Educational resources
In order to support ethics teaching programs, adequate resources need to be available for students as well as teachers.
In many countries, even if there is the motivation to introduce ethics teaching, problems will be encountered in the implementation, due to lack of adequate resources. For example, students can not afford to buy textbooks or study materials. UNESCO with its experiences in education is in the position to remedy this situation. Learning materials can be provided for free, for example through the distribution of materials or through the dissemination of literature via the internet.
There is also a need to develop new educational materials that pay specific attention to the various cultural and ethical situations in different parts of the world. Ethical problems are not the same in all member states, and certainly the ethical frameworks to address such problems differ, even if agreement exists on the principles adopted in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
UNESCO supports the development of educational resources. In the first place, IBC, COMEST and UNESCO are producing materials that are useful in teaching programs.
The International Bioethics Committee (IBC) has published a long series of reports on various bioethical issues.
The World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) has done the same for issues in ethics of science and technology in general. Examples are the informative booklets on human cloning and nanotechnology.
UNESCO has published booklets on Bioethics Committees and is regenerating a series on ethics, with books on environmental ethics and nanotechnology ethics.
- Booklets on Bioethics Committees
- Environmental Ethics and International Policy, UNESCO Publishing, 2007
- Nanotechnologies, Ethics and Politics, UNESCO Publishing, 2007
Core course in bioethics
- Bioethics Core Curriculum, Section 1: Syllabus. Ethics Education Programme, UNESCO, 2008 [PDF, 1.4 MB]
- Bioethics Core Curriculum, Section 2: Study materials. Ethics Education programme, UNESCO, 2011 [PDF, 319 KB]
- Casebook on Human Dignity and Human Rights, Bioethics Core Curriculum Casebook Series, No. 1, UNESCO, 2011 [PDF, 1.9 MB]
- Casebook on Benefit and Harm, Bioethics Core Curriculum Casebook Series, No. 2, UNESCO, 2011 [PDF, 2.2 MB]
Secondly, the UNESCO Chair in Haifa is producing a series of international manuals that can be used in teaching programs. With the support of UNESCO, these manuals have been translated in other languages. All these resources can be downloaded from the UNESCO website.
The following books have been published:
- A. Carmi: Informed Consent (2004) English | Français | Español | العربية | 中文 | Русский | Türkçe | Romanian | Bulgarian | Świadoma zgoda | Slovak
- A.Carmi, D. Moussaoui, J. Arboleda-Florez (Eds.) Teaching Ethics in Psychiatry - Case Vignettes 2009 English | Arabic | Hebrew | Traditional Chinese | Italian
- T. Chelouche, G. Brahmer, S. Benedict Casebook on Bioethics and the Holocaust 2013 English
- O. S. Haque, J. De Freitas, H.J. Bursztajn, L. Cosgrove, A. A. Gopal, R. Paul, I.Shuv-Ami & S.Wolfman The Ethics of Pharmaceutical Industry Influence in Medicine 2013 English
- D. Keidar: Classroom Communication (2005) English | Español
- A. Carmi, D. Moussaoui & J. Arboleda-Florez : Teaching ethics in Psychiatry: Case-vignettes (2005) English | العربية | Hebrew
- B. Dickens, R. Cook and E. Kismodi (Eds.): Reproductive Health: Case studies with ethical commentary (2006) French | English
- M. L. Perlin, H. Bursztajn, K. Gledhill, Esq., E. Szeli Psychiatric Ethics and the Rights of Persons with Mental Disabilities in Institutions and the Community 2008 English
- S.Schicktanz, C. Wiesemann, S. Wöhlke (Eds.) Teaching Ethics in Organ Transplantation and Tissue Donation Cases and Movies 2010 English