The Kenan Institute for Ethics is committed to character education, broadly conceived, as part of its practice in the area of Moral Education & Development.

The Institute’s initial work in this area was the pilot program, Middle School Visions (MSV). Launched in 2001, MSV developed and implemented a 6th-8th grade curriculum with the goal of promoting responsibility and reflection in middle school students. Click here to read Moral Development in Schools and Communities: The Kenan Institute for Ethics’ Middle School Visions Character Education Program, a paper outlining the successes and lessons learned from the MSV initiative.

The Institute is currently conducting a broader review of the current research trends and opportunities in the area of Moral Education & Development in order to determine the most promising research and programming opportunities to pursue that also offer fruitful collaborations with other departments, schools, and institutes at Duke.