Call for Proposals

The Asia-Pacific Network for Moral Education
13th Annual Conference
26-30 June, 2019
Ganesha University of Education (UNDIKSHA), Bali, Indonesia

Moral Education and Cross-Cultural Understanding
An International Conference for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Dialogue

Moral education continues to be a vital part of every culture and society, and especially in this time of increasing uncertainty and moral confusion. While ancient religious and political traditions remain firm in many parts of the world , we still have wars attributed to religious and political differences. The Internet and social media are having an ever-widening influence, but are they promoting a “world community” or leading to further fragmentation? Moral education in our schools, and at the family, village, city and national levels, continues to be a crucial part of every society.

Likely topics for presentations may include the following:

  1. To what degree may increasing individualism have influenced traditional moral, familial and social-communal values? How has the rise of the Internet and social media influenced these? How can moral and civic education, in the home and in school, reinforce a young person’s sense of his/her own essential worth, and of his/her responsibility to family, friends and community?
  2. What may be the fundamental role of moral education when it comes to our relationships withother cultures, ethnic minorities and with the non-human members of our natural environment? How can the fundamentally important moral component be still further emphasized in ecological education?
  3. What might be the role of traditional (ancient) cultural texts—myths, poems, songs, stories—in moral and civic education? How may these be related back to our ancestors’ thinking and to the harmony between human beings and nature?
  4. What is the nature of “moral dilemmas” in both Western and Asian-Pacific cultures, and to what degree may these dilemmas differ? Does this also raise the question of the relevance of philosophical and psychological theories, which may themselves come from a particular regional and cultural context? Is it possible to identify certain core values that are “universal”?
  5. How can we continue to strengthen moral, civic and environmental education in our families, schools, towns and cities? What are some of the best methods that teachers may use in their classrooms—in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and universities—to develop and strengthen their students’ moral values, their capacity for compassion, for understanding and caring for others?

Proposal Submission Topics

We sincerely welcome educators from various academic disciplines and from international and non- governmental organizations, teachers, school administrators and policy makers, school counselors, etc. to submit their papers or proposals. This conference is also keen to encourage cross-disciplinary engagement; therefore, papers or proposals from such disciplines as the below are encouraged:

  • Educational: formal and informal moral education in schools, including higher education, and in families and communities; teaching and learning strategies (e.g. use of textbooks, class discussions); moral education theories; putting moral educational policy into practice; moral education curricula and programs; teacher, parent and community education; lifelong learning; moral leadership in schools;
  • Psychological: moral motivation, moral judgment; moral behavior, moral identity, moral development; affective learning, counseling; psychological theories of moral learning, behavior and development;
  • Philosophical: Eastern and Western philosophies and traditions, including the roles of Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and the Christian faiths in the Eastern value system; analytical, linguistic and Continental philosophy; virtue ethics and education of the emotions; liberalism; socialist materialism; applied ethics, especially environmental ethics and professional ethics;
  • Historical and cultural: customs and traditions, past and present; cultural diversity within and between societies and nations; cross-cultural studies;
  • Social and anthropological: children; the family, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, community life; cooperation and conflict; globalization;
  • Neurobiological and neuro-ethical: moral implications of brain biology; bioethics;
  • Ecological and cosmological: environmentalism; the unity of parts making the whole; 'man's' place in nature’; lifestyle; sustainability;
  • Spiritual: the transcendent and immanent in relation to religion and culture; harmony as an ethical value;
  • Religious: the sacred and divine; the role of religions (e.g. Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity) in morality and moral education;
  • Secular: the traditional, modern and postmodern and their interrelationships; materialism and ethics; humanism; influence of the Internet; role of the media;
  • Political, civic and legal: the role of democracy; socialist ethics; individual and civic rights and responsibilities; citizenship education; social justice; civic engagement; human rights within the framework of international law.

Forms of Presentation

Individual papers (30 to 45 minutes): Individually submitted papers with up to a 20-minute presentation time and 10-minute discussion time (30-minute sessions), or 30-minute presentation time and 15-minute discussion time (45-minute sessions).

At the discretion of the Programme Committee, two or three presentations may be combined in one 90-minute session, and the Programme Committee's decision as to time allocation will be final. The Committee will invite and assign a Chair for each session.

Symposium (90 minutes): Discussion of a cross-national, cross-disciplinary, or common topic or theme that falls within the overall Conference Theme. This will be organized by the corresponding author, who will typically be the Symposium Chair. Normally, symposia will have 3 or 4 presenters and perhaps a discussant, but must allow for interactive discussion with the audience.

Poster presentations: Must be related to the Conference theme, and focus on theoretical, empirical and practical work in progress. The APNME will award its Annual Best Poster Prize for the best poster.

Notes on submitting a proposal

The organizers of the 12th Anniversary APNME Conference invite proposals for presentations related to the Conference Theme.

  • Proposals must be submitted on the Proposal Submission Form. 
  • If you could not successfully submit proposals on the Google Form, please download the 2019 proposal form and fill it in, and then send it to the conference committee at proposals@apnme.org .
  • Please note that for your proposal to be considered it must comply with the following requirements. Thank you for your cooperation.

Submitting a proposal to present an individual paper, or to put a poster up on a designated wall

If you are submitting a proposal, please note that abstracts need to be in an acceptable (standard) form of written English and, for an individual paper or a poster, should be 150-200 words in length.

Please check the English very carefully before sending us your abstract, and please make sure you have kept within the word limit.

Please make sure your abstract is addressing the Conference Theme. On the form you may like to start with the words: "This presentation will address the Conference Theme by …"

This is not intended to constrain creativity or diversity of opinions. Rather, we encourage creativity and diversity while at the same time focusing on the Conference theme: “How, individually and jointly, can we best ensure a sustainable future for moral values education in the Asia-Pacific region as well as globally?”

In order to make the 2019 APNME a more open and friendly conference, one or two sessions will be conducted in Indonesian or in the presenter’s local language, for the sake of presenters and also audience members who are very interested in the topics but have limited English skills. However, presenters in these sessions will still need to prepare their PPTs in standard English, and they will have to find translators to translate their presentations into English, and interpreters to translate the audience members’ questions and presenters’ answers.

Submitting a proposal to run a symposium

On the Proposal Submission Form, enter the name of the symposium chairperson as the Corresponding Author, and the names of the co-presenters as Co-authors.

Provide a 300-350 word abstract that describes the purpose and nature of the symposium as a whole, plus abstracts of 150-200 words for each of the papers presented in the symposium.

Please be sure to state clearly how your symposium as a whole, and each of the papers presented in it, are addressing the Conference Theme.