In this article two moral (education) theories are discussed: moral education related to virtue ethics, commonly called character education, and moral education based on deontological ethics.3 We will compare the aims of these approaches to moral education with the domain of personal worldview, but first we present an example of a Dutch education programme that provides moral education in primary schools. The purpose of this example is to make the above questions more specific and express them with more clarity. Furthermore, this case gives a better idea of and illustrates how the relationship between moral education and personal worldview plays a role in educational practice.

The Peaceable School: concretising the relationship between morality and worldview in education

In order to get a better understanding of the main question posed in this article, we concretise the relationship between morality and worldview in education by means of an illustrative example of moral education: the Dutch programme, The Peaceable School. The programme not only aims to provide moral education but integrates this with social and citizenship education. It is a popular programme that is used in more than 550 primary schools in the Netherlands.

The programme focuses particularly on moral themes such as ‘We belong together’, ‘We solve conflicts ourselves’, ‘We listen to each other’, ‘We care for each other’, ‘We all contribute’ and ‘We are all different’, which are dealt with in weekly lessons. An example of a lesson topic for 8- to 9-year olds is ‘to stand up for each other’. Pupils discuss why laughing at each other and humiliating others are bad things to do and how to defend and support each other. Another lesson for 10- to 11-year olds is about respecting each other. They learn about the difference between negative feedback and positive feedback and how to encourage each other in terms of suggestions and compliments (Pauw, 2013a; Pauw, 2013b; de Vreedzame school: http://www.devreedzameschool.net/belangstelling/voorbeeld lessen-downloaden).

The Peaceable School aims to create a positive moral and social climate in the school and aims to stimulate children to become responsible and contributing participants of a democratic society. It focuses on interpersonal matters such as caring for each other, fostering positive social relationships, keeping an open mind to persity and also dealing constructively with conflict. Pupils are asked to give each other positive feedback during the school day by sharing tips or compliments, and to learn to take responsibility for the moral and social climate in the community. The programme also focuses on intrapersonal matters such as self-reflection, selfconfidence, self-control and an understanding of the effect of acts on others (Pauw, 2013a; Pauw, 2013b).

The Peaceable School programme is widely used in state schools and it might be thought that schools stay within the boundaries of neutrality with regard to worldview. We have shown that the Peaceable School programme has a variety of aims. While these may be neutral with regard to religious and non-religious organized worldviews, they may not be neutral with regard to the personal worldview of pupils.

The ethical value of caring for each other instead of doing only what is necessary and the positive attitude towards persity instead of simply tolerating people who are different are values and ideals that go further than the rules necessary for living together harmoniously in society. They are part of the broad moral domain. The programme’s aim is that students acquire these values and act upon them.

In the introduction of this article we stated that broad morality is conceptually part of the personal worldview. The ethical questions and teleological matters that broad morality consists of are part of the existential notions a personal worldview contains. Although the Peaceable School does not aim to influence teleological matters, we can conclude that the Peaceable School aims to influence broad morality and is aimed at personal worldview development because of the ethical views that are transmitted to students.