Sociology: Emile Durkheim’s Moral Education
Contents
- Introduction
- Education
- Moral Education
- A Brief History of Moral Education
- Moral Education and Durkheim
- Transformation of moral education
- Conclusion
Introduction
The moral education of Emile Durkheim offers an important perspective on human moral development. Morality is a social phenomenon. Moral education plays an important role in life in order to achieve the highest goals. Moral education puts sociological concepts at great risk. For once, Durkheim names morality as having three elements: discipline, commitment, and autonomy or self-determination. Last element, autonomy only exists at a rational level. Education is a social phenomenon and a process of socialization. Pedagogy is a practical theory that focuses directly on morality. It is the responsibility of a teacher to teach moral behavior to his students. The group of people participate together in the educational process. People are always relating to each other in society and expanding their horizons. Socialization is the way of moral education. Through morality, we communicate better with each other about exactly what makes you feel accepted and desired. From the origin of human life until today, people have been trying to live a better life. Not only the theoretical understanding of morality, but also the practical implications play a major role in Durkheim's ideas. Moral education is the process of internalizing morality in the new generation.
Emile Durkheim firmly believed in education and moral education. Education is one of the means of rebuilding or reforming society. It establishes the theory of education as the source of morality. In Moral Education, Durkheim explained three elements on which morality is built; Discipline, commitment and autonomy. Discipline curbs selfish tendencies and impulses, serves to mediate aggressive self-centered behavior. Attachment is commitment to a social group and autonomy is self-responsibility and accountability for one-off actions. The relationship between these three builds morality. Education helps us to delve into the life of the past to build the moral life. His works on moral education were a source of socialization. In this book I try to open up his conception of moral education and he, as a sociologist and pedagogue, to propose new reflections far removed from religious morality.
Education
In sociology, education is the very important field in which the process of socialization takes place. Education has profoundly changed society. Lester Frank Ward, the first president of the American Sociological Association, saw education as a great equalizer. He believed that by educating the younger generation, inequality in society could be eliminated. In other words, education is the total experience of infants, children, and young adults in preparation for full membership in adult society. Today, it is widely accepted that every child has the right to an education that enables them to read, write and make independent choices. Formal institution – Schools, colleges and universities provide basic knowledge to students through the training of professors, teachers and lectures. Education maintains the value of consensus and social cohesion in society.
Moral Education
Etymologically, the term moral comes from the Latin mos, meaning custom or habit, and is the translation of the Greek ethos, which means roughly the same thing and is the origin of the term ethics. For many countries and religions around the world, “moral education” refers to character education or moral education. Most thinkers, educators and parents recognize that children are born into this defenseless world and need nurturing and guidance for their future careers. In particular, children must learn to live harmoniously in society. Historically, the task of school has been to develop the intellectual and moral virtues of youth. Moral virtues such as honesty, responsibility and respect for others fall within the domain of moral education. Moral education helps children learn moral virtues or habits to live a better life while becoming productive and contributing members of their communities. Moral education must serve not only the individual, but the whole human community. According to Durkheim, moral education plays a major role in transmitting one's cultural tradition through norms and values in society from generation to generation.
A Brief History of Moral Education
Every established community has a moral code, and it is the responsibility of adults to instill that code in the hearts and minds of their young people. Every society expects schools to make a positive contribution. Every existing community has a moral code and this serves the moral education of children. This was the main concern of the school in the face of this new digital world. For English Puritans, the moral code they believe they are in is the Bible, so it is imperative that children learn to read the Bible. They believed that the inability to read the scriptures would lead children to fall prey to Satan's snares. During the colonial period, religion played the major role in moral education. The 19th century school favored both secular and moral education. Abraham Lincoln wrote, "I would like to see the time when education, and with it morality, sobriety, enterprise, and industry, will become much more common than they are now." During this time, there was also a growing backlash against organized religion. Intellectual leaders and writers were strongly influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. They try to separate morality from religion and the state. Karl Marx saw religion as an enemy of a socialist revolutionary state and opium for the people. This trend intensified after World War II and was further reinforced by what appeared to be major cracks in the nation's moral conscience in the late 1960s. of adults to instill this code in the hearts and minds of his youth. Every society expected the school to make a positive contribution
Moral Education and Durkheim
He begins his book Moral Education with; “I propose, as an educator, to speak of moral education. This is why I must tell you from the beginning my conception of education. He considers education as an art. Indeed art, made of habits, practices and organized know-how. According to him, morality is a social phenomenon related to the needs of the structures of particular societies and can be observed systematically. (Durkheim, 1957; 1)
The internalization of social morality through education and socialization is at the forefront of his work. It explains the discipline to curb passion, a sense of autonomy to allow for action, and a sense of obligation or commitment to society. Durkheim believes that society is the source of morality: therefore he also believed that society could be reformed, especially through moral education. According to him, morality has three components:
- Discipline: a sense of authority that resist egoistic impulses.
