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A Brief History of Moral Education

Every enduring community has a moral code and it is the responsibility
and the concern of its adults to instill this code in the hearts and minds
of its young. Since the advent of schooling, adults have expected the
schools to contribute positively to the moral education of children.
When the first common schools were founded in the New World, moral
education was the prime concern. New England Puritans believed the
moral code resided in the Bible. Therefore, it was imperative that
children be taught to read, thus having access to its grounding wisdom.
As early as 1642 the colony of Massachusetts passed a law requiring
parents to educate their children. In 1647 the famous Old Deluder Satan
Act strengthened the law. Without the ability to read the Scriptures,
children would be prey to the snares of Satan.

The colonial period. As common school spread throughout the

colonies, the moral education of children was taken for granted. Formal
education had a distinctly moral and religion emphasis. Harvard College
was founded to prepare clergy for their work. Those men who carved out
the United States from the British crown risked their fortunes, their
families, and their very lives with their seditious rebellion. Most of them
were classically educated in philosophy, theology, and political science,
so they had learned that history's great thinkers held democracy in low
regard. They knew that democracy contained within itself the seeds of
its own destruction and could degenerate into mobocracy with the many
preying on the few and with political leaders pandering to the citizenry's
hunger for bread and circuses. The founders' writings, particularly those
of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John and Abigail Adams, and
Benjamin Franklin, are filled with admonitions that their new country
make education a high priority. While the early leaders saw economic
reasons for more and longer schooling, they were convinced that the
form of government they were adopting was, at heart, a moral compact
among people.

Nineteenth century. As the young republic took shape, schooling was

promoted for both secular and moral reasons. In 1832, a time when
some of the Founding Fathers were still alive, Abraham Lincoln wrote,
in his first political announcement (March 9,1832), "I desire to see a
time when education, and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise
and industry, shall become much more general than at present." Horace
Mann, the nineteenth-century champion of the common schools,
strongly advocated for moral education. He and his followers were
worried by the widespread drunkenness, crime, and poverty during the
Jacksonian period in which they lived. Of concern, too, were the waves
of immigrants flooding into cities, unprepared for urban life and
particularly unprepared to participate in democratic civic life. Mann and
his supporters saw free public schools as the ethical leaven of society. In
1849, in his twelfth and final report to the Massachusetts Board of
Education, he wrote that if children age four to sixteen could experience
"the elevating influences of good schools, the dark host of private vices
and public crimes, which now embitter domestic peace and stain the
civilization of the age, might, in 99 cases in every 100, be banished from
the world"(p. 96).

In the nineteenth century, teachers were hired and trained with the clear
expectation that they would advance the moral mission of the school
and attend to character formation. Literature, biography, and history
were taught with the explicit intention of infusing children with high
moral standards and good examples to guide their lives. Students'
copybook headings offered morally uplifting thoughts: "Quarrelsome
persons are always dangerous companions" and "Praise follows
exertion." The most successful textbooks during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries were the famed McGuffey readers, which were
filled with moral stories, urgings, and lessons. During this period of our
evolution as a nation, moral education was deep in the very fabric of our
schools.

There was, however, something else in the fabric of moral education that
caused it to become problematic: religion. In the United States, as a
group of colonies and later as a new nation, the overwhelming dominant
religion was Protestantism. While not as prominent as during the
Puritan era, the King James Bible was, nevertheless, a staple of U.S.
public schools. The root of the moral code was seen as residing there.
However, as waves of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Italy
came to the country from the mid-nineteenth century forward, the pan-
Protestant tone and orthodoxy of the schools came under scrutiny and a
reaction set in. Concerned that their children would be weaned from
their faith, Catholics developed their own school system. Later in the
twentieth century, other religious groups, such as Jews, Muslims, and
even various Protestant denominations, formed their own schools. Each
group desired, and continues to desire, that its moral education be
rooted in its respective faith or code.
Twentieth century. During this same late-nineteenth-century and
twentieth-century period, there was also a growing reaction against
organized religion and the belief in a spiritual dimension of human
existence. Intellectual leaders and writers were deeply influenced by the
ideas of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, the German political
philosopher Karl Marx, the Austrian neurologist and founder of
psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, and the German philosopher and poet
Friedrich Nietzsche, and by a growing strict interpretation of the
separation of church and state doctrine. This trend increased after
World War II and was further intensified by what appeared to be the
large cracks in the nation's moral consensus in the late 1960s. Since for
so many Americans the strongest roots of moral truths reside in their
religious beliefs, educators and others became wary of using the schools
for moral education. More and more this was seen to be the province of
the family and the church. Some educators became proponents of
"value-free" schooling, ignoring the fact that it is impossible to create a
school devoid of ethical issues, lessons, and controversies.

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During the last quarter of the twentieth century, as many schools
attempted to ignore the moral dimension of schooling, three things
happened: Achievement scores began to decline, discipline and behavior
problems increased, and voices were raised accusing the schools of
teaching secular humanism. As the same time, educators were
encouraged to address the moral concerns of students using two
approaches: values clarification and cognitive developmental moral
education.

