The Research On American New Character Education

As a a practical and operational model of character education,the New Character Education of the U.S. has got nationwide promotion and popularization. The New Character Education inherited and developed traditional character education, cultivated the students good moral behavior and moral ability to reflect by constructing a new character education model. This paper tries to explore the successful experience and get reference from the New Character Education and improve the effection of ideological and political education.This paper carries out a careful study on the history,background,signs of the rise,the theoretical and practical research of the New Character Education by literature reading, historical analysis, logical analysis, comparative analysis and other methods. Through research it is believed that the history of character education before the New Character Education can be divided into three periods,which is the classic character education, pragmatism character education and individualism character education. The causes of the rise of the New Character Education are the serious moral crisis in American society, the spread of neo-conservative ideas and the requirement in education reform. The signs of the rise are the increasing number of books ,organizations and educational policies of the New Character Education. The theory of the New Character Education is based on virtue ethics, moral psychology and Kohlberg's theory of moral development. The main objective of the New Character Education is to educate qualified citizens with correct moral awareness, good ethical behavior and compliance with ethical norms of society,which is realized by value education, emotional education and moral training. Through research it is believed that method of demonstration by example,moral discussion and practice are widely used,while "eleven principles of effective character education" proposed by Lickona are also widely accepted. "Child Development Project", "Action-reflection Project" and "College Student Character Development Project" are choosen to be three representative cases in practice of the New Character Education. Through research it is believed that we should strengthen the education of social core values, strengthen the combination of government-led and integrated social forces, strengthen the theoretical research and methods of innovation in ideological and political education, and strengthen the planning of the work of ideological and political education. Finally through analysis in the use of Marxist theory, it is found that there are class, theoretical and practical limitations for the New Character Education.