Enacting Values Across Curriculum Subjects

"[I]n an age of hyperconnectivity, when governments have less control over information flows and their associated value systems, it now becomes incumbent on educators to go further in equipping students to negotiate the diversity of values and especially post-truth values that can potentially deepen social polarizations and intolerance. It may no longer be sufficient to stress that students demonstrate awareness by expressing moral sensitivity for the maintenance of social harmony. Such a view places the burden of human flourishing on the individual and discounts broader systemic factors. Instead, an extended vision of human flourishing considers such questions as: How is the individual’s flourishing implicated in his/her given social history and systems that give rise to inequality or other forms of injustices? How is the individual part of a larger social ecosystem comprising actors from transnational organizations, the state, civil society, etc. who are all also responsible for the flourishing of others? Addressing these questions necessitate that teachers empower their students to analyse the historical narratives of values, how they have been constructed and utilized by various groups for particular agendas, and their resulting impact on other groups."

Excerpt from "Integrating the values of social harmony and criticality: perspectives from Singapore’s approach to character and citizenship education" published in Asia Pacific Journal of Education.

Project Team

The intensification of globalization in the twenty-first century has brought with it new challenges and risks including forms of intolerance, the spread of post-truth, the rise of deep fake technologies etc. In light of these developments, governments and educators have returned to the fundamental purposes of education as grounded on ethics, values and character.

In Singapore, recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in values education. One challenge is that teachers generally embody at least two key identities as subject-matter experts and character educators. In the classroom, values may be marginalised when what is commonly taught and assessed concerns disciplinary knowledge and applied skills. Given the current impetus towards a whole-school approach to values education, this study explores what values teachers emphasise and how they infuse these in the classroom. 

This study involves mixed methods research where quantitative data, involving a survey of 585 secondary school teachers across 10 schools, is first collected to provide representative and generalizable data of the population in question. Following this, a qualitative case study of 16 teachers from two secondary schools was conducted to explore the values pedagogies enacted in the classroom. The study provides both broad and in-depth empirical insights into the values that underpin teachers’ classroom pedagogies as well as how they enact values across various subjects in the classroom.  

Project Implications

Through this study, we developed a conceptual framework which we call the 3As of values pedagogy – awareness, analytical and agentive levels of values engagement. Findings highlight the importance of a systemic approach to intentionally scaffolding critical and ethical engagements with values across various subjects in the classroom.

 Four key implications for schools: 

1. Importance of a systemic approach to values education – Values are effectively integrated in a school when it is a shared language infused across all aspects of a school’s culture including its mission/vision, school programmes, curriculum and pedagogies. A systematic approach to implementing CCE as a school-wide effort leads to greater visibility. This goes beyond just CCE lessons and involves translating abstract values into concrete programmes and intentionally infusing it in academic curricula.
   
   
2. Importance of making visible implicit values in practice – Intentionality occurs not only through seizing on teachable moments to engage in values sense-making with students, it also occurs when teachers intentionally infuse values in their planned lessons (such as real-world projects). Another avenue is when teachers intentionally reinforce classroom routines and help students understand their connections with values. Finally, values should also be foregrounded in subject syllabuses which should be accompanied by examples of their connections to teaching the subject including pedagogical strategies.
   
   
3. Importance of scaffolding in terms of 3 levels of values pedagogy (awareness, analytical, agentive) to deepen engagement – Teachers should consider ways to intentionally design lessons and scaffold this by incorporating the three values pedagogic levels (awareness, analytical, agency) to lead students towards more complex layers of thought. This involves equipping students to contextualize values, unpack their constructed nature and discern their underlying belief systems.
   
   
4. Importance of critical and ethical pedagogic strategies – To enable students to critically analyze values, teachers need to be equipped to use a repertoire of questioning strategies and ethical literacies to facilitate more complex explorations of values. 

Resources

• Opinion: CCE isn’t just an ‘extra subject’. It’s education at its core

• Choo, S. S., Chan, M., Liaw, N. (2024, November).  Philosophical and psychological perspectives on human flourishing: Implications for character and citizenship education in Singapore. Jubilee Centre for Character and virtues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMQuMpvz9qs 
• Choo, S. S. (2024, October). Competencies, capabilities or cosmopolitan virtues? The what and why of Global Citizenship Education. Paper presented at Seoul National University - Singapore Centre for Character and Citizenship Education Joint Symposium, Singapore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xANZYLsIss8&list=PLfAR8DzGqayGPbNuRUPwSfjYD-9pjOExf&index=12 

• Choo, S. S., Sim, J. B. Y., & Chua, B. L. (2025). Integrating the values of social harmony and criticality: perspectives from Singapore’s approach to character and citizenship education. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2025.2511749 
• Choo, S. S. (2025). Principles of integrating values in assessment: Reflexivity, hospitality and dispositional development. Assessment for All Learners. https://assessmentforall.com/principles-of-integrating-values-in-assessment-reflexivity-hospitality-and-dispositional-development/ 
• Choo , S. S., & Chua, D. (2023). From moral adaptation to ethical criticism: Analyzing developments in Singapore's character education programme. Journal of Moral Education, 54(2), 185-202. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2023.2255754 
• Choo, S. S. (2024). The significance of Confucian cosmopolitanism for Global Citizenship Education in countering political wokeism, post-truth and postmodernism of the 21st century. In Lim, H. M., Ji, S., & Yoon-Youn g, L. (Eds.), Rethinking Global Citizenship Education from Asia-Pacific perspectives(PP. 16-45). Seoul: UNESCO-APECIU. https://www.unescoapceiu.org/post/5227 

• Choo, S., Chua, B. L., & Chow, J. Y. (2024). “Every teacher a CCE teacher”: Exploring teachers’ values pedagogy in the classroom (NIE Research Brief Series No. 24-008). National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. https://hdl.handle.net/10497/28034 
• Choo, S. S. (2023). Teachers perspectives in values education. SingTeach, 86. https://singteach.nie.edu.sg/2023/10/19/teachers-perspectives-in-values-education/