Early adolescents' reflections on social justice: Facing History and Ourselves in practice and assessment

This article describes Facing History and Ourselves, an international moral, character and civic education program, and introduces an assessment instrument used to explore young people's perspectives on their and others' choices in relation to social exclusion and teasing among peers. The instrument, developed collaboratively by educational researchers and practitioners, is based on a theory of psychosocial development and core themes and practices of the program. The assessment elicits students' responses to a true story about a girl who had been ostracized by peers and is then invited to join them in teasing another girl. A rubric is introduced for analyzing perspectives on the girls' choices as a bystander to teasing.