The first, values clarification, rests on little theory other than the

assumption that students need practice choosing among moral
alternatives and that teachers should be facilitators of the clarification
process rather than indoctrinators of particular moral ideas or value
choices. This approach, although widely practiced, came under strong
criticism for, among other things, promoting moral relativism among
students. While currently few educators confidently advocate values
clarification, its residue of teacher neutrality and hesitance to actively
address ethical issues and the moral domain persists.

The second approach, cognitive developmental moral

education, sprang from the work of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget
and was further developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. In contrast to values
clarification, cognitive moral development is heavy on theory and light
on classroom applications. In its most popular form, Kohlberg posited
six sequential stages of moral development, which potentially
individuals could achieve. Each stage represents a distinctive way an
individual thinks about a moral situation or problem. Teachers are
encouraged to engage students from an early age and throughout their
schooling in discussion of moral issues and dilemmas. In the later years
of his life, Kohlberg was urging educators to transform their schools into
"just communities," environments within which students' moral stage
development would accelerate.

The Return of Character Education

In the early 1980s, amid the widespread concern over students' poor
academic achievements and behavior, educators rediscovered the
word character. Moral education had a religious tinge, which made
many uneasy. Character with its emphasis on forming good habits and
eliminating poor habits struck a popular and traditional chord. The
word character has a Greek root, coming from the verb "to engrave."
Thus character speaks to the active process of making marks or signs
(i.e., good habits) on one's person. The early formation of good habits is
widely acknowledged to be in the best interests of both the individual
and society.

In addition, character formation is recognized as something that parents

begin early, but the work is hardly completed when a child goes to
school. Implicit in the concept of character is the recognition that adults
begin the engraving process of habituation to consideration of others,
self-control, and responsibility, then teachers and others contribute to
the work, but eventually the young person takes over the engraving or
formation of his own character. Clearly, though, with their learning
demands and taxing events, children's school years are a prime
opportunity for positive and negative (i.e., virtues and vices) character
formation.

The impetus and energy behind the return of character education to

American schools did not come from within the educational community.
It has been fueled, first, by parental desire for orderly schools where
standards of behavior and good habits are stressed, and, second, by state
and national politicians who responded to these anxious concerns of
parents. During his presidency, William Clinton hosted five conferences
on character education. President George W. Bush expanded on the
programs of the previous administration and made character education
a major focus of his educational reform agenda. One of the politically
appealing aspects of character education, as opposed to moral education
with its religious overtones, is that character education speaks more to
the formation of a good citizen. A widely repeated definition (i.e.,
character education is helping a child to know the good, to desire the
good, and to do the good) straddles this issue. For some people the
internal focus of character education comfortably can be both religious
and civic and for others the focus can be strictly civic, dealing exclusively
on the formation of the good citizen.

Current Approaches to Moral Education

The overwhelming percentage of efforts within public education to
address the moral domain currently march under the flag of character
education. Further, since these conscious efforts at addressing issues of
character formation are relatively recent, they are often called character
education programs. The termprogram suggests, however, discrete
initiatives that replace an activity or that are added to the school's
curriculum (e.g., a new reading program or mathematics program). And,
although there are character education programs available,
commercially and otherwise, most advocates urge the public schools to
take an infusion approach to educating for character.

The infusion approach. In general, an infusion approach to

character education aims to restore the formation of students'
characters to a central place in schooling. Rather than simply adding on
character formation to the other responsibilities of schools, such as
numeracy, literacy, career education, health education, and other goals,
a focus on good character permeates the entire school experience. In
essence, character education joins intellectual development as the
overarching goals of the school. Further, character education is seen, not
in competition with or ancillary to knowledge- and skill-acquisition
goals, but as an important contributor to these goals. To create a healthy
learning environment, students need to develop the virtues of
responsibility and respect for others. They must eliminate habits of
laziness and sloppiness and acquire habits of self-control and diligence.
The infusion approach is based on the view that the good habits that
contribute to the formation of character in turn contribute directly to
the academic goals of schooling.

A mainstay of the infusion approach is the recovery, recasting, or

creating of a school's mission statement, one that reflects the priority
placed on the development of good character. Such a statement
legitimizes the attention of adults and students alike to this educational
goal. It tells administrators that teachers and staff should be hired with
good character as a criterion; it tells teachers that not only should
character be stressed to students but also their own characters are on
display; it tells coaches that athletics should be seen through the lens of
sportsmanship rather than winning and losing; and it tells students that
their efforts and difficulties, their successes and disappointments are all
part of a larger process, the formation of their characters.

Critical to the infusion approach is using the curriculum as a source of

character education. This is particularly true of the language arts, social
studies, and history curricula. The primary focus of these subjects is the
study of human beings, real and fictitious. Our great narrative tales
carry moral lessons. They convey to the young vivid images of the kinds
of people our culture admires and wants them to emulate. These
subjects also show them how lives can be wasted, or worse, how people
can betray themselves and their communities. Learning about the
heroism of former slave Sojourner Truth, who became an evangelist and
reformer, and the treachery of Benedict Arnold, the American army
officer who betrayed his country to the British, is more than picking up
historical information. Encountering these lives fires the student's moral
imagination and deepens his understanding of what constitutes a life of
character. Other subjects, such as mathematics and science, can teach
students the necessity of intellectual honesty. The curricula of our
schools not only contain the core knowledge of our culture but also our
moral heritage.

