1. Attitudes and values for shaping a better future
An increasingly uncertain and complex world requires agile embracing of opportunities and equally responsive solutions to challenges. Curriculum that embraces opportunities and challenges provides students with the competencies needed to take responsibility and action to successfully navigate their futures. These competencies include knowledge and skills, as well as the values and attitudes that students can develop to thrive and shape a better future, which they can learn both in school and beyond. This chapter explores the research and data that underpin educational considerations in relation to values and attitudes. Countries/jurisdictions identify – in national and local policy and in educational goals and curriculum content – the values and attitudes they prioritise for student learning. The values and attitudes expressed in these educational instruments align with broad societal values and attitudes increasingly identified by international agencies in their future-focused goals.
Societies are changing rapidly and profoundly, stimulating environmental, economic, technological and social opportunities as well as risks. Climate change is impacting on and depleting the world’s natural resources; economic and financial interdependencies have created global value chains but also uncertainty and exposure to pecuniary risk; scientific knowledge is creating new opportunities and solutions that can enrich lives, while also fuelling disruptive waves of change. Unprecedented innovation in science and technology, especially in biotechnology and artificial intelligence, is raising fundamental questions about what it is to be human. Data are being created, used and shared on a vast scale, promising expansion, growth and improved efficiencies, while posing threats in relation to cyber security and privacy protection. As the global population continues to grow, migration, urbanisation and increasing social and cultural diversity are reshaping communities and countries. However, in large parts of the world, inequalities in living standards and life expectation are widening, and conflict, instability and inertia are eroding trust and confidence in government and its institutions. The prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates existing inequalities and poses new threats and challenges (OECD, 2021[1]).
As these global environmental, economic and societal trends affect the lives of individuals and communities now and into the future, they have triggered large-scale debate and calls for international and local responses and solutions, including reimagining education and curriculum encompassing a holistic perspective – viewing learners as active protagonists in their learning and synthesising and integrating global and local aspirations (Opertti, 2021[2]). Curriculum needs to be dynamic to evolve and be transformative; it needs to be in a constant process of flux and subject to an ever-increasing range of influences and pressures.
Defining attitudes and values as part of a competency that influences decisions for future
Motivated by these changes in society, the need for rethinking how students learn in the 21st century has been championed by the OECD Learning Compass 2030, which identifies competencies necessary for students to thrive in and shape a better future. The concept of competency implies more than just the acquisition of knowledge and skills; it involves the ability to meet complex demands, by drawing on and mobilising psycho-social resources (including values and attitudes) in a particular context (OECD, 2005[3]). In 2001, the OECD Education Ministers met and issued a communiqué highlighting that “sustainable development and social cohesion depend critically on the competencies of all of our population – with competencies understood to cover knowledge, skills, attitudes and values” (OECD, 2001[4]).
Acquiring these competencies leads to desirable individual development and well-being, and to flourishing cultures and societies (Keyes and Haidt, 2003[5]). For example, perceiving and assessing what is right or wrong, good or bad in a specific situation is about ethics. It implies asking questions related to values and limits, such as: What should I do? Was I right to do that? Where are the limits? Knowing the consequences of what I did, should I have done it? This supports a holistic understanding of a competency, assuming attitudes and values are inseparable from cognitive processing. These competencies include all aspects of a competency, that is, knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that all people need for today, for the future and to become successful lifelong learners (OECD, 2019[6]).
The Learning Compass defines attitudes and values as the principles and beliefs that influence one’s choices, judgements, behaviours and actions on the path towards individual, societal and environmental well-being (OECD, 2019[6]). More precisely:
Values are the guiding principles that underpin what people believe to be important when making decisions in all areas of private and public life. They determine what people will prioritise in making a judgement, and what they will strive for in seeking improvement (Haste, 2018[7]) The OECD Learning Compass classifies values, and the attitudes inherent in and related to them, into four categories (OECD, 2019[6]): personal, social, societal and human (Box 1.1).
Attitudes are underpinned by values and beliefs and have an influence on behaviour (UNESCO IBE, 2013[8]). It reflects a disposition to react to something or someone positively or negatively and attitudes can vary according to specific contexts and situations (Haste, 2018[7]) Attitudes are made of a complex interweaving of beliefs and affective responses that influence individuals’ views on their environment, as well as their decisions and judgements, and consequently their actions (Jarrett, 1991[9]). Attitudes are also related to socio-emotional skills: interactions with others play an important role because “relationships provide the crucible out of which develops not only conscience and ethics but also self-attitudes and identities” (Heath, 1994[10]).
The terms used to reference attitudes and values competencies in educational goals can include “affective outcomes,” “aptitudes,” “beliefs,” “dispositions,” “ethics,” “morality,” “mindset,” “socio-emotional skills,” “soft skills,” “character qualities” or “virtues.”1
Personal values – these values are associated with who one is as a person and how one wishes to define and lead a meaningful life and meet one’s goals.
Social values – these relate to principles and beliefs that influence the quality of interpersonal relationships. They include how one behaves towards others, and how one manages interactions, including conflict. Social values also reflect cultural assumptions about social well-being (i.e. what makes a community and society work effectively).
Societal values – these define the priorities of societal cultures, the shared principles and guidelines that frame social order and institutional life. These values endure when they are enshrined in social and institutional structures, documents and democratic practice and when they are endorsed through public opinion.
Human values – these have much in common with societal values. However, they are defined as transcending nations and cultures, and apply to the well-being of humanity. They can be identified across spiritual texts and Indigenous traditions spanning generations. They are often articulated in internationally agreed conventions, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Source: (OECD, 2019[6]).
Understanding the role of attitudes and values in developing competencies to shape a better future
As defined above, attitudes and values matter in influencing one’s future because values underpin one’s choices. They are closely related to a sense of agency, that is, one’s belief that one can positively influence one’s own life and the world around them (OECD, 2019[11]). Thus, they are required for shaping a better future, i.e. to meet complex demands, and for making good decisions and judgements to ensure better lives of people and well-being of the planet.
Attitudes and values are integral to developing knowledge, skills and agency:
as motivation for acquiring and using knowledge and skills, and providing the cognitive and affective engine for agency (Cerasoli, Nicklin and Ford, 2014[12]); (Clary and Orenstein, 1991[13]; Haste, 2018[7]);
as framing the priorities for what comprises “well-being”, good personhood and good citizenship (Banks, 2006[14]; Haste, 2018[7]; Reysen and Katzarska-Miller, 2013[15]); (Killen and Smetana, 2010[16]; Hardy and Carlo, 2011[17]);
as endorsing and supporting societal and human values that promote social capital and societal well-being (Haste, 2018[7]; Lerner, 2015[18]; Mattessich and Monsey, 1992[19]; Wood and Gray, 1991[20]; Noddings, 1992[21]; Vorauer and Sasaki, 2009[22]);
for moral agency (Berkowitz, Miller and Bier, 2018[23]; Gough, McClosky and Meehl, 1952[24]; Hardy and Carlo, 2011[17]; Malin, Liauw and Damon, 2017[25]).
