgressions

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within educational settings. Nucci’s work documents how teacherscommonly conflate moral and non-moral transgressions, and thatstudents rate their teachers lower when they do so (2001). Socialdomain theory, and the empirical research utilizing it, could befurther explored by teacher educators to discuss beliefs about themoral domain, its nature, and its manifestation within classrooms,and how teachers might use that understanding to respond inmoreeffective and responsible ways to their students (see Nucci, 2008).

4.3. Educational beliefs

Educational beliefs address the nature, scope, and ends ofeducation, and the system of schooling used to pursue our educa-tional ends. One rationale for having this category (which overlapsthe two above) is that the system of schooling has such a prominentrole in shaping the work of teachers (Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Further,as noted above, the experience that preservice teachers typicallyhave within schools before entering teacher preparation programsis extensive (Lortie, 1975; Pajares,1992), warranting some attentionto the beliefs about education and schooling that teachers haveaccrued. Thus, we take this category of beliefs (and resources foraddressing those beliefs), to warrant its own place in the MWTframework.

Of particular relevance here is the implicit suggestion in theliterature reviewed above that preservice teachers believe thatmorality has a place in public schools, through thework of teachers.Whether preservice teachers speak of the educational importanceof their own traits of character (Lortie, 1975) or their desire to bringabout “moral growth” through their work in schools (Joseph &Green, 1986), it seems clear that such beliefs are commonamongst educators. Those beliefs also seem typically to be heldimplicitly and to be underdeveloped.

Thus, we suggest that any efforts to guide preservice teachers inexploring the moral aspects of teaching would surely be bolsteredby a more thorough, explicit, and well-framed account of theirmoral, psychological, and their educational beliefs. For example,imagine a preservice teacher who believes that it is not appropriatefor a teacher to share her moral values. Or consider the preserviceteacher who posits moral reasons for choosing a career in teachingwhile simultaneously claiming purposes for public schooling thatare solely academic in nature. In our own experience with preser-vice teachers, it is not uncommon to find individuals holding suchbeliefs in our classrooms. The relevant question to consider here ishow a teacher educator might elicit and respond to such beliefs.Once again, we believe that coming at the issue with a frameworkthat maps out the relevant categories of beliefs, while at the sametime pointing teacher educators to the relevant bodies of knowl-edge that might inform those beliefs, is an essential part of effortsto provide sound professional preparation for the MWT.

4.4. Contingent factors

In our use of the MWT framework, contingent factors refer tothe personal aspects of an individual’s experience, history, culture,or identity that help to explain the beliefs relevant to the MWT held(rather than identifying a category of belief). Unless one believesthat our ideas are innate, we must consider a preservice teacher’slife experience as the key source of the beliefs they hold. Thus,understanding the contingencies of their lives could prove impor-tant for both preservice teachers and for teacher educators andresearchers of teacher education, in making sense of the beliefsheld, and in constructing new experiences that might enrich thosebeliefs, including making the knowledge we currently have aboutthe MWT accessible and useful for each of them in the context ofteacher preparation. One example of a contingent factor that is

relevant to consider in this context is again the “apprenticeship ofobservation” (Lortie, 1975) that preservice teachers bring to theirteacher education programs. This extended exposure to models ofteaching and schooling may be an important source of explanationfor the beliefs that preservice teachers hold, and may justifyincluding a critical analysis of common practices that preserviceteachers have likely observed, as a part of the process of elicitingand addressing their particular beliefs, offering opportunities formeaningful sharing and reflective analysis of preservice teachersparticular experiences.

4.5. Framework summary

As recast above, we believe that the categories of the MWTframework constitute a helpful tool for addressing a number of thechallenges faced by teacher educators whomight seek to effectivelyand responsibly prepare their preservice teachers for the MWT, aswell as researchers looking to study that process. First, the MWTframework clearly identifies categories of preservice teacher beliefs(and contingent factors) that are relevant to the MWT, addressingPajares’ claim that in order for work on teacher beliefs to beproductive, we need to have a clear picture of the constructs we areworking with (1992), and Willemse et al.’s claim regarding thecurrent lack of a framework for doing so (2008). The MWTframework can guide teacher educators and researchers in identi-fying and addressing the preservice teacher beliefs that Richardsonand Placier (2001) claim should be “the focal point of changeefforts” in teacher education (p. 913).

Importantly, the categories of the MWT framework not onlyprovide a basis for identifying relevant preservice teachers’ beliefs,but also categories of knowledge that can be used to inform preser-vice teachers’ understanding of the beliefs they hold, and the class-room phenomena that are constituents of the MWT. That is, thisframework can guide teacher educators in connectingwhatweknowabout moral value, moral psychology, and their places in the contextof teaching and schooling to the education of preservice teachers inmeaningful ways, while also providing a basis for teacher educatorpreparation (e.g. gaining knowledge in all areas of the MWT frame-work). Thus, the MWT framework provides guidance in two direc-tions, and that guidance can allow us to be much more systematicand comprehensive in taking the first, necessary step in developingthemeans to equip preservice teachers to think about, evaluate, plan,and carry out teaching thatmeaningfully connects to their ownmostbasic reasons for becoming teachers. In this way, the MWT frame-work helps to further realize Fenstermacher’s aim of identifyingways inwhich theory and research can productively inform teachingpractice (1978, 1994; Fenstermacher & Richardson, 1993).

