ETHICS IN TEACHER TRAINING COURSES IN TIMES OF MORAL CRISIS

The current National Curriculum Parameters (1997, vol 8) claim that ethics should be approached as a transversal theme in schools, requiring teachers to know more about the moral judgment of the child. The purpose of this article is to investigate what has been taught concerning ethical education in teaching degree programs and to present a theoretical discussion about the problem of human action. The qualitative research carried out included (1) an analysis of the undergraduate curricula of a Rio de Janeiro state-run university, (2) 30 semi-structured interviews with teaching undergraduates enrolled in that HEI, and (3) a philosophical / psychoanalytic discussion about ethics from suggestions proposed by the undergraduates themselves. It was found that the training of autonomous / ethical students requires the approach of axiological and psychological / psychoanalytic reflections during initial teacher training.