To shape the future we want, students need to be able to use their knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to act in responsible ways (OECD, 2019[26]). The student voice and their aspirations for their future collected from the students’ group of the OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 can be found in Box 1.2.
Maria Inês – Justice and empathy through civic engagement
Maria Inês, a high school student from Portugal, wrote an article for the OECD project’s student-initiated newsletter The Voice, about the importance of civic engagement. She recounted a conversation she had had with a friend who was unaware of a recent presidential election in Portugal. She realised that this was not an isolated position: that a large percentage of her classmates were ill informed about local and global politics. She contrasted this with Generation Z’s commitment to social causes such as climate change, and a deep sense of social justice and empathy with movements such as Black Lives Matter.
Maria Inês questioned why many of her classmates are distanced from the political systems that allow them to affect change. She believes curriculum and school systems should prepare students for real life and help them navigate society, e.g. voting, paying taxes, understanding legal rights, managing a budget. She and her classmates have been taught the quadratic formula but cannot name the branches of her country’s government; can conjugate verbs, but cannot name the political party in power, which makes decisions for their future. They have been taught to study a little each day, but not the importance of keeping up with the news. She asks: what does this lack of knowledge take away from me?
While teenagers do not need to be preoccupied with politics, Maria Inês believes it is necessary for schools to provide students with the tools needed to be engaged in political and civic activity should they wish to. “We are reaching out, trying to grip our future in our hands – we just need someone to push us a little closer to it.”
Source: The Voice: Newsletter of the OECD E2030 Student Sphere (2021[27]), Issue 2, June 2021, https://heyzine.com/flip-book/eb458d65ec.html.
Camille – Co-operation and tolerance
Camille, a university student in France and an Ashoka Young Changemaker, shared experiences from his childhood in Madagascar and secondary school in France. He emphasised the need for openness, tolerance, ethics and the ability to work with others. These values and attitudes enable understanding of the complexity of the world. He felt values should be integral to pedagogy and to innovative classroom learning practices; for Camille, social-emotional and meta skills are as important as mathematics or reading in a hyper-connected, exponentially complex world.
Empathy
For Camille, empathy needs to be a foundational value in curriculum, as everyone should be able to understand the feelings and perspectives of others and use this understanding to guide one’s actions for the good of all. Empathy serves not only as a moral compass, but as a tool for innovation, the capacity to understand complex problems and articulate our own ideas as well as the ideas of others.
He felt that schools could use pedagogies such as research-based learning (which involves critical thinking, understanding complexity/subjectivity and developing ethical understanding by questioning) and project-based learning (involving inductive logic and integration of learning territories and collaboration) to promote co-operation and tolerance. He stressed the importance of creating a shared vision of schools as places of social change and that this requires a systemic and collaborative approach involving parents, media and other education stakeholders. Camille concluded with a call for curricula and educational systems that nurture values to make people more humane, and ready to face future challenges.
Source: OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (2021[28]), Recording of the OECD Learning Compass 2030 workshop on Core Foundations, 24 May 2021, https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/teaching-and-learning/learning/learning-compass-2030/.
Risa – Equity and empathy
Risa, an 18-year-old student from Japan, spoke about her personal journey and how she saw curriculum as a holistic vehicle to support students in navigating their learning at school, and in the world beyond it.
Health literacy
Risa suffered from multiple health issues – Tourettes syndrome and migraine headaches – whose impacts, including their medication, created enormous stress for her. Stress affected her ability to participate in school tasks and examinations, and online learning which included constant use of a computer screen. She suggested that new and flexible approaches to teaching and learning need to cater for the individual physical and mental health needs of students, so that all students have an opportunity to experience equitable outcomes.
Bullying
Risa also spoke about the psychological impacts of bullying. Lack of empathy for her disabilities meant that she suffered bullying from other students, and lack of empathy for what occurred from her teachers.
Diversity
Risa gave other examples of why education needs to prioritise values. She empathised with LGBTQ+ students who faced challenges at school, from uniforms to changing rooms to being part of a minority within the school.
In her concluding remarks, Risa emphasised that educational systems, to be sustainable, must value understanding others, and recognise and support the health (physical and mental) and well-being of all.
Source: OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (2021[28]), Recording of the OECD Learning Compass 2030 workshop on Core Foundations, 24 May 2021, https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/teaching-and-learning/learning/learning-compass-2030/.
Attitudes and values to appreciate holistic, integrated and long-term perspectives
Many challenges of the 21st century (e.g. climate change and the depletion of natural resources; unprecedented innovation in science and technology and disruptive change; financial interdependence, growing inequalities; increasing social and cultural diversity; new challenges such as cyber security and privacy protection; and political conflict, instability and inertia) are characterised by volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity (OECD, 2018[29]). This has been often expressed as “VUCA world” as a way to reflect upon the risks and opportunities in the fast-changing society, which makes it difficult to predict the future, with the confounding of issues or fallacy of composition that cannot be explained by a single linear cause-and-effect chain (OECD, 2019[30]).
Under such circumstances, it is time to think harder and ask ourselves about what it is to be a human and support students to develop the types of attitudes and values that are inherent to being human (OECD, 2019[30]) so that they can find a sense of purpose with their own moral compass. In doing so, students will need not to rush to a single answer, to an either-or solution, but rather reconcile tensions, dilemmas and trade-offs – for instance, between equity and freedom; autonomy and solidarity; efficiency and democratic processes; ecology and economic logic; diversity and universality; and innovation and continuity – by integrating seemingly contradictory or incompatible goals as aspects of the same reality (OECD, 2016[31]).
They will need to navigate freely through the VUCA world with regards to:
Space: local and global as well as digital – finding a sense of agency to take action towards addressing local and global issues, traveling across digital space that cut across both local and global space;
Time: past, today, future – e.g. learning from the past, assessing current state today, and making sense and meaning making as well as creating new narratives for future, such as by “not only redefine our moral and ethical boundaries but also relation to others, the environment.” (Schwab, 2016);
Perspective: challenges and opportunities – e.g. understanding the complexity of sustainability, turning uncertainties and risks into opportunities, and creating new demands rather than responding to demands (OECD, 2016[31]);
Horizon: short-term, long-term – e.g. taking a long-term perspective and at times thinking out of the box, in order to reconcile trade-offs, dilemmas, contradictions, ambiguities, non-simultaneity, and non-linear processes in a constructive, future-oriented way, will be critical in the future (OECD, 2018[29]).
To ignite their agency, students need to synergise, integrate and make sense of the global and local aspirations, demands and realities – instead of treating local and global as separate agendas (Opertti, 2021[2]). Adopting both local and global systemic perspectives places the curriculum in its context and environment, and positions it in a holistic perspective, i.e. seeking to optimise students’ learning integrated into their own local environment and the contemporary world, with clear links to global issues and the world of tomorrow. For example, the concept of sustainable development is one possible answer to the tension between economic growth, ecological constraints, and social cohesion, recognising their complex and dynamic interplay instead of treating them as separate and unrelated, if not mutually exclusive issues.
