Dependent Autonomy : Towards a Contestualised and Dialogic Aim for Moral Education

Abstract

This article presents two approaches to moral education: the autonomy approach and the heteronomy approach. Generally the two approaches are considered to be mutually exclusive. The study described here, conducted among Dutch teachers at Catholic primary schools, reflects a positive relation between the two approaches. This leads to the assumption that teachers regard moral education as a dialogical, embodied and contextual process (Vygotski). In order to achieve autonomy, notions of the good life need to be transmitted to children.