Wolfgang Althof
Dr. Wolfgang Althof is the Teresa M. Fischer Professor of Citizenship
Education at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. Prior to
joining UM-St. Louis he was at in the Department of Education,
University of Fribourg, Switzerland, from 1984-2004.
He was
born in 1950 near Hannover, Germany, and received his university
training at the University of Mannheim and the University of
Hamburg. He earned (the equivalent of) a MA degree with honors in
education (1979) at the University of Hamburg (Germany). As a
doctoral student, he spent some time at Harvard’s Graduate School of
Education (Lawrence Kohlberg’s Center for Moral Education, 1980). He
earned his Ph.D. in Education at the University of Fribourg
(Switzerland) in 1990 and earned a second, higher-level doctorate
(called “Habilitation”) for the field of Educational Sciences at the
Carl-von-Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany) in 2002.
Dr. Althof taught university courses and workshops at several
universities and other post-secondary institutions in Germany,
Switzerland, and Austria, and lectured in many other countries,
including the United States and Canada. At his former affiliation in
Switzerland, he taught courses on more than 20 different topics. He was
a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University Graduate School of
Education in 1995-96.
Dr. Althof
edited or co-edited eight books including:
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A
two-volume edition of Kohlberg’s work in German language that
included writings which have never been published in English.
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His
translations (from English to German) include Thomas Lickona’s book
“Raising Good Children”.
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Dr. Althof
is the co-author of “Moralische Selbstbestimmung” (Moral Autonomy,
4th edition 2001), a monograph on moral development and education
that has become probably the most widely used textbook (concerning
these issues) in German and Swiss Higher Education programs.
For the last 15
years, his focus has been on moral/character development and citizenship
education in school-wide programs and on their contribution to school
and staff development. Several of these schools (in Switzerland,
Germany, and Italy) have won awards for these outstanding pedagogical
initiatives, including the Pestalozzi Award for Child-friendly
Environments, donated by UNICEF Switzerland and other national youth
organizations.
Research Interests
Effectiveness of participatory civic
education programs
Programs that integrate civic/citizenship and character
education
Inclusion in schools
Multi-aged and multi-grade schooling
Sources and processes of social, moral, and political
learning/development
School/staff development
Peer mediation
Multi-aged and multi-grade schooling