In addition to the formal or overt curriculum, schools and classrooms

also have a hidden or covert curriculum. A school's rituals, traditions,
rules, and procedures have an impact on students' sense of what is right
and wrong and what is desired and undesired behavior. So, too, does the
school's student culture. What goes on in the lunchroom, the
bathrooms, the locker rooms, and on the bus conveys powerful
messages to students. This ethos or moral climate of a school is difficult
to observe and neatly categorize. Nevertheless, it is the focus of serious
attention by educators committed to an infusion approach.

An important element of the infusion approach is the language with

which a school community addresses issues of character and the moral
domain. Teachers and administrators committed to an infusion
approach use the language of virtues and speak of good and poor
behavior and of right and wrong. Words such as responsibility, respect,
honesty, and perseverance are part of the working vocabulary of adults
and students alike.

Other approaches. One of the most popular approaches to character

education is service learning. Sometimes called community service, this
approach is a conscious effort to give students opportunities, guidance,
and practice at being moral actors. Based on the Greek philosopher
Aristotle's concept of character formation (e.g., a man becomes virtuous
by performing virtuous deeds; brave by doing brave deeds), many
schools and school districts have comprehensive programs of service
learning. Starting in kindergarten, children are given small chores such
as feeding the classroom's gerbil or straightening the desks and chairs.
They later move on to tutoring younger students and eventually work up
to more demanding service activities in the final years of high school.
Typically, these high-school level service-learning activities are off-
campus at a home for the blind, a hospital, or a day-care center. Besides
placement, the school provides training, guidance, and problem-solving
support to students as they encounter problems and difficulties.
In recent years, schools across the country have adopted the virtue (or
value) of the month approach, where the entire school community gives
particular attention to a quality such as cooperation or kindness.
Consideration of the virtue for that particular month is reflected in the
curriculum, in special assemblies, in hallway and classroom displays,
and in school-home newsletters. Related to this are schoolwide
programs, such as no put-downs projects, where attention is focused on
the destructive and hurtful effects of sarcasm and insulting language
and students are taught to replace put-downs with civil forms of
communication.

There are several skill-development and classroom strategies that are

often related to character formation. Among the more widespread are
teaching mediation and conflict-resolution skills, where students are
given direct teaching in how to deal with disagreements and potential
fights among fellow students. Many advocates of cooperative learning
assert that instructing students using this instructional process has the
added benefit of teaching students habits of helping others and forming
friendships among students with whom they otherwise would not mix.

Issues and Controversies

The moral education of children is a matter of deep concern to everyone
from parents to civic and religious leaders. It is no accident, then, that
this subject has been a matter of apprehension and controversy
throughout the history of American schools. Issues of morality touch an
individual's most fundamental beliefs. Since Americans are by
international standards both quite religiously observant and quite
religiously diverse, it is not surprising that moral and character
education controversies often have a religious source. Particularly after
a period when moral education was not on the agenda of most public
schools, its return is unsettling to some citizens. Many who are hostile to
religion see this renewed interest in moral education as bringing
religious perspectives back into the school "through the back door." On
the other hand, many religious people are suspicious of its return
because they perceive it to be an attempt to undermine their family's
religious-based training with a state-sponsored secular humanism. As of
the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the renewed
attention to this area has been relatively free of controversy.

Contributing to the positive climate is the use of the

term character rather than moral. While moral carries religious
overtones for many, the word character speaks to good habits and the
civic virtues, which hold a community together and allow us to live
together in harmony.

A second issue relates to the level of schools and the age of students. The
revival of character education in our schools has been evident to a much
greater degree in elementary schools. Here schools can concentrate on
the moral basics for which there is wide public consensus. The same is
true, but to a somewhat lesser degree, for middle and junior high
schools. And although there are many positive examples of secondary
schools that have implemented broad and effective character education
programs, secondary school faculties are hesitant to embrace character
education. Part of it is the departmental structures and the time
demands of the curriculum; part of it is the age and sophistication of
their students; and part of it is that few secondary school teachers
believe they have a clear mandate to deal with issues of morality and
character.

A third issue relates to the education of teachers. Whereas once teachers

in training took philosophy and history of education–courses that
introduced them to the American school's traditional involvement with
moral and character education–now few states require these courses. At
the beginning of the twenty-first century, the American schools are
seeing the large-scale retirement of career teachers and their
replacement with large numbers of new teachers. These young teachers
tend to be products of elementary and secondary schools where teachers
gave little or no direct attention to moral and character education. In
addition, a 1999 study by the Character Education Partnership of half of
the nation's teacher education institutions showed that although over 90
percent of the leaders of these programs thought character education
ought to be a priority in the preparation of teachers, only 13 percent
were satisfied with their institution's efforts.

