Abstract: Ethics of responsibility that would emphasize responsibility for the consequences of one's be-havior is absent in current school education. Therefore, it is necessary for schools to strengthen ethics of re-sponsibility education. Based on principles of responsibility, we designed questionnaires to investigate the cur-rent situation of ethics of responsibility education in middle school and high schools from Eastern, Central Chi-na and Western China. Our analysis of the data led us to the four conclusions. First, the overall level of students' responsibility is high. Students' responsibility awareness and behavior are improving grade by grade. However, the level of responsibility, teaching method of responsibility education, and specific approa-ches show significant differences between middle school students, high school students and teachers. Second, internal consistency reliability of the seven dimensions in ethic responsibility is between 0. 8-0. 9. Students tend to undertake responsibilities according to their personal interests. Third, the students' understanding level of future responsibility varies with the academic pressure in different learning phases. Finally, Grade 2 in middle school is the sensitive period for ethics of responsibility education. We therefore suggest that there should be more educational activities, which need to be specific, practical and externally disciplined.

Key words: middle and high school students, ethics of responsibility, ethic of conviction, responsibility education, ethics of responsibility education