The Early Childhood Mathematics Education Revolution

This study examined the moral reasoning that preschoolers use in resolving moral dilemmas. Children's resolutions and justifications were examined with regard to their care orientation and their justice orientation. Thirty-one preschool children participated in the study (18 girls, 13 boys). Children were each read 4 stone containing moral dilemmas and were asked to resolve these dilemmas. The results indicated that children's answers revealed a care orientation or a justice orientation with equal frequency. At times, children could even accept both orientations to the same dilemma. The data analysis also revealed no gender differences in moral orientation. Results are discussed in terms of children's social-cognitive abilities. Educational implications are also raised.     

Preschoolers' Ability to Adopt Justice and Care Orientations to Moral Dilemmas

This study examined the moral reasoning that preschoolers use in resolving moral dilemmas. Children's resolutions and justifications were examined with regard to their care orientation and their justice orientation. Thirty-one preschool children participated in the study (18 girls, 13 boys). Children were each read 4 stone containing moral dilemmas and were asked to resolve these dilemmas. The results indicated that children's answers revealed a care orientation or a justice orientation with equal frequency. At times, children could even accept both orientations to the same dilemma. The data analysis also revealed no gender differences in moral orientation. Results are discussed in terms of children's social-cognitive abilities. Educational implications are also raised.     

Book Reviews

The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between care and justice reasoning, dispositional empathy variables and meta‐ethical thinking among 128 students from a university of applied sciences. The measures were Skoe’s Ethic of Care Interview, the Defining Issues Test, Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Meta‐Ethical Questionnaire. The results showed that levels of care reasoning were positively related to the post‐conventional schema and negatively related to the personal interest schema in justice reasoning. Age, meta‐ethical thinking, the post‐conventional schema and perspective taking predicted care reasoning. Sympathy was positively related to both modes of moral reasoning among men and predicted their care reasoning. The results point out common elements for care and justice reasoning, underscore the importance of perspective taking for moral reasoning and indicate that the relationship between affective‐based empathy and moral reasoning is gender‐specific and far more complex than previous theories suggest.     

How do Finnish children express care and justice in comic strips and written narratives?

This case study explored how children’s moral expressions like love and violence differ according to the mode of narrative, comic strips or written narratives. Sixteen third-grade children from a primary school in Finland took part in the study. Children’s moral expressions were divided into justice and care. Reading frequency of fairy tales and linguistic and artistic abilities were also assessed in order to make a more in-depth interpretation of elements that underlie these different moral voices. The data for four of the children are presented in detail as the basis for the discussion. Children expressed their morality more strongly in comic strips—potentially offering a more sophisticated method for examining how children express their morality.     

Ways of Knowing,Learning and Making Moral Choices

Abstract

This paper explores the epistemological dimensions in the thinking of adolescent girls. Using two different kinds of data ‐‐ (1) typical constructions of moral conflicts reported by adolescent girls that reveal either a justice or care (response) focus; and (2) girls’ responses to a story completion exercise ‐‐ this paper identifies epistemological perspectives in girls’ thinking that link ideas of self, knowing and morality. An hypothesized model of ‘learner's interests and goals’ and ‘approaches to knowing’ related to these conceptions of self and morality is presented and implications for teaching are discussed.     

Religious conviction,morality and social convention among Finnish adolescents

The assumptions of Kohlberg, Turiel and Shweder regarding the features of moral reasoning were compared empirically. The moral reasoning of Finnish Evangelical Lutheran, Conservative Laestadian and non‐religious adolescents was studied using Kohlberg’s Moral Judgment Interview and Turiel Rule Transgression Interview methods. Religiosity and choice in moral dilemmas (orientation) were related to the structural stages of reasoning. The choice in moral dilemmas was related to the distinction between morality and social convention as separate domains. Religious participants made no distinction between morality and social convention, and their conception of morality was dependent on religious authorities. The implications of the results for moral education in schools are briefly discussed.     

Vocational training and moral judgement: are there gender-specific traits among apprentices in commercial business?

Since Carol Gilligan (1982) presented her conception of “two morals”, several empirical studies have been carried out to verify her assumption that the moral reasoning of men and women generally follows different principles. These research findings led to an examination of gender-specific traits in a sample of insurance apprentices. The data suggest that Gilligan’s assumption cannot be upheld although the detailed analysis of moral reasoning and the conditions of its development seem to be gender-biased. Gender differences in moral judgments should not be dealt with as a matter of the quality of moral reasoning (“different voice-hypothesis”), but rather as a matter of perceiving social role concepts in a deciding situation (“different role-hypothesis”). Thus, the intra- and interpersonal differences in moral judgment found in this study might not be explained by the internal structure of “moral competence” alone. To a certain extent they are also caused by the interaction among the social situation, the individual’s personal and moral self, and moral competence.     