Evaluation of Moral and Character Education

There are a few character education programs with encouraging
evaluation results. The Character Development Project (CDP) has more
than 18 years of involvement in several K–6 schools, and in those
schools where teachers received staff development and on-site support
over 52 percent of the student outcome variables showed significant
differences. The Boy Scouts of America developed the Learning For Life
Curriculum in the early 1990s for elementary schools. This
commercially available, stand-alone curriculum teaches core moral
values, such as honesty and responsibility. In a large-scale controlled
experiment involving fifty-nine schools, students exposed to the
Learning For Life materials showed significant gains on their
understanding of the curriculum's core values, but they were also judged
by their teachers to have gained greater self-discipline and ability to stay
on a task.

Still, evaluation and assessment in character and moral education is best

described as a work in progress. The field is held back by the lack of an
accepted battery of reliable instruments, a lack of wide agreement on
individual or schoolwide outcomes, and by the short-term nature of
most of the existent studies. Complicating these limitations is a larger
one: the lack of theoretical agreement of what character is. Human
character is one of those overarching entities that is the subject of
disciples from philosophy to theology, from psychology to sociology.
Further, even within these disciplines there are competing and
conflicting theories and understandings of the nature of human
character. But although the evaluation challenges are daunting, they are
dwarfed by the magnitude of the adult community's desire to see that
our children possess a moral compass and the good habits basic to
sound character.

Read more: Moral Education - A Brief History of Moral Education, The

Return of Character Education, Current Approaches to Moral
Education http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2246/Moral-
Education.html#ixzz13lTIlmcd
Moral education is becoming an increasingly popular topic in the fields of
psychology and education. Media reports of increased violent juvenile crime,
teen pregnancy, and suicide have caused many to declare a moral crisis in our
nation. While not all of these social concerns are moral in nature, and most
have complex origins, there is a growing trend towards linking the solutions to
these and related social problems to the teaching of moral and social values in
our public schools. However, considerations of the role schools can and should
play in the moral development of youth are themselves the subject of
controversy. All too often debate on this topic is reduced to posturing
reflecting personal views rather than informed opinion. Fortunately,
systematic research and scholarship on moral development has been going on
for most of this century, and educators wishing to attend to issues of moral
development and education may make use of what has been learned through
that work. The following overview provides an introduction to the main
perspectives guiding current work on moral development and education.
Readers interested in gaining an in-depth and up-to-date understanding of
research and scholarship in the field may do so by returning to this web site
each month and selecting Featured Articles.

Piaget's Theory
Jean Piaget is among the first psychologists whose work
remains directly relevant to contemporary theories of moral
development. In his early writing, he focused specifically on
the moral lives of children, studying the way children play
games in order to learn more about children's beliefs about
right and wrong(1932/65). According to Piaget, all
development emerges from action; that is to say, individuals
construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world as a
result of interactions with the environment. Based on his
observations of children's application of rules when playing,
Piaget determined that morality, too, can be considered a developmental
process. For example, Ben, a ten year old studied by Piaget, provided the
following critique of a rule made-up by a child playing marbles: "it isn't a rule!
It's a wrong rule because it's outside of the rules. A fair rule is one that is in the
game". Ben believed in the absolute and intrinsic truth of the rules,
characteristic of early moral reasoning. In contrast, Vua, aged thirteen,
illustrates an understanding of the reasoning behind the application of rules,
characteristic of later moral thinking. When asked to consider the fairness of a
made-up rule compared to a traditional rule, Vua replied "It is just as fair
because the marbles are far apart"(making the game equally difficult).

In addition to examining children's understanding of rules about games, Piaget

interviewed children regarding acts such as stealing and lying. When asked
what a lie is, younger children consistently answered that they are "naughty
words". When asked why they should not lie, younger children could rarely
explain beyond the forbidden nature of the act: "because it is a naughty word".
However, older children were able to explain "because it isn't right", and "it
wasn't true". Even older children indicated an awareness of intention as
relevant to the meaning of an act: "A lie is when you deceive someone else. To
make a mistake is when you make a mistake". From his observations, Piaget
concluded that children begin in a "heteronomous" stage of moral reasoning,
characterized by a strict adherence to rules and duties, and obedience to
authority.

This heteronomy results from two factors. The first factor is the young child's
cognitive structure. According to Piaget, the thinking of young children is
characterized by egocentrism. That is to say that young children are unable to
simultaneously take into account their own view of things with the perspective
of someone else. This egocentrism leads children to project their own thoughts
and wishes onto others. It is also associated with the uni-directional view of
rules and power associated with heteronomous moral thought, and various
forms of "moral realism." Moral realism is associated with "objective
responsibility", which is valuing the letter of the law above the purpose of the
law. This is why young children are more concerned about the outcomes of
actions rather than the intentions of the person doing the act. Moral realism is
also associated with the young child's belief in "immanent justice." This is the
expectation that punishments automatically follow acts of wrong-doing. One of
the most famous cases of such childhood thinking was that of the young boy
who believed that his hitting a power pole with his baseball bat caused a major
power blackout in the New York city area.

The second major contributor to heteronomous moral thinking in young

children, is their relative social relationship with adults. In the natural authority
relationship between adults and children, power is handed down from above.
The relative powerlessness of young children, coupled with childhood
egocentrism feeds into a heteronomous moral orientation.