While value systems vary across groups and cultures, as well as across individuals (Hogg and Vaughan, 2002[32]), some studies suggest that certain values are more widespread and less culturally dependent than previously thought, but are manifested differently in different societies (Cline and Necochea, 1996[33]; Leming, 1994[34]).
At the global level, international bodies have been identifying human values, meaning societal values commonly found across countries, as integral to individual and social well-being since the middle of the 20th century (e.g. human dignity, equality, freedom, justice and peace). The importance of developing broad human and societal attitudes and values through education is increasingly discussed in international forums. For example, during the last decades, the world witnessed increasing cases of international and internal conflicts within and across countries, such as global terrorism and threats to social cohesion. The need to promote peace has become a global policy, as well as an educational, goal. The OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (Education 2030) project considers children’s rights as an integral part of the human values for human dignity associated with the concept of “student agency/child agency” suggested in the OECD Learning Compass ( (OECD, 2019[30]);Box 1.3).
Princess Laurentien’s participation in the 1st E2030 Global Forum, May 2020
“Sadly, COVID-19 has forced millions of people around the world into survival mode. But we also know that in looking for ways to adapt to the new COVID-19 reality, we need to get into questioning mode. The new reality amplifies and uncovers the urgency of implementing ambitions voiced through the Sustainable Development Goals and at national level, also on education. So, let’s not forget that the call for structural educational reforms predates COVID-19. How many conferences have we attended to discuss the role of digital technology in complementing teachers and materials? How many reports indicate that learning is not just about grades but also about well-being? And how many pleas have been made by students themselves about what they truly need for learning to be meaningful for their development, now and for their future? Now is the time to carry through the changes that were already staring us in the face before COVID-19 was in our midst.
With this in mind, I was delighted to moderate a dialogue recently as part of the digital OECD seminar to capture lessons learned from COVID-19 for education: Future of Education and Skills 2030 – Overcoming challenges in curriculum delivery during school closures and transitions back to school.
Who is the expert, who is the learner?
What made the dialogue invaluable was the combination of voices gathered. Students, teachers, policy makers and educational experts shared insights and ideas as equals. As I’ve advocated for over 10 years, students themselves are the educational experts; those shaping educational goals should learn to translate needs into programmes, not just the other way around. We should listen to them. Talk to them. Look them in the eyes and take them seriously. Not just the eloquent ones, but equally the silent and shy ones.
If there’s one quote from the OECD dialogue that stuck with me, it is the one uttered by a teacher: ‘We don’t like this situation. This is not our world.’ Real progress starts with admitting to being confused, so this level of openness is priceless. This sentiment uncovers a deeper fear for the unknown: the online learning world that reshuffles the roles of the learner and the teacher. It demands different skills from teachers in terms of energy, ways to connect with students and approach to transmitting knowledge. It lays bare that learning is much more than a transmission of knowledge. That learning is about an experience.
In between the lines, this quote uncovers a reluctance to ask for help, let alone do so from those best equipped to give advice on how to deal with this online world: students themselves. This is the time to reach out to young people and find out what to do – and not do – to make their learning a life-changing experience, not a mechanical transaction.
The principle of reciprocity
When all is new, there’s a huge opportunity for students and teachers to find out together what each one needs. I call it the principle of reciprocity. We tell young people to be curious, ask questions, be inquisitive. Adults in questioning mode set a great example for students. A questioning teacher is more of a role model than a teacher only showing how much he or she knows. What’s more, learning together shares the burden of responsibility. Which always, in any situation, makes a task lighter and easier.
Now is the time for teachers and students to put into practice this ‘new learning world’. To share what they need and not need from the other. To learn to read needs in between the lines. To show real interest in the other. When do they need support, and when freedom? What makes them feel seen and heard? ‘Sometimes it takes days for teachers to connect with me online,’ a student said. ‘This feels like sitting with my hand raised in class for days.’ This statement is an opening to understand what she would truly need to be motivated in her learning process. While teachers and students may need different things at different moments in the learning process, they both have (new) needs. It is time to embrace the new reality and apply the principle of reciprocity. It will open up opportunities and address restrictions. By learners and teachers co-creating learning processes together, this new reality of offline and online learning will become our world!
Transition back to school
Another insight from the OECD dialogue was that how you solve a problem depends on how you define it. What does the transition back to school mean? And who defines the problem? Policy makers? The traditional educational experts? Headmasters? Teachers? Do students and teachers just go back to the school buildings, but in a sub-optimal, socially distanced situation? Is it really the plan to go back to business as usual but with restrictions, knowing school systems around the world need a push for the better?
This crisis should be our final wake-up call on educational reform and the need for reciprocity between teachers and students. Young people today are not the same as when we (I’m 54...) were young. COVID-19 should be the final push we needed to put into practice what we already knew about changes in our educational systems. If we don’t act now, when will we? Are we brave enough to take the giant leap forward? Brave enough to rethink some very basic definitions: What is school? What is school for? Filling buildings and classrooms with students, following the curriculum and aiming for good grades? Or is it for fulfilling the dream that all children have the opportunity and space to develop the knowledge, mindset and skills in a way that suits their needs, so they can become active, happy and successful citizens?
Embracing a new reality
Children and young adults have become even more aware of the world around them. Their motivation and engagement are even more important, now that their learning process partially takes place outside of the traditional school building. The students in the OECD dialogue confirmed what young people have been saying for years: take me seriously. We can only shape education through dialogue between teachers and students. Invisible glitches become visible and learning becomes positive.
‘See students as whole persons, they are more than just their grades,’ a student said. How? By re-evaluating the role of the teacher, by establishing a relationship based on trust between the teacher and student, by focusing on relevant topics from real-life issues instead of the traditional curriculum-based core competencies and by building the bridge between students and the world outside of the school building.”
Source: H.R.H. Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, UNESCO Special Envoy on Literacy for Development (2020[35]), “Overcoming education challenges: The coronavirus crisis turns us all into learners”, OECD Education and Skills Today, https://oecdedutoday.com/overcoming-education-challenges-coronavirus-learners/
At the national or jurisdictional level, a number of countries/jurisdictions embed universally recognised values in their national curriculum that are deemed to help build a better future based on the well-being of individuals, communities and the planet (OECD, 2019[36]). Future-oriented approaches, addressing global challenges and how to embed values into curriculum often draw upon cultural and societal traditions at the design stage. Values related to notions of respect, cultural diversity, personal and social responsibility, tolerance and integrity appear, increasingly, in revised curricula, and these approaches will be highlighted further in the section on how countries/jurisdictions compare (OECD, 2019[37]).
