Practitioners' understanding and implementation of moral education in a Scottish non-denominational primary school

Boyle, Chantelle Louise (2026) Practitioners' understanding and implementation of moral education in a Scottish non-denominational primary school. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis aimed to understand how moral education is implemented in a nondenominational primary school context through explicit and implicit approaches. Previous research has explored the curricular area of ‘Religious an Moral Education’ within Scotland; however, very few studies have focused specifically on the ‘moral’ aspect of it. Consequently, this is a significantly under-researched area in Scotland. In an international context, research related to moral education has been heavily influenced by scholars in psychology who have developed several theories of moral development. However, these often lack empirical evidence, and in-school research is primarily used to test the effectiveness of moral education tools developed by psychologists. Therefore, understanding what moral educators implement in their daily practice and why is scarcely reported in the academic literature. This study utilised an interpretivist qualitative single-case study approach to gain rich and detailed accounts of moral education implementation. Semi-structured interviews with educators, researcher observations of moral education lesson and the school’s environment, and document analysis provided insights into the explicit and implicit approaches within the school. The present thesis found that moral education faced many challenges relating to its explicit and implicit implementation in the case study primary school. Educators shared that the performative nature of Curriculum for Excellence placed a focus on the three ‘core’ areas, resulting in moral education being ‘squeezed out’ of their timetables. It was found that a lack of initial teacher education and continuing professional development opportunities related to moral education significantly impacted practitioners’ curricular knowledge (understanding of materials, learning objectives and pedagogies in a subject). Finally, the implicit moral education curriculum in primary schools was going unnoticed by educators, and there was a focus on compliance with school rules, whereas values were poorly communicated to students and staff. Overall, these findings are timely and provide unique contributions to both the Scottish and international literature on moral education implementation at the primary school level.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General); L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: McKinney, Professor Stephen and Proudfoot, Dr Kevin
• Date of Award: 2026
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2026-86059
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 24 Jun 2026 09:21
• Last Modified: 24 Jun 2026 09:30
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.86059
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/86059