The Journal of Character Education serves an audience of researchers, policy makers, teacher educators, and school practitioners concerned with the development of positive character in young people. The Character Education Partnership (CEP) defines character education as efforts to help young people develop good character, which includes knowing about, caring about, and acting upon core ethical values such as fairness, honesty, compassion, responsibility, and respect for self and others. The editors and the CEP view character education as a comprehensive and interdisciplinary term that reflects CEPs Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education. These principles call upon schools to address character education in their overall school climate, academic curriculum, extra-curricular activities, inter-personal relationships, and school governance. These efforts are school-wide and should touch every student and all school personnel. They can include both comprehensive school reform and more specific school-based efforts such as service learning, life skills education, conflict resolution and violence prevention, social and emotional learning, education for the prevention of drug/alcohol abuse, sex education, education for civic virtue and social responsibility, and the development of moral reasoning. Of clear relevance also are multicultural education, social justice education, the ethics of environmental or technology education, religious education, and the like. The Journal will publish articles that report the results of research relevant to character education, as well as conceptual articles that provide theoretical, historical, and philosophical perspectives on the field of character education as it is broadly