Globally agreed common attitudes and values towards common future goals
Following the United Nations Charter signed in 1945, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, set common standards of achievement for all peoples and all nations. It stated fundamental human rights to be universally protected based on the recognition of the values to be shared and respected worldwide: human dignity, equality, freedom, justice and peace (United Nations, 1945[38]; United Nations, 1948[39]). Other UN instruments have followed the way paved by these first documents including the United Millennium Declaration (2000[40]) to reaffirm the “faith in the Organization and its Charter as indispensable foundations of a more peaceful, prosperous and just world”.
The OECD Education 2030 project collaborates with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with regards to the Sustainable Development Goals, 4.7 in particular, on global citizenship and education for sustainable development, as well as the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) on curriculum development. For example, Education 2030 curriculum analyses recognised the need to strengthen literacy for sustainable development and global understanding (also labelled global competency, global citizenship, and democratic citizenship), and highlighted the role that attitudes and values play in people’s behaviours and competency development. The analyses included global competency and literacy for sustainable development as part of the curriculum content mapping (CCM) exercise (OECD, 2020[41]; OECD, 2020[42]).
The PISA global competence framework 2018 explored how to support the quality, equity and effectiveness of educational systems to create a shared respect for human dignity (OECD, 2019[37]). The Council of Europe Competence Framework for Democratic Culture – originated at the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers in 2013 – presents a set of material for education systems to equip young people with competencies to defend values such as "human rights, democracy and the rule of law, to participate effectively in a culture of democracy, and to live peacefully together with others in culturally diverse societies" (Council of Europe, 2013[43]).
The leaders of G7 met in Ise-Shima, Japan, on 26 and 27 May 2016 (Consilium, 2016[44]) to address major global economic and political challenges such as escalated geo-political conflicts, increasing refugee flows and terrorism. They pledged to collectively tackle threats to international order as well as common values and principles for all humanity such as freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. They renewed a commitment to the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) and the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The table below summarises the types of values articulated by international bodies in frameworks, goals and declarations, in chronological order.
Across these international instruments, common threads emerge as to the importance given to particular values and attitudes across countries/jurisdictions, although the terminology used to articulate values and attitudes is not identical. Human dignity, respect, equality, justice, responsibility, global-mindedness, cultural diversity, freedom, tolerance and democracy are aspirational values cited for citizens, across countries, authorities and international bodies. These values shape shared futures built on the well-being of individuals, communities and the planet (OECD, 2019[30]).
The value of respect includes respect for self, others, cultural diversity and intercultural understanding, and the environment. Studies show that self-respect improves academic outcomes (Rosenberg et al., 1995[48]) Respect also improves societal relations such as valuing others, which is essential for forming close relationships.
The values of equality and social equity are significant in that low inequality is a strong predictor of democratic stability (Anderson and Singer, 2008[49]). Income equality is associated with greater child well-being, more trust, less mental illness, less drug use, greater life expectancy, lower infant mortality, less obesity, higher educational performance, and less homicide (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009[50]). Valuing equality helps people to understand the situation of people of different social status and of people who are suffering from inequality as well as to take responsibility to reduce inequality (Reysen and Katzarska-Miller, 2013[15]).
Research suggests that integrity is associated with equity and equality (Lippman et al., 2014[51]). Justice is also closely related to equality; in order to make just decisions, an individual must consider the ways in which equality and equity are achieved for all (Lerner, 2015[18]). The value of equality helps us to take responsibility to reduce inequality (Reysen and Katzarska-Miller, 2013[15]). Justice is also integral to individual and social well-being. Valuing justice has been found to increase tolerance and reduce prejudice across ages (Killen and Smetana, 2010[16]). The development of justice values is considered to be an important bridge between moral judgement and moral action to protect the rights of others (Hardy and Carlo, 2011[17]) and necessary for promoting positive intergroup relations across cultures (Lerner, 2015[18]). Adolescents who have a sense of justice also exhibit prosocial behaviours (e.g. helping, co-operating, sharing), which in turn are associated with academic achievement and school success (Caprara et al., 2000[52]; Jones, Greenberg and Crowley, 2015[53]; Wentzel, 1991[54]).
Attitudes and values made explicit in national/jurisdictional curriculum
Values and attitudes can become part of curriculum implemented in schools and, consequentially, reflect the desired nature of future citizens, as well as of the society they will shape. To do so requires “explicitly recognising the importance of values as part of a holistic education” and “deliberately fostering a set of values – as part of broader competencies – to support and guide students in navigating an uncertain future” (OECD, 2019[30]).
Curricula or curriculum subjects are rarely value-neutral (Sutrop, 2015[55]). Indeed, most national curricula are built on a set of shared values (OECD, 2020[42]), which often represent universal human and/or culture-specific values, although countries/jurisdictions vary considerably as to the extent to which these are explicitly stated in the curriculum. Choices that countries/jurisdictions make are very much context-specific, and there is, therefore, contestation and debate as to the specificity, nature and place of values in curriculum design.
The inclusion of values in curriculum redesign requires a clear decision-making process to identify and select shared values that support the overall mission and goals of the curriculum – which values and whose values – to include or exclude and how to balance these choices in the context of a multicultural society with evolving value systems (Kirschenbaum, 1976[56]). A number of countries/jurisdictions, in responding to the OECD‘s Policy Questionnaire, emphasised the importance of alignment across consultations processes, consensus-building strategies, educational goals and curriculum framework design. In Australia, British Columbia (Canada), Brazil and Viet Nam, for example, consultation with diverse social and political influencers on the competencies to be identified as part of curriculum design strengthened acceptance of the identified values and attitudes.
Countries/jurisdictions present a multidimensional context for embedding values: for instance, the desire to foster individuals’ holistic development (personal); the need to preserve and cultivate respect for one’s own and others’ cultural traditions and identity (social); the need to ensure social cohesion in increasingly pluralistic societies (societal); and commitment to universal goals that promote protection of humankind and the planet (human) (see Box 1.1).
Which values are chosen for inclusion in curriculum, how they are selected and whose values are prioritised vary considerably across countries/jurisdictions (Table 1.2). Social, economic, cultural and historical contexts drive why and how countries encourage their education systems to foster the holistic development of their students through a set of values explicitly designated in curriculum. The following cases illustrate the point:
Case 1: Values aligned with national priorities, traditional social tenets, and enshrined in national vision statements:
The curriculum of Korea includes values to align with Hongik Ingan, the founding spirit of the first kingdom in Korea, "contributing to the overall benefit of humankind".
The values curriculum in Scotland reflects the motto inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament, "Wisdom, justice, compassion and integrity”, which are the defining values for Scottish democracy.
Case 2: Values reflecting respect for and learning from Indigenous cultures and peoples:
In Australia2, curriculum values aim to develop personal and social capability, ethical and intercultural understanding; but also, to provide advice on student diversity, and develop knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as a cross-curriculum priority.
The curriculum of British Columbia (Canada) foregrounds First Peoples’ knowledge and perspectives and highlights these throughout all areas of learning, to provide students with an opportunity to develop empathy, respect, and good citizenship.