The Relationship of Moral Reasoning Style to Counselor Expression of Empathy

Results in the literature indicate that high levels of moral development are positively correlated with high levels of empathy. However, the issue of moral reasoning style and its relationship to empathy remains unclear. The role that moral reasoning style (care vs. justice orientation) plays in counselors' ability to relate empathically to clients was investigated among a sample of 44 counselors‐in‐training. Results indicate that counselors were able to respond equally to clients with the same moral reasoning style as themselves and to those with a different style. Counselors with a care orientation were no more able than justice‐oriented counselors to respond empathically. Findings contribute information about measures of moral reasoning style and suggest that matching of counselors with college‐aged and young adult clients based on moral reasoning style is not an issue of concern for college counselors.     

Connectedness and Separateness: Cognitive Style or Moral Orientation?

Abstract

This paper reports a study of ‘connectedness’ vs ‘separateness’ orientation in adolescents’ reasoning on friendship, loyalty and understanding of political and social order. Conflict resolution in the connectedness orientation was found to focus on negotiation and an attempt to represent all points of view; in the separateness orientation the focus was on the advocacy of rules or codes of practice. There was a strong relationship between orientation and gender. The paper considers the implications of these findings for Gilligan's perspective of ‘two voices’, and for strategies for moral education.     

Moral Decision-making in Real Life: Factors affecting moral orientation and behaviour justification

The study addresses two separate but related issues in connection with people's real-life moral decisions and judgements. First, the notion of moral orientation is examined in terms of its consistency across varying contexts, its relation to gender and to gender role. Secondly, a new aspect of moral reasoning is explored--the influence on moral decision-making of considering the consequences of an action. Fifty-eight undergraduate students were asked to discuss two personal and two impersonal real-life moral dilemmas. The results reveal a significant interaction between gender role and type of dilemma. However, moral orientation was not consistent across various dilemmas and gender was not related to any particular orientation. Also the results indicate a significant difference between the reasoning of consequences of personal-antisocial conflicts and impersonal-antisocial conflicts. These findings suggest that different moral orientations may be embedded in life experience and connect with an individual's sense of his or her moral identity in real-life situations.     

Generation Conservation: Children’s Developing Folkbiological and Moral Conceptions of Protecting Endangered Species

Research Findings: This study investigated folkbiological concepts that structure children’s moral reasoning regarding conservation. Participants (N = 52; 7- and 10-year-olds, gender balanced) were interviewed regarding their values, moral obligations, and rights concerns for endangered and extinct animals. Across the 2 ages, children drew on the animal’s living status and teleology, as well as ecological relations, to ground their moral reasoning. Developmentally speaking, the younger children employed both nature-centered and human-centered moral reasoning, whereas the older children employed a complex form of moral reasoning that integrated human models of moral thinking with distinct biological understanding. Practice or Policy: The findings can improve education and policy that supports the next generation of conservationists. Educators can draw on these findings to develop class material and activities that teach children about ecological relations—knowledge children can employ to construct their moral arguments for conservation and protecting the environment. The findings revealed that children think about and value endangered animals in deep and beautiful ways. Policymakers can draw on the findings to frame their decision making—drawing more deeply on children’s values of the natural world to inform policy decisions. Drawing on children’s values in the development of environmental policy engages them in the policy process.     

The Place of the Good in a Justice Reasoning Approach to Moral Education

Abstract

Relying on developmental studies of reasoning about the good life, a model of moral education that integrates the good and the right is put forth. It is claimed that while Kohlberg's justice reasoning provides a justifiable aim for such curricula, how individuals attribute value will also significantly affect their moral actions. The notion of a ‘critical period’ for moral education during adolescence is also presented.     

The poverty of contractarian moral education

ABSTRACT

In A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand claims that a directive moral education that seeks to persuade children that a particular conception of contractarian morality is justified can be undertaken without falling foul of the requirement not to indoctrinate. In this article, we set out a series of challenges to Hand’s argument. First, we argue that Hand’s focus on ‘reasonable disagreement’ regarding the status of a moral conception is a red-herring. Second, we argue that the endorsement of moral contractarianism and the prohibition on indoctrination pull in different directions: if contractarianism is sound, then teachers or governments should be less worried about indoctrination than Hand suggests. Third, we argue that moral contractarianism is mistaken; teachers should look elsewhere for guidance on the moral norms and principles towards which they should direct their pupils.     

