Laxdæla Saga and Moral Education in Schools

Abstract

The research presented in this paper is part of a research project about how works of literature can be used as vehicles of character education. It was modelled after work done by researchers at The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham (Arthur, Harrison, Carr, Kristjánsson and Davison, 2014; Arthur, Harrison and Davison, 2015; Davison, Harrison, Hayes and Higgins, 2016).

The empirical part of the research took place in cooperation with five teachers in three primary schools. Their students were in the 9th and 10th grade. The literary work the teachers used was a shortened version of Laxdæla Saga (The Saga of the People of Laxárdalur). This saga is widely used in schools as a choice example of a literary text from the golden age of Icelandic medieval literature.

Although the larger project aims to illuminate the interplay between teaching of literature and moral education this paper focuses on two questions.

1. Why is it important to enhance the moral vocabulary of teenagers?
2. Can Laxdæla-saga be used to teach teenagers vocabulary to talk about moral virtues and vices?

The answer to the first question is based on a review of relevant literature about moral philosophy and moral education. Most of the publications reviewed are recent books and papers by scholars who work within a neo-Aristotelian framework. However, the argument also takes into account seminal writings by Durkheim and Kohlberg, who based their research on a Kantian conception of morality. On the basis of this review, it is concluded that command of moral vocabulary is an important part of moral development.

The answer to the second question is based on data collected in the primary schools where Laxdæla-saga was taught for six weeks in autumn 2017, using supplementary material the research team developed in cooperation with the five teachers. This material contains questions and exercises where moral vocabulary is used to discuss and evaluate the conduct and character of the protagonists in the saga.

The students, 54 boys and 52 girls, were tested both before and after the class work on Laxdæla-saga. The same tests were administered to a control group, comprising 27 boys and 34 girls, in a fourth primary school. In addition to the test results, qualitative data was collected by visiting classes and writing field reports; two interviews were conducted with each of the five teachers, and four interviews with focus groups of six to seven students.

The teachers found the supplementary material helpful. In their view the emphasis on using moral vocabulary was not a digression, but rather supported them in teaching the story and helped the students to understand what it was about.

Analysis of the test results indicates that the six-week intervention, where the students read and discussed Laxdæla-saga, improved their comprehension of moral vocabulary. In the parts of the test that measured knowledge about the meaning of words that describe moral virtues and vices, there was a statistically significant improvement from the first to the second test. The eta squared value of the distribution indicates that this improvement was partially due to the intervention. The interviews with the teachers and with the focus groups support this result. The answer to the second question is, therefore, that Laxdæla-saga can be used to teach moral vocabulary to teenagers.