In Norway, according to the ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, the Sámi have status as an Indigenous people. The Norwegian Constitution lays down the principle that the central authorities must make it possible for the Sámi to protect and develop the Sámi languages, culture and societal life, a principle that is addressed in the Education Act. The core curriculum also applies to the Sámi school, which is used to designate education and training that follows a parallel and equal Sámi curriculum. The Sámi curriculum applies in the municipalities that are part of the administrative area for Sámi languages. The same curriculum also applies to pupils who have the right to be taught in one of the Sámi languages in the rest of Norway, who follow the Sámi curriculum in the Sámi subject. The core curriculum states that “School shall give pupils historical and cultural insight that will give them a good foundation in their lives and help each pupil to preserve and develop her or his identity in an inclusive and diverse environment. […] Christian and humanist heritage and traditions are an important part of Norway’s collective cultural heritage and have played a vital role in the development of our democracy. Sámi cultural heritage is part of Norway’s cultural heritage. Our shared cultural heritage has developed throughout history and must be carried forward by present and future generations. The teaching and training shall ensure that the pupils are confident in their language proficiency, that they develop their language identity and that they are able to use language to think, create meaning, communicate and connect with others. Language gives us a sense of belonging and cultural awareness. In Norway, Norwegian and the Sámi languages, South Sámi, Lule Sámi and North Sámi, have equal standing.” (Utgannings-direktoratet, 2021[57]) The curriculum also aims at giving all learners insight into the Indigenous Sámi people’s history, culture, societal life and rights; learners shall learn about diversity and variation in Sámi culture and societal life.
The National Curriculum of New Zealand is comprised of: Te Whāriki (early childhood curriculum), The New Zealand Curriculum (English medium years 1-13) and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (Māori medium years 1-13). Te Whāriki, integrates kaupapa Māori concepts (Māori values and philosophy) affirming the identities, languages, and cultures of all children, whānau3, teachers, and communities from a strong bicultural foundation. Values such as community and participation for the common good; ecological sustainability, respect for selves, others, and human rights are expressed in the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). In Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (TMOA), learners understand the values of their whānau, hapū4 and iwi5, and gain access to Te Ao Māori (the Māori world). They learn to be respectful of the mana6 and spirituality of each person and each whānau, and their attitudes and values, even if these differ from their own. The NZC is currently undergoing a refresh, which will include determining whether the current values are bicultural, inclusive, clear and easy to use.
Case 3: Values reflecting the need to prepare students for emerging societal change or reflect on historical change, such as social diversity, democracy, migration, equity, equality and inclusion, and environmental challenges:
Czech Republic refers specifically to equity for women and men.
Estonia references “respect for mother tongue and culture” and “environmental sustainability”.
From September 2020, Italy has included 30 hours of climate change education as part of the school curriculum, putting the value of sustainability and environmental concerns at the centre of education.
In the Netherlands, curriculum values nurture students’ respect for diversity in an increasingly pluralistic society: “taking care of one’s self and others’ physical and mental health; social self-reliance; respect for common values and norms; inclusion; citizenship, respect for religious diversity, cultural diversity, sexual diversity, differences in beliefs and attitudes, and criticism of one’s own opinions; taking care of the environment, democratic and political awareness”.
The curriculum of Portugal includes the values of freedom, responsibility, integrity, citizenship and participation. These reflect the desire to enable all young people’s personal fulfilment through the development of character and citizenship, to provide students with the tools to reflect on spiritual, aesthetic, moral and civic values, balanced with physical development. Embedding these values in the curriculum prepares future adults to be responsible citizens: to develop equality in their interpersonal relationships, to respect human rights and individual differences, and to advance democratic citizenship.
Case 4: Values promoting education goals that are aligned with international and regional instruments and declarations. The process can involve broad collaboration with stakeholders.
Czech Republic makes a reference to “principles and basic norms of European integration as the basis for peaceful cohabitation”.
In Estonia, the early phase of the national curricula development process ensured the framework reflected significant social values specified in the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and key documents of the European Union. The process of selecting values was supported by interdisciplinary research and facilitated discussions by the Centre for Ethics at the University of Tartu.
In Finland, the values described in National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2014) were defined in the early phase of the development process. Values were identified in national legislation and international obligations and declarations: The Constitution of Finland, Basic Education Act (well-being of pupils); Non-Discrimination Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child and UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities, as well as by extensive consultation with stakeholders, including education providers and the general public.
Despite these differences, there is a certain degree of commonality across countries/jurisdictions (Table 1.3). Shared values are important for strengthening and renewing trust in institutions, among communities and in building inclusive, fair, and sustainable economies and societies. The curricula of countries/jurisdictions in this study reflect such shared values, the most common being: respect (73% of countries/jurisdictions), cultural diversity (67%), and personal and social responsibility (67%), tolerance (54%) and integrity (43%). These personal social values are closely aligned to competencies in the OECD Learning Compass 2030 (OECD, 2019[30]).
Box 1.4 illustrates how curriculum can support certain attitudes and values, such as personal and social responsibility, rooted in the authentic sense of student agency, within and outside school. Box 1.5 illustrates how curriculum can support student agency towards fairness, impartiality, and social justice.
Sarah, a 20-year-old student from Iraq and living in Jordan, is pursuing her high school diploma through Amala, which provides an alternative pathway to completion of secondary education for refugees living in Jordan and Kenya. Amala's mission is to use the power of education to transform the lives of refugees, their communities and the world. Amala has developed the first international high school curriculum for young people who are displaced. Their high school diploma consists of five streams, each stream of two 10-week courses:
Leadership for social innovation (Social entrepreneurship; Ethical leadership)
Towards sustainable peace (Peace building; Living peacefully)
Active participation in societies (Making societal change; Economics for positive change)
Self and cultural expression (Powerful narratives; Artistic and cultural expression)
Using evidence to make change (Maths for change; Science informed action)
After completing a 10-week course, students complete a Personal Interest Project (PIP), an extended project based on each student's area of interest. Amala encourages students to link their PIP to their future aspirations as well, e.g. the education and/or career they want to follow afterwards. Sarah and her peers at Amala work with a pathways advisor, a mentor that helps students figure out what kind of path they want to take in life. In addition to PIPs, students have regular opportunities to work on smaller projects in specific discipline areas, e.g. doing research, creating a workshop, creating an initiative for the community, doing an internship. Throughout PIPs and smaller projects, students are meant to constantly reflect on their work. At the end of projects, students engage in their learning by preparing a presentation of their actions as well as a separate reflection on their learning.
Sarah has completed numerous projects throughout her coursework. Her PIP for her course on "making societal change"; involved volunteering in her community by painting motivational images on walls of stairs and gardens and on recycling bins to help encourage positive change. Sarah and her classmates met with families in the community to ask what they want to see in their community as well as what they thought of Sarah's volunteering initiative. The students worked with the community to understand how they could be helpful, and Sarah believes their PIP made a positive change.
