Book excerpt: Moral Emotions and Human Interdependence in Character Education challenges contemporary mainstream approaches to character education predicated on individualism, ‘essential virtues’ and generic ‘character skills’. This book synthesizes perspectives from phenomenology, psychology, cultural sociology and policy studies into a unique theoretical framework to reveal how ideas from positive psychology, emotional intelligence and Aristotelian virtues have found their way into the classroom. The idealized, self-reliant, resilient, atomized individual at the core of current character education is rejected as one-dimensional. Instead this book argues for an alternative, more complex pedagogy of interdependence that promotes students’ well-being by connecting them to the lives of others. This book is an essential read for academics, researchers, postgraduate students and school teachers interested in character education and social and emotional learning.