Abstract

For William James, a principal aim of education in a democracy is to prepare students to become responsible citizens of high moral character who help to counter adverse influences of popular culture, corporate practices, and powerful media on society. An important role of colleges and universities is educating young people to be responsible citizens by guiding them to choose worthy goals and ideals for themselves. In this article, implications of these ideas are presented for current educational practice in light of recent research in the areas of students’ success, moral development, and service-learning