Helping students make tough decisions wisely : the challenge of ethical enquiry

All early childhood educators, whether they work directly or indirectly with children and families, are confronted with problematic situations that involve ethical issues needing to be resolved. Ethical issues arise in early childhood educators' relationships with children, with families, with colleagues, with supervisors, with students and with the community and society. In this article, it is argued that early childhood students in their professional preparation courses should be exposed to ethical inquiry and become actively engaged in making ethical judgements. It is our proposition that they will then enter the profession of early childhood education as ethical thinkers well-equipped to make sound ethical judgements. The Ethical Response Cycle is presented as a process-based tool for helping professionals apply and justify sensitive and systematic reflective reasoning to problematic situations. The cycle can be used by tertiary educators and students in professional preparation programs and by professionals already in the workplace.