What may be learnt in ethics? Varieties of conceptions of ethical competence to be taught in compulsory school

Other conference contribution, 2016

The aim of the symposium is to present some initial findings from this project on ethics education in Sweden. Questions about a compulsory school teaching ethics has regained urgency in Sweden since national tests are given in ethics. Every fourth pupil in grade nine is evaluated every year as having/not having approved knowledge of ethics, and one can ask if it is reasonable to be forced to undertake a test assessing your skills in ethics and risk being evaluated as not passing. This testing raises the question of what constitutes relevant knowledge in this field, a question which to a large extent has been absent in research. The purpose of the project is to identify and elucidate varieties of conceptions of ethical competence and critically analyse and discuss them, in relation to each other and in relation to ethical theory, as potential educational content in compulsory school. In this symposium findings from tests, policy documents, teacher interviews and pupils’ texts are presented.