Second International Research Handbook on Values Education and Student Wellbeing

This collection applies the principles underlying values education to addressing the many social and learning challenges that impinge on education today . Insights in the fields of social and emotional learning, student wellbeing, and, increasingly, educational neuroscience have demonstrated that values education represents an efficacious pedagogy with holistic effects on students across a range of measures, including social, emotional, and intellectual outcomes. With schools in the 21^st century confronting issues such as gender identity, stemming radicalism, mental health, equity for disadvantaged groups, bullying, respect, and the meaning of consent, values education offers a way of teaching and learning that integrates and enhances student’s affective and cognitive functioning.

The earlier edition of this book has become a standard reference for scholars and practitioners in the fields of values education, moral education, and character education. Its citation rates, reads and downloads have been consistently and enduringly high, as have those of its companion text, Values Pedagogy and Student Achievement. A decade on, the main purpose of the revised edition is to update and incorporate new research and practice relevant to values education. Recent insights in the fields of neuroscience and social and emotional learning and their implications for education and student wellbeing are more overt than they were when the first edition was being compiled. Additionally, advanced thinking in the field of epistemology, how humans come to know and therefore learn, has also sharpened, especially through the later writings of prominent scholars like Jurgen Habermas. The revised edition has preserved the essential spirit and thrust of the original edition while making space for some of these new insights about the potential of values education to establish optimal and harmonious learning and social environments for both students and teachers.

Terence Lovat is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, and Conjoint Professor at Glasgow University, UK, and Royal Roads University, Canada. He was a lead investigator on research projects that functioned as part of the Australian Values Education Program.

Ron Toomey is an Emeritus Professor and former Head of the College of Education at Victoria University, Australia. He was a lead investigator on projects associated with The Australian Values Education Program. He co-edited a handbook and has co-authored many academic texts and refereed journal articles associated with these project findings.

Neville Clement is an Honorary Associate Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was a member of the research team that evaluated values education for the Australian Government in 2009. He has co-edited books, including an international handbook, and co-authored or authored books, chapters, and journal articles on values education.

Kerry Dally is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is an educational psychologist and psychometrician whose main teaching and research focus has been on special and inclusive education. Her current research projects include whole school approaches to positive behavior support, and student and teacher well-being.