However, through interactions with other children in which the group seeks a to
play together in a way all find fair, children find this strict heteronomous
adherence to rules sometimes problematic. As children consider these
situations, they develop towards an "autonomous" stage of moral reasoning,
characterized by the ability to consider rules critically, and selectively apply
these rules based on a goal of mutual respect and cooperation. The ability to act
from a sense of reciprocity and mutual respect is associated with a shift in the
child's cognitive structure from egocentrism to perspective taking. Coordinating
one's own perspective with that of others means that what is right needs to be
based on solutions that meet the requirements of fair reciprocity. Thus, Piaget
viewed moral development as the result of interpersonal interactions through
which individuals work out resolutions which all deem fair. Paradoxically, this
autonomous view of morality as fairness is more compelling and leads to more
consistent behavior than the heteronomous orientation held by younger
children.

Piaget concluded from this work that schools should emphasize cooperative
decision-making and problem solving, nurturing moral development by
requiring students to work out common rules based on fairness. This is a direct
rejection of sociologists Emile Durkheim's view of proper moral education
(1925/1961). Durkheim, similar to Piaget, believed that morality resulted from
social interaction or immersion in a group. However, Durkheim believed moral
development was a natural result of attachment to the group, an attachment
which manifests itself in a respect for the symbols, rules, and authority of that
group. Piaget rejected this belief that children simply learn and internalize the
norms for a group; he believed individuals define morality individually through
their struggles to arrive at fair solutions. Given this view, Piaget suggested that
a classroom teacher perform a difficult task: the educator must provide students
with opportunities for personal discovery through problem solving, rather than
indoctrinating students with norms.

An excellent contemporary adaptation of Piaget's theory for moral development

of young children may be found in DeVries, R. & Zan, B. (1994). "Moral
Children: Constructing a Constructivist Atmosphere in Early Education." New
York: Teachers College Press. You may preview some portions of that book
within the Classroom Practices segment of this web site. DeVries and Zan go
beyond Piaget's original work to include that of more recent theorists including
Lawrence Kohlberg whose theory will be described next.
 back to top | Printer Friendly Version
Piaget's Theory | Kohlberg's Theory | Domain Theory
Carol Gilligan | Conclusion | Selected References

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development and

Education
Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg (1969) modified and elaborated Piaget's

work, and laid the groundwork for the current debate within
psychology on moral development. Consistent with Piaget, he
proposed that children form ways of thinking through their
experiences which include understandings of moral concepts such
as justice, rights, equality and human welfare. Kohlberg followed
the development of moral judgment beyond the ages studied by
Piaget, and determined that the process of attaining moral
maturity took longer and was more gradual than Piaget had
proposed.

On the basis of his research, Kohlberg identified six stages of moral reasoning
grouped into three major levels. Each level represented a fundamental shift in
the social-moral perspective of the individual. At the first level, the
preconventional level, a person's moral judgments are characterized by a
concrete, individual perspective. Within this level, a Stage 1 heteronomous
orientation focuses on avoiding breaking rules that are backed by punishment,
obedience for its own sake and avoiding the physical consequences of an action
to persons and property. As in Piaget's framework, the reasoning of Stage 1 is
characterized by ego-centrism and the inability to consider the perspectives of
others. At Stage 2 there is the early emergence of moral reciprocity. The Stage
2 orientation focuses on the instrumental, pragmatic value of an action.
Reciprocity is of the form, "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." The
Golden Rule becomes, "If someone hits you, you hit them back." At Stage 2
one follows the rules only when it is to someone's immediate interests. What is
right is what's fair in the sense of an equal exchange, a deal, an agreement. At
Stage 2 there is an understanding that everybody has his(her) own interest to
pursue and these conflict, so that right is relative (in the concrete individualist
sense).

Individuals at the conventional level of reasoning, however, have a basic

understanding of conventional morality, and reason with an understanding that
norms and conventions are necessary to uphold society. They tend to be self-
identified with these rules, and uphold them consistently, viewing morality as
acting in accordance with what society defines as right. Within this level,
individuals at Stage 3 are aware of shared feelings, agreements, and
expectations which take primacy over individual interests. Persons at Stage 3
define what is right in terms of what is expected by people close to one's self,
and in terms of the stereotypic roles that define being good - e.g., a good
brother, mother, teacher. Being good means keeping mutual relationships, such
as trust, loyalty, respect, and gratitude. The perspective is that of the local
community or family. There is not as yet a consideration of the generalized
social system. Stage 4 marks the shift from defining what is right in terms of
local norms and role expectations to defining right in terms of the laws and
norms established by the larger social system. This is the "member of society"
perspective in which one is moral by fulfilling the actual duties defining one's
social responsibilities. One must obey the law except in extreme cases in which
the law comes into conflict with other prescribed social duties. Obeying the law
is seen as necessary in order to maintain the system of laws which protect
everyone.

