Primary school teachers’ epistemic cognition for moral education in the context of promoting social inclusion

Abstract While values education is one way primary schools can promote student social responsibility, little is understood about how teachers support children’s learning of moral values and how this changes throughout the years of primary school education. A growing body of research shows that teachers’ views about the nature of knowledge and knowing (epistemic cognition) mediate their approaches to teaching across a range of learning contexts. Using semi-structured interviews with Year 1 and Year 6 teachers, this paper explored the ways in which primary school teachers’ practices for moral education in one culturally diverse Australian school related to the ways in which they thought about knowledge and knowing. Findings showed that all teachers across both year levels described teaching strategies that went beyond imparting knowledge and that directed children’s behaviour in school towards supporting children to make meaning with respect to moral values and behaviours. Such strategies variously helped children to reflect, make decisions, engage with multiple perspectives, and express opinions/make judgments. We noticed that Year 6 teachers tended to support children to engage in more sophisticated levels of meaning making by focusing on some forms of higher order thinking.