- Attachment: to society since society is the source of morality.
- Autonomy: a sense of individual responsibility for our action.
Transformation of moral education
According to Durkheim, there is no such thing as good and evil in general. Morality is the specific living conditions. He says: “However, the morality of an undeveloped society is not ours. They are essentially religious." He wants to lay the scientific foundations for a new moral order. Moral education found in religious beliefs must be transformed into secular morality. Duty can serve as an example of the moral element. According to him, both the morality of religious commitment and the new secular morality lead to a duty. Religious morality is a duty to serve God, and secular morality is a duty to one's neighbour.
Durkheim lived at a time when the school in France was becoming secularized, that is, the government had taken it out of the religious (ecclesial) sphere. It was about replacing moral ideas with rational and scientific views necessary for the proper functioning of society. One of Durkheim's main interests was the new social order in modern society, which he called organic solidarity. In the absence of religious morality, he seeks to substitute a secular and rational morality. He sees it as a vital new morality for the new generation.
There are two phases of socialization that take place during childhood: the first takes place within the family, the second during primary school, when the child begins to leave the family. The second stage, according to Durkheim, is the critical moment in the formation of moral education, of the socialized citizen, so to speak. Meanwhile, the foundation stone must be laid for a socially defined morality that facilitates the integration of children into mainstream society. Durkheim argues: We undertake to dispense in our schools an entirely rational and moral education to the exclusion of any principle derived from religion.
Function of Education
Influencing the child, morality is not a special virtue for him. It must develop and be constituted according to the particular circumstances of human life. There is a big problem in our schools, it is that we lack influential teachers to teach morality. The schoolmaster was the secular successor to the priest and derived his authority from the larger morality represented in the school: like the priest. To discover the meaning of morality, we must look within ourselves with some care. morality for some as the idea of good; for others the nation of perception and for still others a concept of human dignity.
All this behavior follows predetermined rules. The domain of morality is the domain of duty. It's up to the individual how this applies to a particular situation. Morality consists of a system of rules and actions that dictate behavior. In fact, most moralities see morality as contained entirely in a single, very general formula. We sometimes say that morality rests entirely in the individual conscience.
Morality is not something general, but very clear rules. It's like so many shapes with limiting boundaries in which to shape our behavior. We need not construct these rules in the movement of actions by deducing them from some general principles; they already exist, they have already been created. For Durkheim, discipline is never an end in itself, but necessary for freedom, for the benefit of the individual and of society. Society can pride itself on not being the biggest and the richest, but on being the best organized and embodying the best moral values.
Conclusion
Durkheim recognized that the difficulty in teaching morality to young people was that of authority. The Catholic Church appeals to the doctrine of the divine Church, to a divine founder, and Protestants to the Bible as the written record of God's revelation, and in all these cases refers to an authority beyond of today's world which is not present in Durkheim's teaching. He thought he had solved the problem by asserting that the authority for such behavior lay with society itself. There was a serious weakness in Durkheim's mind. For him, morality must have reasons and these can be abstract. Children cannot absorb the logical Kantianism which forms the basis of philosophical-humanist ethics. Moreover, it must be admitted that Durkheim's relativism leads logically to what is today called postmodernism. According to Durkheim, we need a rational and moral education system. It is quite possible and it is the basis of science.
It is admirable to see how Durkheim links the social world to the moral world. Today we need a moral order or a normative order to ensure the dignity of people all over the world, irrespective of class, caste, race, gender, etc. Moral life and intellectual development are two sides of a coin. We cannot separate them. Durkheim did not believe that there was a fundamental conflict of interest between the owners, managers and workers of an industry. For him, such conflict only occurred in a framework with a lack of integrative morality.
At the same time, I would like to note a few points on which Durkheim strongly insisted in connection with moral education. He tries to separate morality from the religious domain. What origin of the moral life in a religious atmosphere, one cannot entirely neglect its origin? Socialization takes place in the smallest organization called the family. The child tries to capture the moral values of his immediate society. This is not only a responsibility in the educational field, but also in the family field. Adults can also learn these moral tools by joining professional organizations, not just kids in college. Finally, religion is a social institution that inculcates morals and values and nurtures the normative societal order.
References
- Francis, A. M: Contemporary Sociology: introduction to Concepts and Theories. New York: Oxford University press, 2006.
- Durkheim, E: Ethics and Civil Morals. Tr. Cornelia Brookfield, Bristol: Burleigh Press, 1957.
- Green, A: Sociology: An analysis of life in Modern Society.4 th ed. Tokyo: Japan, Tosho Printing Co.LTD, 1964.
- Haralambos, M, & Heald M.R : Sociology Themes and Perspective, New York: Oxford university press, 1980.
- Lukes, S : Emile Durkheim His Life and Work, New York: Harper &Row publishers, 1972.
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