Challenges from the Middle

Inner City Middle Schools and the Need for Character Education

Behavior. Personality. Adolescence. Academic performance. These are some of the buzz phrases prevalent in middle school settings as educators wrestle with how to understand, manage, lead, and work with our middle school students and help shape them into responsible young adults. Character education (and many terms like it) is a concept that has been around for many years on every level of the educational process. In the middle school setting, there is an urgent need for character education, regardless of what form it takes. Sadly, some schools and/or the administration abandon this process in the vigorous pursuit of higher test scores. This book condenses my empirical research into character education with a focus on the inner city middle school setting. I examined how school stakeholders viewed this topic, what they know about it, why they support or disapprove of character education, and possible steps schools could take to implement their own initiatives successfully, both in the middle school setting and others as well.