Melarete

Starting date
September 1, 2014
Duration (months)
72
Departments
Human Sciences
Managers or local contacts
Mortari Luigina

MelArete is the development of the project “educate to virtue”.
Statrting from a philosophical reflection on ethics, according to classical and contemporary philophers, we designed an educative path on virtues, aimed at involging children in an “ethical thinking”, intended as a reflection on virtuos actions recognized in their lived experience. This educative path has become the objet for our empirical qualitative research aimed at understanding children’s ethical thinking, and at identifying which are the activities able to nurture their thoughts.
The word “MelArete” originates from the union of the Greek terms “meléte” (which means “care”) and “areté” (which means “virtue”). The project is aimed at educating children to virtue ethics and exploring their ethical thinking (Mortari and Mazzoni, 2014). The theoretical background is grounded in the Aristotelian and Socratic ethical visions. Important references are also found in the philosophy of care (Held, 2006; Mortari, 2015; Noddings, 1984, 1992) and in the concept of Ricoeur (1990) about the distinction between ethics and morality. MelArete can be considered an ethical educative theory because philosophers studying care consider virtue as an important element of that practice.
The activities designed to reach these educative aims and collect data for the research are the following: class conversations, narratives, and the “diary of virtue”, a journal where children reflect on their everyday ethical experience.

As research, MelArete assumes the epistemological background of ‘naturalistic inquiry’ (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), according to which, the phenomenon under study should be investigated in the context of where it appears. Therefore, this study was conducted in the primary school and kindergarten classes.
Setting the research in a naturalistic context requires the capability to design the research method on the basis of the specific characteristics and necessities of the context that hosts the research. Since the educative context is unpredictable, because each classroom is unique and original, it is useful to avoid a formulistic and aprioristic conception of the method in favour of an emerging and evolutive one. This entails deciding in advance some key epistemological tenets, and then rethinking and redesigning the method by considering what occurs in the field (Mortari, 2006b, 2007, 2009a).
In pedagogy, it is possible to find two typologies of empirical research: the recognitive-constatative one, which aims to increase scientific knowledge by investigating not yet explored aspects of a phenomenon; and the experiential-transformative one, which promotes and investigates new experiences in order to enhance people flourishing and improve the educative contexts (Mortari, 2007, 2009b). MelArete can be described as experiential-transformative research because it aims to design new activities for ethical education and then to investigate their educative effectiveness in schools. Furthermore, the project can also be defined as ‘research for children’ (Mortari, 2009b) and not merely as ‘research with children’, because it is designed to offer positive and significant experiences to the children involved. This purpose arises from the application of the care ethics to the research: the core principle is the necessity to promote the good of the participants.
Coherent with the characterisation of educative research, MelArete has both educative and heuristic aims by encouraging and exploring children’s ethical thinking. For this reason, instruments are designed to have an educative and a heuristic valence: promoting children’s ethical reflection and collecting data about their ethical ideas. All the data we collected through the different instruments were of a qualitative-type.

Sponsors:

Funds: assigned and managed by the department

Project participants

Ilaria Berardi
PhD student
Rosi Bombieri
Temporary Assistant Professor
Valentina Mazzoni
Diletta Migliorin
Teaching Assistant
Luigina Mortari
Full Professor
Migena Rexha
Teaching Assistant
Marco Ubbiali
Associate Professor
Federica Valbusa
Associate Professor
Research areas involved in the project
Società inclusive e pratiche di cittadinanza
Theory and practice of education
Publications
Title Authors Year
The MelArete Project to Foster Ethical Development: from theory to practice Mortari, Luigina; Valbusa, Federica 2024
MelArete project: Theory and practice of a kindergarten and primary school program for ethical education. Mortari, Luigina; Valbusa, Federica; Ubbiali, Marco 2023
MelArete project: Theory and practice of a kindergarten and primary school program for ethical education. Mortari, Luigina; Valbusa, Federica; Ubbiali, Marco 2023
Children’s ethical thinking: project MelArete, an educational challenge Ballarini, M.; Bombieri, R. 2021
Cura e virtù. Progetto MelArete: storie per dialogare (6-10 anni). Mortari, Luigina; Valbusa, Federica 2021
MelArete. Educazione all'etica per la scuola primaria. Mortari, Luigina; Valbusa, Federica 2020
MelArete. Vol. 3: Educazione all'etica per la scuola dell'infanzia Mortari, Luigina; Ubbiali, Marco; Vannini, Lara 2020
QUANDO I PICCOLI PENSANO QUESTIONI GRANDI. I PENSIERI E LE PRATICHE DISCORSIVE SOCRATICHE DEL PROGETTO 'MELARETE'. Vannini, Lara 2020
Educare all’etica delle virtù: il progetto MelArete per la scuola dell’infanzia Ubbiali, Marco 2019
MelArete. Vol. 1: Cura, etica, virtù Mortari, Luigina 2019
MelArete. Vol. 2 Mortari, Luigina 2019
An Educative Inquiry on Children’s Ethical Thinking: The “Melarete” Project. Ubbiali, Marco; Mortari, Luigina 2018
Il bene nel pensiero dei bambini. Una ricerca educativa nella scuola dell’infanzia e primaria Valbusa, Federica; Ubbiali, Marco; Silva, Roberta 2018
MelArete and PEECh: two educational approaches to develop ethical and emotional competences. Burroughs, Michael D.; Valbusa, Federica; Arda Tuncdemir, Tugce; Mortari, Luigina 2018
Children’s ethical thinking: the “MelArete” project Mortari, Luigina; Ubbiali, Marco; Valbusa, Federica 2017
Children’s Ethical Thinking: The “Melarete” Project Mortari, Luigina; Ubbiali, Marco; Valbusa, Federica 2017
Melarete and peech: preface to an international philosophy with children collaboration Burroughs, Michael Dean; Mortari, L. 2017
Sentieri di educazione etica Mortari, Luigina; Valbusa, Federica 2017
The “MelArete” Project: Educating children to the Ethics of Virtue and of Care Ubbiali, Marco; Mortari, Luigina 2017
Le virtù a scuola. Questioni e pratiche di educazione etica Mortari, Luigina; Mazzoni, Valentina 2014

Activities

Research facilities

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