Finally, the post conventional level is characterized by reasoning based on

principles, using a "prior to society" perspective. These individuals reason
based on the principles which underlie rules and norms, but reject a uniform
application of a rule or norm. While two stages have been presented within the
theory, only one, Stage 5, has received substantial empirical support. Stage 6
remains as a theoretical endpoint which rationally follows from the preceding 5
stages. In essence this last level of moral judgment entails reasoning rooted in
the ethical fairness principles from which moral laws would be devised. Laws
are evaluated in terms of their coherence with basic principles of fairness rather
than upheld simply on the basis of their place within an existing social order.
Thus, there is an understanding that elements of morality such as regard for life
and human welfare transcend particular cultures and societies and are to be
upheld irrespective of other conventions or normative obligations. These stages
(1-5) have been empirically supported by findings from longitudinal and cross-
cultural research (Power et al., 1989).

Moral Education

Kohlberg used these findings to reject traditional character education practices.

These approaches are premised in the idea that virtues and vices are the basis to
moral behavior, or that moral character is comprised of a "bag of virtues", such
as honesty, kindness, patience, strength, etc. According to the traditional
approach, teachers are to teach these virtues through example and direct
communication of convictions, by giving students an opportunity to practice
these virtues, and by rewarding their expression. However, critiques of the
traditional approach find flaws inherent in this model. This approach provides
no guiding principle for defining what virtues are worthy of espousal, and
wrongly assumes a community consensus on what are considered "positive
values". In fact, teachers often end up arbitrarily imposing certain values
depending upon their societal, cultural, and personal beliefs. In order to address
this issue of ethical relativity, some have adopted the values-clarification
approach to moral education. This teaching practice is based on the assumption
that there are no single, correct answers to ethical dilemmas, but that there is
value in holding clear views and acting accordingly. In addition, there is a
value of toleration of divergent views. It follows, then, that the teacher's role is
one of discussion moderator, with the goal of teaching merely that people hold
different values; the teacher does attempt to present her views as the "right"
views.

Kohlberg rejected the focus on values and virtues, not only due to the lack of
consensus on what virtues are to be taught, but also because of the complex
nature of practicing such virtues. For example, people often make different
decisions yet hold the same basic moral values. Kohlberg believed a better
approach to affecting moral behavior should focus on stages of moral
development. These stages are critical, as they consider the way a person
organizes their understanding of virtues, rules, and norms, and integrates these
into a moral choice (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). In addition, he
rejected the relativist view point in favor of the view that certain principles of
justice and fairness represent the pinnacle of moral maturity, as he found that
these basic moral principles are found in different cultures and subcultures
around the world (Kohlberg & Turiel, 1971).

The goal of moral education, it then follows, is to encourage individuals to

develop to the next stage of moral reasoning. Initial educational efforts
employing Kohlberg's theory were grounded in basic Piagetian assumptions of
cognitive development. Development, in this model, is not merely the result of
gaining more knowledge, but rather consists of a sequence of qualitative
changes in the way an individual thinks. Within any stage of development,
thought is organized according to the constraints of that stage. An individual
then interacts with the environment according to their basic understandings of
the environment. However, the child will at some point encounter information
which does not fit into their world view, forcing the child to adjust their view to
accommodate this new information. This process is called equilibration, and it
is through equilibration that development occurs. Early moral development
approaches to education, therefore, sought to force students to ponder
contradiction inherent to their present level of moral reasoning.

The most common tool for doing this was to present a "moral dilemma"
(see Classroom Practices) and require students to determine and justify what
course the actor in the dilemma should take. Through discussion, students
should then be forced to face the contradictions present in any course of action
not based on principles of justice or fairness.

While Kohlberg appreciated the importance and value of such moral dilemma
discussions, he held from very early on that moral education required more
than individual reflection, but also needed to include experiences for students to
operate as moral agents within a community. In this regard, Kohlberg
reconciled some of the differences in orientation that existed between the
theories of moral growth held by Piaget and Durkheim. In order to provide
students with an optimal context within which to grow morally, Kohlberg and
his colleagues developed the "just community" schools approach towards
promoting moral development (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989). The basic
premise of these schools is to enhance students' moral development by offering
them the chance to participate in a democratic community. Here, democracy
refers to more than simply casting a vote. It entails full participation of
community members in arriving at consensual rather than "majority rules"
decision-making. One primary feature of these schools is their relatively small
size (often they are actually schools within schools), aimed at providing the
students with a sense of belonging to a group which is responsive to individual
needs. The central institution of these schools is a community meeting in which
issues related to life and discipline in the schools are discussed and
democratically decided, with an equal value placed on the voices of students
and teachers. An underlying goal of these meetings is to establish collective
norms which express fairness for all members of the community. It is believed
that by placing the responsibility of determining and enforcing rules on
students, they will take prosocial behavior more seriously. At the same time,
this approach stems from the cognitive-developmentalist view that discussion
of moral dilemmas can stimulate moral development.

However, this is not to say that just community school simply leaves students
to their own devices; teachers play a crucial leadership role in these
discussions, promoting rules and norms which have a concern for justice and
community, and ultimately enforcing the rules. This role is not an easy one, as
teachers must listen closely and understand a student's reasoning, in order to
help the student to the next level of reasoning. This requires a delicate balance
between letting the students make decisions, and advocating in a way which
shows them the limits in their reasoning. A primary advantage to the Just
Community approach is its effectiveness in affecting students actions, not just
their reasoning. Students are, in effect, expected to "practice what they preach",
by following the rules determined in community meetings.

