Abstract
D.Ed.
The heart of democracy, as reflected in the Constitution of South-Africa, announced in 1996, is the acknowledgement of human dignity. As result of the Constitution, the National Schools Act was also announced in 1996. The focus of this act is also to promote human rights by eliminating any form of discrimination. The rejection of discrimination and acknowledgement of human dignity implies that all humans are respectable.
Respect is one of the cornerstones of ethical norms and therefor all human beings should, as from early childhood, be encouraged to obey this norm. The National Schools Act makes it very clear that education is considered to be the most important factor in reaching this goal (Potgieter, et.al ., 1997:6&7).
In a guiding document for the incorporation of alternative discipline (Department of Education, 2001:9) the statement is made that positive discipline is the focus of the Schools Act's code of conduct. This "positives discipline" implies that teacher will commit themselves to the facilitation of the values and attitudes of peace, tolerance, respect, dignity and human rights.
General discipline-problems and the increasing rate of crimes committed by youth is probably caused by increasing moral decline. The most important area of deficiency in universal communities is the value which people attach to the norm of respect (Lickona, 1991:43). There are several possible causes for the lacking value systems of young people, but the most important are possibly the secular attitude and dualism of roll models and educators (Curtin, 2000:7).
Because narrative writers usually focus on problems resulting from community aspects, their creative products offer a unique source in the facilitation of ethical values (Kearny, 2002:6). Readers can identify with characters of the narrative text. During this "identifying"-process readers are led unconsciously into a situation of rethinking the underlying values which the narrative characters attach to norms — which come to light through the choices of action made by the characters. This rethinking of the actions of the narrative characters results in sensitising the values which the readers themselves attach to the related norm.
The aim of this research was to design, implement and evaluate a psychoeducational learning program in the learning area Language, Literacy and Communication for learners in secondary schools (adolescents). The aim of the program was to determine to what extend the value, which named learners do attach to the ethical norm, respect, will be influenced when focussing on the use of narratives. The possible results that the influencing of their values would have on their mental health, was also investigated.
A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual design was used for this study. A situation-analyses was done through literature study after which a program was designed and implemented. The aim of this program was the facilitating of respect as ethical value by using stories. After the implementation of the program the participants wrote naïve sketches and focus group interviews was done six months later involving selected participants from the original group. The selected data was coded — with help of a independent coder — and analysed according to the open coding method of Tesch.
Analysis of the data proved that the program that was designed, implemented and evaluated in this study was effective in facilitating ethical values to adolescents. The initial research aim was met as such.
A meaningful contribution of this thesis is the description of a conceptual framework for the facilitating of ethical values to adolescents.