In pointing teacher educators to relevant resources to use toelicit and process preservice teacher beliefs, there are both curric-ular and instructional implications. In terms of curriculum,addressing the nature of moral value and its sources, justification,and manifestations in classrooms seems essential. Similarly, just aswe use psychology as a basis for contributing to the literacy andnumeracy of Pe12 students, we can and should be teachingpreservice teachers what moral psychology can do to help themunderstand their own students as moral beings, and how they caneffectively and responsibly contribute to those students’ moralfunctioning and development. The key characteristic of theapproach recommended here is that curricular content besubstantively driven by preservice teachers’ beliefs. Two of thecentral questions that remain involve just what preservice teachersbelieve, and (instructionally) the details of just how teachereducators might best connect all these resources to preserviceteachers’ beliefs. Clearly, our initial conclusion lies in under-standing those beliefs as a first step.

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5. Next steps

In closing, we emphasize that there are three main strands ofinquiry that it would be well to follow: (a) further development ofthe MWT framework, (b) empirical identification of beliefs relevantto the MWT, and (c) the development and study of teachereducation content, methods, and programmatic structures toprepare preservice teachers for the MWT. The first line of inquiryinvolves the primarily conceptual work of refining the MWTframework (or something analogous to it) to better guide research,thought, and practice in the service of preparing preserviceteachers for the MWT. Currently, the MWT framework providesa very general set of categories that will likely need to be furtherfleshed out with a number of sub-categories of beliefs, guided inpart by Pajares’ (1992) call for relevant domains of teacher beliefs tobe clearly specified and operationalized. We suggest that an idealframework would substantively reflect the actual beliefs of thepreservice teachers, as well as the relevant theory and research thatmight inform those beliefs, and the possible connections betweenthe two. Thus the work under a) will rely, in part, on success inpursuing b).

The work under b), documenting the content of preserviceteachers’ actual beliefs relevant to the MWT, can make use of theMWT framework, following in the footsteps of studies of teacherbeliefs identified by Pajares as potential models (e.g. self-efficacybeliefs), along with research on teacher change and attempts toinform teacher beliefs within teacher education (see Richardson,2003; Richardson & Placier, 2001). In addition, we find researchon science education (Anderson, 2007) and science teachereducation (Jones & Carter, 2007; Russell &Martin, 2007), to provideparticularly fruitful models for thinking about examining beliefsrelevant to the MWT. Science education research has distinguisheditself in its application of constructivist learning theory, which hasdriven efforts to inventory learners’ actual beliefs about how theworld works. We suggest that similar efforts might be pursued inidentifying preservice teacher beliefs relevant to the MWT(e.g. moral beliefs related to naïve forms of relativism, or psycho-logical beliefs about modeling). A few scholars have begun toidentify some common misconceptions relevant to the MWT(e.g. LePage et al., 2005), and we believe the MWT framework to bea productive tool for informing further work in this vein. Finally,extant works on teacher and preservice teacher moral reasoning(e.g. Cummings, Harlow, & Maddux, 2007) and their self-efficacy asmoral educators (e.g. Milson &Mehlig, 2002) are clearly relevant tothis line of inquiry.

As we identify and come to better understand relevant preser-vice teacher beliefs, we can be more productive in studying howteacher educators might best elicit those beliefs and assist preser-vice teachers in processing them, and what difference doing somight make to subsequent teaching practice, and even programstructure. This third line of inquiry into preparing preserviceteachers for the MWT would ideally include longitudinal studies,not only examining the relationships between features of initialteacher preparation programs and themoral goodness exhibited byteachers and their effectiveness in promoting positive moral func-tioning and development in their students, but also teachers’capacity to make sense of, critically reflect upon, plan, trouble-shoot, and enact their work in moral terms. While we haverecognized the gap between belief and action, it is partly because ofthis gap that this area of researchmight benefit from other domainsof teacher belief research that have met Pajares’ criteria and havecontributed to teacher education practice. Again, studies ofteachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2007;Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998) and of conceptual change inscience teacher education (Jones & Carter, 2007; Russell & Martin,

2007), can be sources of insight into the promises and challengesof parallel studies on preparing teachers for the MWT.

In our efforts to understand, develop, and study the relevantcontent, methods, and programmatic structures within teachereducation, we also believe it is critical to build upon the work ofthose, such as Fenstermacher and Richardson (1993), who havesought to engage teachers’ beliefs in a way that takes seriouslyOser’s notion of “effective and responsible” teaching (1994; Oseret al., 1992). We have primarily focused on the issue of effective-ness in identifying relevant beliefs, and why such efforts arepedagogically justified in this inquiry. In considering howwemightfurther pursue teacher preparation for the MWT in a way that isalso morally responsible, we find a great deal of promise in thenexus of constructivist views of teacher learning, which providea psychological and pedagogical rationale for attending to partic-ular beliefs held, and a range of views that seek to support teacherlearning, development, and practice through the application of thenormative principle of respect for persons, and forms of discoursethat instantiate such respect (e.g. Coulter, 2001; Fenstermacher &Richardson, 1993; Green, 1971/1998; Oser, 1986). Complementingthese applications of the principle of respect for persons, contem-porary approaches to teaching grounded in the notion of caring(e.g. Noddings, 1984; Watson & Battistich, 2006; Watson & Ecken,2003), often supported by self-determination theory (Deci &Ryan, 1985) and attachment theory (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1965),also provide an appropriately learner-centered source of normativesupport and insight into both how and why wemight approach theelicitation and processing of preservice teacher beliefs in morallyresponsible ways.

In closing, we believe a final note of caution is in order. Thenotion that teacher educators are in the business of changingbeliefs so that they are “correct,” and subsequently cause changes inteaching in order to align it with a set of prescribed best practices, ifnot at odds with the principles of both constructivism and respectfor persons, might lead us to lose sight of those principles. Weadvocate an agenda for research and practice that seeks critical self-awareness, understanding, and the capacity of all educators tothink, plan, and act in ways that are pedagogically effective andmorally responsible. We hope to have made a contribution to thatagenda here.

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