The most comprehensive and authoritative source for work on Kohlberg's

approach to moral education is to be found in : Power, F. C., Higgins, A., &
Kohlberg, L. (1989). "Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education."
New York: Columbia University Press.
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Piaget's Theory | Kohlberg's Theory | Domain Theory
Carol Gilligan | Conclusion | Selected References

Domain Theory: Distinguishing Morality and

Convention
In the early 1970s, longitudinal studies conducted by the
Kohlberg research group began to reveal anomalies in the stage
sequence. Researchers committed to the basic Kohlberg
framework attempted to resolve those anomalies through
adjustments in the stage descriptions (see the Power, Higgins, &
Kohlberg, 1989 reference for an account of those changes). Other
theorists, however, found that a comprehensive resolution to the
anomalous data required substantial adjustments in the theory
itself. One of the most productive lines of research to come out of that period
has been the domain theory advanced by Elliot Turiel and his colleagues.

Within domain theory a distinction is drawn between the child's developing

concepts of morality, and other domains of social knowledge, such as social
convention. According to domain theory, the child's concepts of morality and
social convention emerge out of the child's attempts to account for qualitatively
differing forms of social experience associated with these two classes of social
events. Actions within the moral domain, such as unprovoked hitting of
someone, have intrinsic effects (i.e., the harm that is caused) on the welfare of
another person. Such intrinsic effects occur irregardless of the nature of social
rules that may or may not be in place regarding the action. Because of this, the
core features of moral cognition are centered around considerations of the
effects which actions have upon the well-being of persons. Morality is
structured by concepts of harm, welfare, and fairness.
In contrast, actions that are matters of social convention have no intrinsic
interpersonal consequences. For example, there is nothing intrinsic to the forms
of address we employ that makes calling a college teacher "professor" better or
worse than calling the person Mr. or Ms., or simply using their given names.
What makes one form of address better than another is the existence of socially
agreed upon rules. These conventions, while arbitrary in the sense that they
have no intrinsic status, are nonetheless important to the smooth functioning of
any social group. Conventions provide a way for members of the group to
coordinate their social exchanges through a set of agreed upon and predictable
modes of conduct. Concepts of convention then, are structured by the child's
understandings of social organization.

These hypothesized distinctions have been sustained through studies over the
past 20 years. These studies have included interviews with children,
adolescents and adults; observations of child-child and adult-child social
interactions; cross-cultural studies; and longitudinal studies examining the
changes in children's thinking as they grow older. An example of the distinction
between morality and convention is given in the following excerpt from an
interview with a four-year-old girl regarding her perceptions of spontaneously
occurring transgressions at her preschool.

MORAL ISSUE: Did you see what happened? Yes. They were playing and
John hit him too hard. Is that something you are supposed to do or not supposed
to do? Not so hard to hurt. Is there a rule about that? Yes. What is the rule?
You're not to hit hard. What if there were no rule about hitting hard, would it be
all right to do then? No. Why not? Because he could get hurt and start to cry.

CONVENTIONAL ISSUE: Did you see what just happened? Yes. They were
noisy. Is that something you are supposed to or not supposed to do? Not do. Is
there a rule about that? Yes. We have to be quiet. What if there were no rule,
would it be all right to do then? Yes. Why? Because there is no rule.

Morality and convention, then, are distinct, parallel developmental frameworks,

rather than a single system as thought of by Kohlberg. However, because all
social events, including moral ones, take place within the context of the larger
society, a person's reasoning about the right course of action in any given social
situation may require the person to access and coordinate their understandings
from more than one of these two social cognitive frameworks. For, example,
whether people line up to buy movie theater tickets is largely a matter of social
convention. Anyone who has traveled outside of Northern Europe or North
America can attest to the fact that lining up is not a shared social norm across
cultures. Within the United States or England, for example, lining up is the
conventional way in which turn-taking is established. The act of turn-taking has
a moral consequence. It establishes a mechanism for sharing - an aspect of
distributive justice. The act of breaking in line within the American or British
context is more than merely a violation of convention. It is a violation of a
basic set of rules that people hold to maintain fairness. How people coordinate
the possible interactions that may arise between issues of morality and
convention is a function of several factors including: the salience of the features
of the act (what seems most important - the moral or conventional elements);
and the developmental level of the person (adolescents for example view
conventions as unimportant and arbitrary norms established by adult authority).

It was Turiel's insight to recognize that what Kohlberg's theory attempts to

account for within a single developmental framework is in fact the set of age-
related efforts people make at different points in development to coordinate
their social normative understandings from several different domains. Thus,
domain theory posits a great deal more inconsistency in the judgments of
individuals across contexts, and allows for a great deal more likelihood of
morally (fairness and welfare) based decisions from younger and less
developed people than would be expected from within the traditional Kohlberg
paradigm.

