Values Education as an Indispensable Educational Goal – (Not Only) in Language and Literature Classes

Suggestions for Teacher Education

Abstract

Value education is named as a non-negotiable educational goal in central educational policy statements. This has implications for teacher education as well as for school practices. The article reflects on the conceptual ways through which values can be conveyed by teachers and negotiated in discourse in the classroom, not merely, but also in language and literature classes. The author also discusses methodological questions and approaches to value education against the background of the requirement of neutrality. Also, the article highlights the effects on the teachers themselves as values are of great importance for a successful educational and socialization process, working as a personal compass and having an orienting as well as an ideologizing function. The ambivalence is challenging and is explained on the basis of the conceptual history of value as a term, resulting in the necessity of establishing a value reflection as a competence. This is the only way to give students the greatest possible freedom in forming their own values on the foundation of the basic democratic order.