Routledge International Handbook of Life and Values Education in Asia

This Handbook provides a comprehensive look at the educational scope of life and values that characterize 21st-century Asia, as well as those values shared across cultures.

Some values are deeply resonant with the region’s past while others reflect modernity and the new contexts in which Asian societies find themselves. Exploring these values of different types and the way they are constructed in Eastern and Western contexts, the contributors delve into the diversity of religious, moral and social education to promote greater understanding across cultures. While a range of values is identified here, there is no single set of values that can be applied to all people in all contexts. The time has long gone, even for single societies, when values can be imposed. Yet this Handbook emphasizes both the extent and importance of values to individuals and their societies—how they respond to these values may provide the key to better and more caring societies and to better lives for all.

Academics and teachers will find this Handbook resourceful because it raises important theoretical issues related to social values and their formation in distinctive contexts and provides novel insights into the diverse educational landscape in Asia. Policymakers and educators will also find this text helpful in learning to think about new ways to improve the quality of people’s lives.

John Chi-Kin Lee is President of the Education University of Hong Kong. He is also UNESCO Chair in Regional Education Development and Lifelong Learning and Chair Professor of Curriculum and Instruction. He is the Editor of International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, Executive Editor of Teaching and Teacher Education as well as Co-Editor for the Routledge Series on Life and Values Education.

Kerry J. Kennedy is Professor Emeritus, Advisor (Academic Development) at the Education University of Hong Kong. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg and Editor of Routledge’s Schools and Schooling in Asia Series, the Asia Europe Education Dialogue Series, the Perspectives on Education in Africa Series and Springer’s Civic and Citizenship Education in the 21st Century Series.