Ethical dilemmas in education occur in many cases; one of the most common reasons for their generation is injustice. In the following paper, some of such ethical dilemmas will be addressed and evaluated. The dilemma under discussion is in the following: when all year 6 students were expected to attend End of Year Mass, five of them have been invited to represent at State athletic carnival. This dilemma will be discussed in terms of its correspondence to a certain ethical framework of values consisting of five elements.
First, Element 1 of the given ethical framework is Recognize an Ethical Issue. This element means that the person, who is subjected to the influence of an unwanted situation that presents an ethical dilemma, feels moral distress, and wonders how to resolve the problem from a professional or justified point of view. Evaluating the ethical dilemma under consideration from the point of view of Element 1, it should be stated that in the situation when some students are invited to a religious service, and some will become delighted visitors of a joyful event, the majority of students who will have to go to a religious site may feel deprived especially on the reason of unpopularity of religious ideas in modern-day society, and because not all students belong to the Catholic Church (which holds the End of Year Mass) nominally or belong to any other Christian religion, thus, their religious feelings may be hurt by such an invitation (McDonald & Chenoweth, 2009; Nord,1995).
Element 2 is Get the Facts. This element implicates collecting all the necessary facts that help to see why something is morally or ethically wrong, unjust, and presents a great difficulty for the affected people. Get the Facts Element assumes the importance of assessing the complicated situation from all the possible angles taking into account the interest of all the participators in the issue. Element 2 means that the ethical dilemma under consideration should be evaluated from the point of view of educational specialists who schedule student’s academic plans, from the point of view of the students who may feel distressed and discriminated against because they will have to go to a religious service, and from the point of view of the rest of the possible participants of this complicated situation.
Next, Element 3 is Evaluate Alternative Actions. This Element assumes that particular alternative actions can be implemented to improve the situation, and evaluates which particular actions can be implemented. Applying this ethical Element to the ethical dilemma under consideration, it can be said that there exist several strategies that can improve the situation and solve the dilemma. For example, all the students may be offered to attend End of Year Mass or at State athletic carnival. Thus, every student will find him- or herself in fair circumstances. Also, there may be students who support Catholic values and consider themselves religious. For such students visiting End of Year Mass can be offered as an option whereas the rest of the students will be offered an opportunity to visit the sports event or any other event which can benefit students and bring them aesthetic pleasure.
Addressing Element 4 which is Make a Decision and Test this decision, it should be stated that this element implicates the most important point in solving an ethical dilemma. In particular, Element 4 means that a proper strategy helping avoid misbalance in planning educational schedule should be developed and implemented; besides, this strategy should be tested. This element suggests that educational specialists should take into consideration all the points which affect the situation with year 6 students, develop some of the solutions that may satisfy all the parties in the conflict, implement them, and then, conduct a survey among all the Year 6 students subjected to the influence of the ethical dilemma.
Finally, Element 5 is Act and Reflect on the Outcome. This Element means that individuals who were affected by ethical dilemmas and received help, should not be left behind after some short period; instead, the outcomes of the situation should be carefully researched to provide further assistance for those who are in need. Element 5 means that the students who were originally affected by some measure of injustice need further assistance from educational specialists. All the outcomes of the situation in which they appeared must be carefully examined and assessed to understand how effective the measures implemented to improve the state of affairs are.
In conclusion, studying the ethical dilemma under consideration helped me see the way the given framework and its elements may improve the situation of those students who felt deprived on the reason of injustice shown to them. When educational specialists face such an ethical dilemma, they have to remember about a row of important values including human development and nation-building in the educational process, preserving the due level of social justice, avoiding discrimination, preserving gender equality, and vindicating democracy, egalitarianism, and secularism. When faced with an ethical dilemma, the above-mentioned values compete with each other in several areas. For example, democratic values compete with the importance of nation-building by means of developing religious foundations.
References
McDonald, C., & Chenoweth, L. (2009). Shaping Values: An Australian Case Study. British Journal Of Education, 39(1), 144-160.
Nord, W. (1995). Religion & Education: Rethinking a Dilemma. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press.