For her current PIP, in follow up to her "social entrepreneurship" course, Sarah worked with her classmates to devise a project to address cyberbullying. Prior to launching the project, Sarah organised a session with Amala students who had completed the social entrepreneurship course to learn about their PIP experiences, including the challenges they encountered and the lessons they learned. After reflecting on these other students' experiences, Sarah and her classmates felt prepared to design a PIP that was meaningful and important to them and their community: "Stop Cyberbullying". Each of Sarah's teammates had a project task, and Sarah's was graphic design: she designed the logo and cover for their blog; other classmates designed a survey to distribute to students, and Sarah helped develop the survey questions; while other classmates analysed the information collected in the survey. An example of a smaller project Sarah worked on as part of her social entrepreneurship course is designing a concept map showing all the main ideas of social entrepreneurship. This task was assigned during the course, as opposed to the PIP, which takes place after the course is completed. Sarah created "The Spider Concept Map": the spider's body is "social entrepreneurship", and the legs are labelled with the elements that make up this concept, e.g. exploring, reflecting, community-awareness and leading.
After completing her map, Sarah wrote a reflection on her task and shared it with her classmates for feedback, which was positive, and she felt it affirmed the worthwhileness of her efforts. Sarah and her peers at Amala show how a curriculum founded on positive values and attitudes enables students to develop their agency, as well as their own values and attitudes, through the learning process.
Source: Recording of the OECD Learning Compass 2030 workshop on the Anticipation-Action-Reflection Cycle, 2 November 2021, https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/teaching-and-learning/learning/learning-compass-2030/.
In moral education classes at Sunatori primary school in Kumamoto, Japan, students can broaden and deepen their own thoughts through exposure to the diverse thoughts of others.
The goal of the class
In the class, Megumi, the teacher, encourages students be aware of each person's thoughts and actions to develop a sense of fairness and impartiality within the group. She fosters students’ attitudes to treating everyone with respect, without discrimination, by discussing problems, making common decisions and changing attitudes by considering others’ views.
Many students in the class showed compassion for others, expressed in their attitudes and behaviours. Other students were not as actively involved in the problems that arose in groups within the class.
The learning material used in the class
Students in the class considered making assumptions and being impartial through this story where a student judged another student, based purely on his/her personal assumptions. This situation could be extrapolated to happen to any student, so it encourages students to deepen their own thoughts, making use of their prior experiences and judgements.
Perspectives to evaluate students’ learning
The teacher evaluated students’ learning in the class from the following perspectives:
Was discussion with friends based on their own experiences and thoughts?
Was thinking deepened and multifaceted about "fairness and impartiality" from the perspectives of "courage" "compassion" "mutual understanding" "better school life", etc.?
Was thinking self-critical, such as looking back on themselves, thinking of their own ways of life in the future?
Key features of the class:
Students often think from the perspective of the main character in the story. Megumi tried to let students consider fairness, impartiality and social justice from their own perspective and "everyone around the main character" in a group.
The teacher asked questions that students could answer based on their own experiences and values. She allowed students to nurture new values through rich opportunities to exchange their own thoughts. She also valued each student's thoughts and opinions, and supported each student’s flexible learning that followed the flows of his/her thoughts.
One of the students presented a new perspective of "good and bad assumptions" during the class. This student’s idea was that "good assumptions" could encourage and build self-efficacy with positive impact on others. This student's presentation surprised and gave new perspectives to other students who had simply thought that "assumption is not good". After the class, many students wrote that their ideas about "assumption" had changed throughout the course of the class.
Students’ nurturing values of fairness, impartiality, equality and social justice by themselves
This class reflected how the curriculum values the development of each student's independence. Value, in this class, was placed on letting students find their relationships with others, which led to finding their own identities and their connections with others, which is considered the beginning of the process of establishing "student agency".
Each student’s and the teacher’s attitude of "accepting any perspectives from any student" has affected the culture of this class, and will now be the foundation for building a community that values a fair, impartial and equal social climate. The value and significance of this approach in class was in cultivating students’ sense that individual growth can change society. Students were trying to nurture values of fairness, impartiality, equality and social justice by themselves through the curriculum, which is significant for future society, where rapid changes are expected.
Sources: Sakamoto, M. (2021), “Moral class in class 3 of 4th grade, Sunatori Primary School”; Kadota, R. (2021), “From the perspectives of a researcher who visited the class and interviewed students”, Seinan Gakuin University Graduate School, Japan.
As defined earlier, attitudes and values are an integral part of competencies. The kinds of attitudes and values that comprise a specific competency will become clearer if we explore specific research on how such attitudes and values are associated with the development of such a competency, and to also explore implications for policy and practice for developing attitudes and values through curriculum and learning activities.
For this purpose, “global competency” and “media literacy” are illustrated below as examples of competencies for the future. They are often understood as an “integrated ability”, which goes beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Other examples explored in the OECD E2030 project include digital literacy/ICT literacy, data literacy, environmental literacy/literacy for sustainable development, financial literacy, coding/programming/computational thinking, and entrepreneurship. This is one of the key features of a 21st century competency-based curriculum, i.e. the learning of knowledge and the cultivation of abilities, attitudes and values should not be desegregated. (OECD, 2020[41]).
Intercultural attitudes and values as part of global competency
The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 survey looked into how well-prepared students are to become global citizens with intercultural attitudes and values. The PISA Global Competence is defined as a multidimensional capacity that encompasses the ability to: i) examine issues of local, global and cultural significance; ii) understand and appreciate the perspectives and worldviews of others; iii) engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions across cultures; and iv) take action for collective well-being and sustainable development (OECD, 2019[37]).
This conceptual framework relies on knowledge, skills, attitudes and values relevant to the OECD 2030 Learning Compass Framework vision and principles, such as the capacity to take an active part in conflict management and resolution; being adaptable; showing openness and respect; and having agency regarding global issues (i.e. that one is a citizen of the world with commitments and obligations towards the planet and others, irrespective of their particular cultural or national background) (OECD, 2020[58]).
PISA 2018 investigated the correlations between five indices related to living together in an interconnected world: 1) perspective taking, 2) respect for people from other cultures, 3) attitudes towards immigrants, 4) cognitive adaptability and 5) interest in learning about other cultures. While most indices tended to be positively associated, some are more strongly correlated than others. Figure 1.1 presents the average correlation coefficient between pairs of these five indices. On average across OECD countries, the strongest correlations were between the index of perspective taking and the indices of cognitive adaptability (correlation coefficient of 0.45). The weakest correlations were observed between attitudes towards immigrants, on the one hand, and cognitive adaptability and perspective taking, on the other. Attitudes towards immigrants were found to be correlated with respect for people from other cultures (0.38) (OECD, 2020[58]).
Source: OECD, PISA 2018 Database, Table VI.B1.3.18; Statlink: https://doi.org/10.1787/888934169785.
