Values Clarification: An Appraisal

Abstract

The paper presents a critique of the values clarification model as developed by Louis E. Raths and associates in such works as Values and Teaching: Working with Values in the Classroom and Values Clarification: A Handbook of Suggestions. After presenting an overview of the central recommendations of the authors, they are critically evaluated with reference to theoretical considerations and to other models of moral and values education. Values clarification methods are found to rest on untried empirical assumptions and seriously insufficient theoretical foundations.

A distinctive contribution to values education, and one that has had considerable influence on teaching practice in this area, particularly in the USA over the past ten years, is a teaching method of values clarification put forward by Louis E. Raths, Merrill Harmin and Sidney B. Simon in their book Values and Teaching: Working with Values in the Classroom.¹ There the authors recommend certain teaching strategies employed to some extent by other values educators whose main writings in the field have appeared since this book was first published, e.g. Peter McPhail, Lawrence Stenhouse, Milton Meux, the AVER group at the University of British Columbia, and John Wilson.²