Soft Skills and Hard Values by Kennedy, Kerry J.; Pavlova, Margarita; Lee, John Chi-Kin;

Short description:

This edited volume explores the various iterations of ‘soft’ skills with a particular focus on their implications for values and evaluates ways in which ‘soft skills’ and ‘hard’ values can be integrated. It is an important resource for policy makers, academics and teachers with responsibility for a new generation.

Long description:

To help researchers, educators and policy makers understand and support the development of 21st-century skills in schools, this edited volume explores the various iterations of "soft" skills with a particular focus on their implications for values and evaluates ways in which "soft skills" and "hard" values can be integrated.

Discourse throughout the 21st century has focused on the changing nature of work, the need for new skill sets and the disruptive effects of new technologies. This has been a neo-liberal discourse that subordinated personal and individual needs to the needs of a productive workforce delivering more and more efficiencies linked to higher and higher profits. The solution is often seen to be in the development of a school curriculum that focuses on work-ready skills for an increasingly complex work environment and its demands. Agencies such as OECD and UNESCO highlight the need to link the skills agenda with complementary values. Yet this process is at a very early stage. The proponents of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for example highlight the impact of new technologies, not just on work but also on the social world. Yet they neglect to explore the values that would be needed in these new disruptive environments.

This book takes up that issue and lays out the multiple value systems that are available for this new 21st century world. It is an important resource for policy makers, academics and teachers with responsibility for a new generation.

Table of Contents:

PART I Soft skills and their stories 1. Skills agendas in the 21^st century: Understanding the stories 2. Green economies, green values: Story for the times 3. The Fourth Industrial Revolution – Humanoids, humanity and agency PART II Values for a better world 4. Future stories: Narrative, values and the management of radical uncertainty 5. Global citizenship education: Searching for global cohesion 6. Inclusive education: Equal opportunities for all 7. Life and values education: Beyond the self 8. Anti-racist values and intercultural skills 9. Education for sustainable development: Experiences from a Tree Assessment for Life Education (TALE) Project in Hong Kong 10. Media and information literacy: Evaluating misinformation and fake news in a complex world 11. Learning to live together: The hidden curriculum PART III Integrating skills and values: Agenda for the future 12. Constructing the future: Integrating values and skills to meet the challenges of a precarious world