抄録
There are 2 key issues central to sports integrity education in Japan. First, while both aspirational ethics and preventive ethics are important, there is a bias toward practical research focusing on preventive ethical approaches, whereas insufficient attention is given to aspirational ethics. Second, despite the necessity of sports integrity education for young individuals, especially considering the trend toward younger top athletes, there has been a lack of practical research on this topic.
In the light of these issues, this paper proposes new teaching materials and instructional methods designed to achieve an aspirational ethics education approach, drawing on recent practices in moral education that emphasize “thought and discussion” in schools. Additionally, it discusses approaches for the training for top youth athletes and assesses the effectiveness of such training.
In developing the teaching resource, materials aimed at “value clarification” were employed to help players explore their ideals and values, while materials focusing on “moral dilemmas” were also included to allow individuals to reflect on their role as athletes by making choices in morally conflicting situations. The training was conducted with 40 J–League youth soccer players as part of a 50–minute sports integrity session. The focus was on mutual learning and the exploration of values and ideals cherished by the players themselves, rather than on providing definitions or transmitting knowledge of sports integrity.
The results indicated that only ideal values elicited a significant increase in the number of ideal images articulated by the players before and after the training. In addition, free responses such as “What skills do I need now?” were observed, suggesting that exposure to the values of others prompted the players to reconsider, expand, and deepen their own important values. Furthermore, the materials focusing on moral dilemmas provided an effective opportunity to deepen discussions and explore a range of values by engaging players in debates covering 5 ethical conflict situations from opposing viewpoints.
In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the use of materials focusing on moral dilemmas prompting individuals to ask “What kind of athlete do I want to be?” and encouraging reaffirmation of values and ideals through discussion of morally conflicting situations was an effective approach for aspirational ethics education. This approach was considered to help athletes realize and pursue their own ideals and values.
