Exploring religious education teachers’ perspectives on character development and moral virtues, in state-funded, non-faith schools in England

This article details the findings of a qualitative interview study with 30 Religious Education [RE] teachers, working in state-funded, non-faith secondary schools England. Salient included participants’ almost unanimous agreement about role RE developing character, virtue literacy, and moral, intellectual performance virtues. Whilst there was general that contributes to educating moral virtues, participants differed concerning whether virtues were a) both subject aim taught element, b) either these respective positions, or c) an implicit by-product lessons. There no indication this disagreement being due personal characteristics, suggesting further guidance is necessary clarify vis-à-vis development. These mark distinctive contribution literature on RE, at time when Ofsted considering character education amongst requirements are judged as good outstanding.