Character education as curriculum‐making in the humanities: A scoping review

This scoping review examines how character education is conceptualised and enacted within humanities curricula across international contexts. While character education is widely promoted as supporting the development of ethical, civic and relational dispositions, its place within curriculum design remains contested, particularly in subjects concerned with interpretation, values and human experience. Drawing on the literature spanning curriculum policy, disciplinary pedagogy and moral education, this review synthesises evidence on how character‐related aims are embedded in humanities subjects such as literature, history, philosophy and social studies. Following PRISMA‐ScR guidelines, 806 records were screened, with 26 empirical studies and policy documents analysed in depth. The review identifies two broad patterns of curricular integration: explicit approaches, where virtues or character outcomes are formally articulated in curriculum frameworks and learning objectives, and implicit approaches, where character development is pursued through pedagogical practices, classroom dialogue and interpretive engagement with disciplinary content. Across contexts, the humanities emerge as a key site for ethical inquiry, offering opportunities for moral reasoning, perspective‐taking and civic reflection, while also raising concerns about curriculum overload, teacher preparedness, assessment and the risk of ideological prescription. Rather than treating character education as a discrete programmatic intervention, the review conceptualises it as a curriculum‐making activity shaped by disciplinary traditions, cultural values and policy logics. It argues that character education in the humanities is most productively understood as a reflective, dialogic and context‐sensitive practice that aligns ethical formation with the core purposes of humanities education. The review concludes by identifying implications for curriculum design, teacher education and future research, highlighting the need for comparative, longitudinal and student‐informed studies that attend to how character education is experienced and interpreted within diverse humanities classrooms.