Abstract

Next time some more-than-usually striking act of violence hits the headlines, consider the opinions expressed in the media. Will you find a reference to education? Quite possibly, if the violence has not involved schools or young people, you will not. But if children or young people who have only recently left school are involved as perpetrators, it will be surprising if you do not encounter the view that there must be something amiss in education; that if young people were getting a proper moral education, events like these would never happen. This kind of view was expressed, for instance, after the murder of two-year old James Bulger by two ten-year old boys, after the murder of the headteacher Philip Lawrence, and after the shooting of children in a school in Jonesboro, Arkansas, by two classmates.