Parenting Huckleberry Finn

Abstract

We suggest in this paper that attempts to segregate social‐conventional reasoning from the moral domain may represent an artifactual division, one that ignores major philosophic and psychological traditions and cultural constructs regarding the moral self. We address such issues as the individual, social, and relational dimensions of morality; the cultural context of moral development and behavior; and whether morality is solely a matter of justice, harm and welfare considerations, or concerned as well with culturally variable definitions of the good self and the good society, with role obligations, and with caring and affective aspects of human experience. We conclude with a call for continuing narrative and anthropological approaches to the study of moral development in order to reach a fuller understanding of the multiple facets of moral life.     

Moral Reasoning about Sexually Transmitted Diseases

The purpose of this research was to investigate moral reasoning related to sexual behavior that could lead to the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Using hypothetical dilemmas about situations in which STDs can be transmitted, respondents were asked to explain why they believed the characters should or should not engage in risky behaviors. 40 college freshmen ( M = 18.3 years) and 32 college seniors ( M = 22.3 years) participated. Using Kohlberg's moral stage theory and Gilligan's moral orientation model, the interviews were scored for moral stage and moral orientation. Results indicated that the older age group had a significantly higher stage of moral reasoning than the younger age group when responding to dilemmas about STDs. There was a significant difference in moral stage between dilemmas, reflecting the possible effect of dilemma content on moral reasoning. The overall pattern of results shows nonsignificant gender differences in stage of moral reasoning and moral orientation. Clinical and theoretical implications of these findings for understanding the role of moral reasoning in sexual risky behavior are discussed.     

Moral education and the role of cultural tools

Presenting results from a Norwegian empirical study of student texts and moral education textbooks, this article contributes to the evaluation and development of contextual approaches to moral education. Theoretical perspectives from Seyla Benhabib and Mark Tappan are discussed in the light of empirical data. In particular, while textbooks focus primarily on norm aspects of morality, student texts display interactions between relation‐oriented and norm‐oriented cultural tools, indicating a possible synthesis of care and justice aspects of morality, as suggested by Benhabib. A hegemony of a ‘language of justice’ over a ‘language of care’, as suggested by Benhabib and Tappan, is possibly reflected in the uneven distribution of ethical perspectives in textbooks. Student texts, however, show close interactions between relation‐oriented and norm‐oriented aspects of morality, and also indicate a female superiority in the mastery of both norm‐oriented and relation‐oriented language.     

A Comparative Study of Moral Development of Korean and British Children

The present study explored Kohlberg's theory of moral development in relation to Korean and British children. A total of 128 Korean and British children aged 7-16 years were interviewed individually using Kohlberg's moral dilemmas, Form A. It was thought that the children in both cultural groups would develop moral stages at a similar rate. However, they showed cultural differences in the use of moral orientations. In addition, it was not possible to match some of the responses from the Korean children to Kohlberg's manual, implying that there are some Korean traditional concepts which affect Korean children's moral reasoning that Kohlberg was not aware of. Thus, Kohlberg's system could be used to examine children's general moral stage but was insufficient to understand fully Korean children's moral reasoning. The present study suggests that the interpretation of children's moral reasoning should be made based on consideration of cultural influence.     

道德违规对个体内疚的影响研究

本研究以个体的价值取向为依据,编制了道德违规事件问卷,考察三种类型和三种后果的道德违规事件中个体的内疚水平,随机选取407名大学生进行问卷调查。结果得出:三种类型道德违规事件中个体的内疚水平差异显著,违反了公正价值观个体的内疚水平最高,关爱次之,宽恕更次之;三种后果的道德违规事件中个体的内疚水平差异显著,导致他人健康损害的个体的内疚水平最高,名誉受损次之,财产损失更次之。该研究在道德领域三主题的范围下研究个体的内疚状况,从更深的层次探讨了内疚的机制,为培养大学生合理的道德情绪提供理论借鉴。     

Human Rights Education through the ‘Facing History and Ourselves’ Program

Abstract

This study examined the effects of the Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) human rights program on moral development and psychological functioning. The FHAO curriculum significantly increased 8th grade students’ moral reasoning (Rest's 1979 Defining Issues Test) without adversely impacting on their psychological well‐being (scores on depression, hopelessness or self‐worth inventories). Girls were more empathic and had higher levels of social interest; boys had higher global self‐worth scores; there were no differences between boys and girls in their moral reasoning scores and no gender differences in the psychological impact of the course. This study adds to the literature which suggests that human rights education positively affects students’ moral development.