Students' respect for people from other cultures
Living in an interconnected world with cultural diversity, respect for others and intercultural understanding necessarily include showing respect to people who are perceived to have different cultural affiliations or different opinions and beliefs, even if it does not imply agreement with the others’ views and beliefs. PISA 2018 asked students the extent to which they respect people from other countries. The index of respect for people from other cultures was derived from responses to the following statements:
“I respect people from other cultures as equal human beings”;
“I treat all people with respect regardless of their cultural background”;
“I give space to people from other cultures to express themselves”;
Positive values in this index indicate that students reported greater respect for people from other cultures than the average student across OECD countries. (Figure 1.2). Students’ responses to the five statements about respect for people from other cultures varied substantially across countries. On average across OECD countries, about 82% of students reported that they respect people from other cultures as equal human beings and 81% reported that they treat all people with respect regardless of their cultural background. Slightly fewer students reported that they respect the values of people from different cultures (79%), that they give space to people from other cultures to express themselves (78%) and that they value the opinions of people from different cultures (78%) (OECD, 2020[58]) (Figure VI.3.5).
1. After accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile. The socio-economic profile is measured by the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS).
2. Differences between immigrant and non-immigrant students are only presented for countries and economies where more than 5% of students have an immigrant background. The values for countries/economies with smaller proportions of immigrant students are reported as missing.
Notes: The global competence sample from Israel does not include students in ultra-Orthodox schools and, thus, is not nationally representative. See PISA 2018 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming) for details. Countries and economies are ranked in descending order of the index of respect for people from other cultures.
Source: OECD, PISA 2018 Database, Table VI.B1.3.7 and Table VI.B1.3.9; https://doi.org/10.1787/888934169614.
Interest in learning about other cultures, awareness of global issues, agency, self-efficacy, cognitive adaptability and perspective taking
Intercultural and global learning can influence students’ attitudes, values and actions, depending on their design and implementation as learning activities.
For example, PISA data reflected strong associations with interest in learning about other cultures, awareness of global issues, agency regarding global issues, self-efficacy regarding global issues, cognitive adaptability and perspective taking (Figure 1.3). Schools and teachers should be encouraged to develop and implement activities that enhance students' cultural understanding as well as values and attitudes necessary to evolve in this globalised multicultural world (OECD, 2020[58]). An example of service learning and a collaborative experience for intercultural understanding can be found in Box 1.6.
1. The socio-economic profile is measured by the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS)
Note: All associations are statistically significant.
Source: OECD, PISA 2018 Database, Table VI.B1.7.11; https://doi.org/10.1787/888934170602.
PISA results also suggest that values and attitudes have an impact on students’ cognitive skills. Indeed, positive intercultural attitudes and dispositions, combined with knowledge of global issues, are likely to translate into greater cognitive skills and a heightened capacity to take action for collective well-being and sustainable development. A corollary is also true – highly developed global and intercultural understanding can translate into more positive attitudes and dispositions. If this association is attenuated after accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile, it remains both positive and significant in almost all countries and economies (OECD, 2020[58]).
When looking at evidence from countries targeting global competency in lower secondary education, the interdisciplinary potential of this competency in the curriculum becomes clear with humanities being fairly prominent as a natural learning area for global competency development in all countries with available data (Figure 1.4). Albeit cross-country variations on the proportion of curriculum content items targeting this competency exist, the findings also suggest that there is room for some countries to further explore the inclusion of global competency in the national language curriculum as well. Some of the good examples of such practices suggest that such learning is connected to authentic learning through issues from the real world outside school (Box 1.6).
Note: The percentage bar next to the country name refers to the total percentage of the mapped curriculum that embeds the competency. Graph bars ordered by decreasing total percentage of mapped items targeting the competency across learning areas.
Source: OECD (2020[42]), Future of Education and Skills 2030 Curriculum Database, E2030 Curriculum Content Mapping exercise, https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/curriculum-analysis/data/Distributions-of-competencies-across-learning-areas-subjects-data.xlsx.
Three university classmates collaborated on a service-learning project: “A Project for High School Students Who Have Roots in a Foreign Country”, conducted at a high school in Fukui Prefecture. The university students worked with eight high school students: four from the Philippines, three from Vietnam, and one from China. Once a week, the university students supported the high school students to develop their Japanese language speaking skills through conversation and presentations. The project led to unanticipated consequences through collaboration and co-operation, well beyond developing language skills.
“Each week, we divided into three groups consisting of one university student to 1-2 high school students. We talked about our favourite things, ways to study Japanese and problems in school life or daily life. During these talks, one of the students from Vietnam told me she liked reading but didn’t understand how to borrow books from the school library. We talked about seemingly small things and shared the students’ thoughts and feelings with high school teachers as much as possible. I thought this approach was successful and was easier for us because we are closer in age to the students than teachers are.
Additionally, we helped the high school students prepare and conduct presentations in English to local elementary school students about school life in the Philippines and Vietnam. Interestingly, since the students could speak English well, together we had to consider the audience, and speak slowly and use English that was easy enough for the children to understand. We felt this activity was effective for both the elementary school students and high school students (and us!) to know about other cultures, and to interact and learn with and about each other.
Throughout these experiences, we discovered that there are people living nearby who need support. We already knew that the number of foreign workers and their children is increasing in Japan, and in Fukui as well, but we did not know that students with foreign roots were attending this local high school. Until this experience, we felt little or no connection to this situation or these students, though we major in global studies and each of us has lived and studied overseas. This experience also reconfirmed our understanding that students with foreign passports continue to face difficulties accessing Japanese public education, even in institutions where administrators and teachers create programs to improve their students’ learning opportunities. But speaking with these students showed us that to support them, we needed to understand not only the difficulties they face, but also their dreams and goals.
Having university students support high school students with foreign roots allowed both groups to develop mutual understanding: we learned the necessity of community and local government support for students with foreign roots, and we learned we are part of, and not apart from, the community. We hope this project continues, spreads and helps make our community comfortable for all residents.”
Source: Ayaka Nakamura, Department of Global and Community Studies, University of Fukui.
Ethical judgements and media literacy
Media literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyse and critically evaluate media messages (Buckingham, 2007[59]; Kellner and Share, 2005[60]), for which certain types of attitudes and values are essential for ensuring individual and social well-being in 2030. For example, social media, online networks and interactive technologies have changed young people's interactions with others and their perceptions of their environment. Today’s students are both consumers and creators of media (Kellner and Share, 2005[60]; Hobbs, 1998[61]). An unprecedented amount of information and online content, social networks can pose risks to young people, including exposure to harmful or inappropriate content, lack of awareness about how online behaviour can affect others and a dependence on the Internet or social networking that can lead to disconnection from the real world.
Cultivating students’ skills with a certain attitudes and values in intercultural communication can help mitigate these risk and help students to capitalise on digital spaces, better understand the world they live in and responsibly express their opinions online (OECD, 2020[58]). Students need to consider the many interconnections and inter-relations between seemingly contradictory or incompatible ideas, logic and positions, and consider the results of actions from both short- and long-term perspectives (OECD, 2019[30]). Being equipped with media literacy, students can also prevent risky behaviours (Jeong, Cho and Hwang, 2012[62]).
