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Too much emphasis is placed on one side of the human capital coin — namely cognitive skills, variously equated with IQ and scores on achievement tests — to the detriment of character skills.
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There is no such thing as inner ability or character that sits separate and apart from experience. Every experience is filtered through the particular character of the person who experiences it.
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Good character alone will not amount to much. More opportunity alone will not amount to much. They must be accompanied by optimism and hope, the bulwarks of a robust future-mindedness.
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Conscientiousness is a key component of what some are describing as character. It might be something we want to actively change, and in some cases there is a clear moral argument for doing so.
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If chronic early stress biologically orients children's development in ways relevant to emergent character, one can see how intergenerational continuities in opportunity may occur.
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Social norms can help to build or reinforce character strengths. Without a new ethic of responsible parenting, social mobility will continue to be limited for those at the bottom.
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The social construction of gender limits our social mobility, perhaps more than any other structure, because it feeds the root, the very source, of our character.
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Gender differences in levels of competitiveness may help explain the scarcity of women in leadership position, and contribute to the gender gap in earnings. Can levels of competitiveness be changed?
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We may not know exactly how to build a culture of improvement in tough neighborhoods. But unless we can, expensive public and private programs will be doomed to fail.
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The sociological implications of character have been left broadly unexamined. But soon we will develop a clearer view of how grit ripples out from the individual to the interpersonal and from social architecture to societal fortune.
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Character outcomes must become part of our entire educational system. Formative and summative assessments of character skills need to be created. Report cards need to assess intellectual, character and social skills.
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I do not want a feral competition where those with the strongest performance character are most upwardly mobile. The goal should be a world in which the moral character of citizens drives progress to a just and compassionate world.
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To say character depends on opportunity is probably false. It suggests that society is responsible for whether people behave well or not, rather than the individuals themselves. This undercuts the core of character.
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Character education must be based on developing two key psychological capabilities: self discipline and empathy. Without empathy, a person with strong self discipline may merely become more accomplished in carrying out antisocial behavior.
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As I watch the 21st century character education take off, I worry. I have two concerns in particular: the reductive way qualities of character get defined; and the near-exclusive focus on low-income children.
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Championing the policies that would truly address our mobility crisis carries political risks on both sides of the aisle. Policymakers from both parties should therefore join forces and step into the fray together.
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