ABSTRACT
An empirical study was conducted across the schools of education and medicine in Australia at James Cook University to compare pre-service teachers’ and medical students’ understanding of ethics. The study highlighted gaps in pre-service teachers’ ethical reasoning. Since teaching is primarily a vocation underpinned by strong professional and personal ethical standards, this state of affairs is unacceptable. Drawing on a number of recent research studies, this chapter proposes that personal and professional teacher ethics are key attributes of quality teachers. Findings derived from an extended study whose aim was to identify what constitutes culturally responsive pedagogy in the Australian context, in response to the needs of Indigenous Australian students, showed that teachers’ ethic of care strongly predicted their pedagogical expertise and repertoire as defined by culturally responsive practices. Concurrent research was conducted to examine the ethics curricula of tertiary courses offered for teacher training in three different countries. Results showed that ethics education for prospective teachers was likely insufficient for the development of quality professionals.