The OECD Education 2030 Curriculum Content Mapping (CCM) study defines media literacy as “the ability to think critically and analyse what one reads in the media, including social media and news sites. This includes recognising ‘fake news’ or the ability to distinguish what is true from what is not, as well as to be able to assess, evaluate and reflect on the information that is given in order to make informed and ethical judgements about it” (OECD, 2020[63]).
To make informed and ethical judgements, students will need not only knowledge about media, awareness about the influence of the media, and critical thinking skills (e.g. to discern “fake news”, risks of manipulation and bias, possibly to be accelerated through the use of artificial intelligence), but also attitudes and values such as respect for others (e.g. conscience to avoid negative consequences for others of one’s action of online posting), respect for one’s own well-being (e.g. protect one’s healthy sleep patterns and duration or healthy eating habits against excessive social media use or addiction) (OECD, 2021[64]), and responsibility and Integrity (e.g. adherence to strong moral and ethical principles to fight against cyberbullying), etc. These attitudes and values are crucial to navigate oneself to make responsible judgements in an interconnected, diverse and fast-changing world of media.
It is important to recognise that media literacy is closely linked with other literacies (e.g. data literacy, digital literacy, information literacy, scientific literacy, statistical literacy and computational literacy). Recognising its multifaceted nature that covers abroad range of disciplines (OECD, 2019[26]), policy makers increasingly embed media literacy in curricula. They often highlight it as the ability to analyse and reflect critically on the validity and veracity of media content, perspectives and views. For example, it is embedded in over 50% of the curriculum in each of Korea (51%) and Estonia (57%), and to a lesser extent in the curricula of all other countries/jurisdictions participating in the study (4% in Portugal to 37% in Lithuania) (Figure 1.5).
With regards to the subject areas, it is embedded in the national language subject in the curricula of nearly all countries/jurisdictions (the highest percentages: 19% in Korea, 18% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Lithuania and Estonia), followed by Humanities, Technologies and Science. In British Columbia (Canada), media literacy is embedded more in Mathematics than any other subject (17%).
Notes: The percentage bar next to the country name refers to the total percentage of the mapped curriculum that embeds the competency. Graph bars ordered by decreasing total percentage of mapped items targeting the competency across learning areas.
Source: OECD (2020[42]), Future of Education and Skills 2030 Curriculum Database, E2030 Curriculum Content Mapping exercise, https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/curriculum-analysis/data/Distributions-of-competencies-across-learning-areas-subjects-data.xlsx.
Simon Whitaker, of the Plearnpattana School in Bangkok, explains the relationship between media literacy and the development of values and attitudes related to safe and responsible citizenship:
“Media literacy is one of the key competencies, along with digital literacy and information literacy, in many international frameworks, such as UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education (GCED). This subject aims to train our students to become active citizens in this fast-changing digital world.”
What do we teach in Media Literacy?
At Plearnpattana School in Bangkok, students explore by questioning the “media ecosystem” from simple to more complex media, from simple to more complex concepts. Starting with advertisements of famous brands, students might come up with questions such as “What are the strategies used in this ad?’ or ‘Why did they choose this person as a brand ambassador?” Students are then encouraged to consider more in-depth questions to develop understanding of communication systems and the interaction patterns of humans as media consumers and media producers. Students learn to analyse the media more broadly and to understand its importance and its influences on society.
How do we teach Media Literacy?
The goal of teaching media literacy is to create a sense of security for students and, in turn, for society.
Simon explains, “there are three strategies we use:
1. Questioning: students learn how to question certain types of media.
2. Analysing information: students learn how to effectively filter, select, organise, save, and use information gathered from media sources.
3. Recognising fake news: students learn to read past the headline, check the date and author credentials, gauge the tone and language, and identify biases.”
The school’s programme uses a staged approach to media literacy development. This begins with students developing the skills and understanding of social media responsibility – to use their social media accounts and what they publish about themselves appropriately. Students then learn about how they can use social media platforms to initiate and support social change. Students role-play as reporters or content creators to create content that is beneficial to society.
Lastly, students learn to be active citizens through exemplar social media campaigns such as the Facebook page “Thailand Footpath” which campaigns for better pavements in Thailand: posting broken pavements encourages the authorities to fix them. Students learn about campaigns that use the power of the hashtag to bring about social change. A crucial element of the program examines the potential problems encountered by young users: the effects of media on mental and physical health, on privacy, on virtual versus reality.
Source: Simon Whitaker, Plearnpattana School, Bangkok. Teacher 'Air' Sippakorn
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Notes
← 1. The various descriptions countries and jurisdictions include in student profile statements demonstrate these differences. For example, Chile, Estonia, Hungary, Japan, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, China, Russia and Singapore all mention “moral character” and/or “moral principles” as contributing characteristics in student profiles; Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Argentina, Costa Rica, India and Kazakhstan all include developing “ethical” skills as part of their teaching and learning goals (data from the OECD Education 2030 Policy Questionnaire on Curriculum Redesign, item 1.1.2.2).
← 2. Coding for the data tables and narrative was done in relation to a previous version (version 8.4) of the Australian Curriculum.
← 3. “Whānau is often translated as ‘family’, but its meaning is more complex. It includes physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions and is based on whakapapa. Whānau can be multi-layered, flexible and dynamic. Whānau is based on a Māori and a tribal world view. It is through the whānau that values, histories and traditions from the ancestors are adapted for the contemporary world.” (Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, 2017[65])
← 4. The most significant political unit in pre-European Māori society was the hapū. Hapū ranged in size from one hundred to several hundred people, and consisted of a number of whanau (extended families). Hapū controlled a defined portion of tribal territory. Ideally, territory had access to sea fisheries, shellfish beds, cultivations, forest resources, lakes, rivers and streams. Many hapū existed as independent colonies spread over a wide area and interspersed with groups from other iwi. This pattern of land use could give rise to a web of overlapping claims. Ruling families and their leaders mediated some disputes over land, and others were resolved through intermarriage, but failure to reconcile competing claims could lead to conflict. The viability of a hapū depended on its ability to defend its territory against others; in fact the defence of land was one of its major political functions.” (New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Manatu Taonga, 2005[66])
← 5. “The largest political grouping in pre-European Māori society was the iwi (tribe). This usually consisted of several related hapū (clans or descent groups). The hapū of an iwi might sometimes fight each other, but would unite to defend tribal territory against other tribes. Iwi-tūturu (the homeland tribe) or tino-iwi (the central tribe) were groups living in a long-held location. They would take their name from a founding ancestor. Iwi-nui or iwi-whānui (the greater tribe) were groups tracing descent from the founding ancestor of the iwi-tūturu. They were often widespread and lived alongside people from other iwi.” (New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Manatu Taonga, 2005[66])
← 6. Mana refers to an extraordinary power, essence or presence. This applies to the energies and presences of the natural world. There are degrees of mana and our experiences of it, and life seems to reach its fullness when mana comes into the world (New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Manatu Taonga, 2017[67]).