role models
no. 19_april 2024
On Education
editorial: role models
Determining which people we should look to for personal guidance and what role they should play in shaping our lives is a perennial issue of moral and philosophical inquiry. Although our particular answers to these questions change in different historical, sociopolitical and educational contexts, each generation, and indeed each individual, faces them in some form or other. There is certainly no shortage of potential role models in contemporary societies, but how do we decide which role models, if any, are worth emulating? The authors of this issue of on_education engage with these and related issues and questions concerning role models and their often ambivalent educational role and functions in educational contexts. They come from various areas of educational theory and research, and thus the issue as a whole provides an overview on some of the most important current controversies on role modelling and exemplarism in education.
Michael Zichy
role models and understandings of the human being
This paper wants to show that (a) every pedagogy that aims at employing role models as educational means should also consider the understanding of the human being the role model expresses, and that (b) assessing and choosing role models wisely presupposes an antecedent reflection and articulation of the understanding of the human being the role models stands for. In order to do this, the first chapter provides some preliminary conceptual clarifications: It will define the concept of a role model, and then give an introduction into the concept of an understanding of the human being. In the following chapter, different aspects of the relation between role models and understandings of the human being will be explored: understandings of the human being as precondition for every pedagogy; understandings of the human being as sources of criteria for judging role models; role models as exemplary bearers and intermediaries of understandings of the human being; role models as sources of understandings of the human being. The third chapter concludes with a short summary and some recommendations.
Ruprecht Mattig
the tactful teacher: a role model for learning democracy
The concept of the role model is elaborated with regard to the concepts of mimesis and pedagogical tact. Two propositions are put forward: First, tactful teachers can be seen as models of democratic citizens for their students. Second, teachers can also serve as role models for student teachers to learn pedagogical tact.
Jürgen Nielsen-Sikora
being a role model (for yourself)?
The article refers to the historical change in role models in order to show the current state of the debate. Furthermore, it draws attention to a phenomenon that has recently gained in importance: the search for the sovereign self. In addition, there is the question of self-differentiation, which will be considered to be a central motive for not completely losing one’s bearings in times of crisis. In essence, the question is: How can I succeed in being a role model (for myself) without falling into pure egoism?
Emerald Henderson
beyond admiration: rethinking the nature of emulation qua role modelling
This paper seeks to disambiguate the nature of emulation – the method of learning from moral role models. Within neo-Aristotelian character education, emulation is considered a primary method of virtuous character development, yet what emulation is and what it involves remains obscure. I argue that this is largely due to a category mistake: the misconceptualisation of emulation as a mere emotion, rather than a moral virtue in its own right. Predominantly composed of virtuous emotion and necessarily entailing virtuous action, I propose a componential account of the virtue of emulation, which I synthesise with Aristotle’s theory of ‘four causes’. I then make visible the importance of phronesis to the emulative process and accordingly introduce a new concept – entangled phronesis – as the psycho-moral mechanism which underpins it. Subsequently, I highlight the developmentally sensitive nature of emulation by dividing it into two main types: pre-phronetic habituated emulation and phronetically-informed complete emulation.
Wouter Sanderse
the intersection of teacher modelling and student emulation in moral education
This paper explores the intersection of teacher modelling and student emulation in moral education. First, two interpretations of teacher modelling are discussed: expressing moral virtues unintentionally and intentionally teaching morality. Next, student emulation is examined, differentiating between mimicry, imitation, and emulation. Third, the paper introduces four scenarios of intentional/unintentional and effective/ineffective modelling, highlighting the complex relationship between teachers’ intentions and students’ responses in the moral education process.
David Carr
beyond exemplification and role modelling for the education of moral character
This paper briefly explores the possible perception of inconsistency or contradiction between the author’s defence in a former 2007 essay of the importance of good or virtuous character and moral role-modelling for the professional practice of teachers and a more recent essay of 2023 which has taken a more cautious view of such exemplification. Basically, while admitting some recent significant change of ethical perspective, it is here argued that these two papers are not fundamentally at odds, and that the problem to which the later essay is addressed follows more from some serious overstatement of the moral educational role of character in more recent virtue ethical and moral educational literature.
Maria Vaccarezza, Michel Croce and Matilde Liberti
the moral of the stories: can influencers be moral exemplars?
The aim of this paper is to propose a distinction between ‘morally conscious influencers’ and ‘moral influencers’ in order to explore the distinctive risks and potential advantages arising from the interaction that these two categories establish with their followers when they decide to publicly support a moral project, and so become candidates to act as a moral role model. The purpose of this analysis is to assess the value in elevating people who enjoy different degrees of influence to the status of a moral exemplar within educational settings.
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