Research On Primary School Teachers’ Moral Reasoning Based On The Investigation Of S District

The educational activities which teachers are engaged in imply moral good. Furthermore, the occupation as teachers contains moral and ethical requirements. In addition, as a main part of school moral education, teachers’ character and morally affect students’ moral development directly. Therefore, it is very important for teachers to conduct conforming with ethical requirements. Teachers’moral reasoning being an important research issue in the study of contemporary teachers ethics, most researches on it are mostly carried out in western context, but less in China. Accordingly, based on Chinese context, this thesis makes an investigation and analysis of the status and trait of teachers’moral reasoning.According to related definitions, the teachers’moral reasoning in this thesis is defined as: teachers’thinking process of moral judgments or decisions, including the types, the reasons and the thinking forms of moral judgments or decisions that teachers have made. On account of the operational definition of teachers’moral reasoning and five interview cases of moral dilemma which are made by myself or adapted, the author conducts semi-structured interviews of 30 teachers for their thinking and reasoning in moral dilemmas from 6 primary schools in the city of S. Furthermore, this thesis analyzes the characters of teachers’ moral reasoning in four dimensions of moral direction, ethical thinking, moral principles and moral responsibility.The study found that teachers’moral reasoning takes on four traits including teachers tending to make judgments and reasoning from behavior dimension, preferring to consequentialist in the ethical thinking pointing between consequentialist and nonconsequentialist, inclined to resort to the principles of justice faced with justice and care, paying more attention to the responsibility to their colleagues and schools than students.Primary school teachers’moral reasoning presents features in four levels which are moral tending, ethical thinking, ethical principles and moral responsibility. To improve the teachers’ moral reasoning, there are three approaches may be recommended. The first one is to emphasis on norms of teachers’behavior from the policy dimension. The second one focus on the practical guidance for teachers’ethical decision-making in teacher education program. The third one is about educational research which require researchers construct native ethical decision-making procedures.