Abstract
We are at a big turning point in moral education now. New moral education system will start in 2018-2019 school year for elementary schools, and in 2019-2020 school year for junior high schools, respectively. Moral education has been treated not as a subject but as a study area, for a long time. However, a lesson of moral education will be “special subject” in the next national curriculum. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has clarified the goals of moral education and lessons of moral education, requiring teachers to improve teaching methods in moral education to be more efficient. In this paper, the author surveys recent psychological researches on morality and moral education conducted mainly in Japan and considers how those research findings can contribute to the practice of moral education and moral education classes. The survey reveals that there are researches on moral judgement, long-term comparison of children and youth in their morality, empathy, the influence of emotion on moral recognition, overseas moral education and lesson of moral education. The author also considers how we can apply those researches to the moral education. Finally, the author discusses the need of further basic and practical research on morality and moral education were discussed.
