Values education as a tool for social change from an socio-educational approach

Values education is a key element to achieve a comprehensive development of students. The way schools deal with this education is a key element concerning its effectiveness. Nowadays, there is no agreement as regards the most appropriate way to develop and introduce this type of education in schools. Perhaps, this is the reason that explains the development of a significant amount of training programs related to values education. The aim of this study is to know all the programs that have been already used in the promotion of values education in schools. In order to achieve this aim, a bibliometric review is performed, including 170 programs, in the period 1986-2016. This research shows both the relevance that has been given to values education over time and the different approaches and areas from which values education has been developed. The lack of unification in the effective criteria of the analyzed proposals has allowed us to suggest the guidelines for what we consider as the future values education programs.