Current work from within domain theory has sought to explore how the child's
concepts of moral and conventional regulation relate to their developing
understandings of personal prerogative and privacy. This work is exploring
how children develop their concepts of autonomy and its relation to social
authority. This has led to a fruitful series of studies of adolescent-parent
conflict with important implications for ways in which parents may contribute
to the healthy development of youth (Smetana, 1996). This work is also being
extended into studies of how adolescents perceive the authority of teachers and
school rules. Moral and Social Values Education The implications of domain
theory for values education are several. First, the identification of a domain of
moral cognition that is tied to the inherent features of human social interaction
means that moral education may be grounded in universal concerns for fairness
and human welfare, and is not limited to the particular conventions or norms of
a given community or school district. By focusing on those universal features
of human moral understanding, public schools may engage in fostering
children's morality without being accused of promoting a particular religion,
and without undercutting the basic moral core of all major religious systems.

Second, educational research from within domain theory has resulted in a set of
recommendations for what is termed "domain appropriate" values education.
This approach entails the teacher's analysis and identification of the moral or
conventional nature of social values issues to be employed in values lessons.
Such an analysis contributes to the likelihood that the issues discussed are
concordant with the domain of the values dimension they are intended to affect.
A discussion of dress codes, for example, would constitute a poor basis for
moral discussion, since mode of dress is primarily a matter of convention.
Likewise, consideration of whether it is right to steal to help a person in need,
would be a poor issue with which to generate a lesson intended to foster
students' understandings of social conventions. A related function of the teacher
would be to focus student activity (verbal or written) on the underlying features
concordant with the domain of the issue. Thus, students dealing with a moral
issue would be directed to focus on the underlying justice or human welfare
considerations of the episode. With respect to conventions, the focus of student
activity would be on the role of social expectations and the social
organizational functions of such social norms.

On the basis of this kind of analysis teachers are also better enabled to lead
students through consideration of more complex issues which contain elements
from more than one domain. By being aware of the developmental changes that
occur in students' comprehension of the role of social convention, and related
changes in students understanding of what it means to be fair or considerate of
the welfare of others, teachers are able to frame consideration of complex
social issues in ways that will maximize the ability of students to comprehend
and act upon the moral and social meaning of particular courses of action.

The best sources for discussion of domain appropriate education, along with
guidelines and examples for how teachers may select materials from existing
school curricula from which to generate lessons and practices which will foster
students' development within both the moral and conventional domains may be
found in: Nucci, L. & Weber, E. (1991) "The domain approach to values
education: From theory to practice" In W. Kurtines & J. Gewirtz (Eds.)
"Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development (Volume 3: Applications)pp.
251 - 266). and also in: Nucci, L. (1989) "Challenging Conventional Wisdom
About Morality: The Domain Approach to Values Education." In L. Nucci
(Ed.) "Moral Development and Character Education: A Dialogue" Berkeley:
McCutchan.

Examples of such materials and practices will be provided in coming months

on the Classroom Practices segment of this web site.
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Piaget's Theory | Kohlberg's Theory | Domain Theory
Carol Gilligan | Conclusion | Selected References
Carol Gilligan and the Morality of Care
A second major critique of Kohlberg's work was put forth by
Carol Gilligan, in her popular book, "In a Different Voice:
Psychological Theory and Women's Development" (1982). She
suggested that Kohlberg's theories were biased against women,
as only males were used in his studies. By listening to women's
experiences, Gilligan offered that a morality of care can serve
in the place of the morality of justice and rights espoused by
Kohlberg. In her view, the morality of caring and responsibility
is premised in nonviolence, while the morality of justice and
rights is based on equality. Another way to look at these
differences is to view these two moralities as providing two distinct injunctions
- the injunction not to treat others unfairly (justice) and the injunction not to
turn away from someone in need (care). She presents these moralities as
distinct, although potentially connected.

In her initial work, Gilligan emphasized the gender differences thought to be

associated with these two orientations. The morality of care emphasizes
interconnectedness and presumably emerges to a greater degree in girls owing
to their early connection in identity formation with their mothers. The morality
of justice, on the other hand, is said to emerge within the context of
coordinating the interactions of autonomous individuals. A moral orientation
based on justice was proposed as more prevalent among boys because their
attachment relations with the mother, and subsequent masculine identity
formation entailed that boys separate from that relationship and individuate
from the mother. For boys, this separation also heightens their awareness of the
difference in power relations between themselves and the adult, and hence
engenders an intense set of concerns over inequalities. Girls, however, because
of their continued attachment to their mothers, are not as keenly aware of such
inequalities, and are, hence, less concerned with fairness as an issue. Further
research has suggested, however, that moral reasoning does not follow the
distinct gender lines which Gilligan originally reported. The preponderance of
evidence is that both males and females reason based on justice and care. While
this gender debate is unsettled, Gilligan's work has contributed to an increased
awareness that care is an integral component of moral reasoning.

Educational approaches based on Gilligan's work have emphasized efforts to

foster empathy and care responses in students. Perhaps the most comprehensive
treatment of these issues may be found in Nel Noddings book, "The challenge
to care in schools" New York: Teachers College Press, 1992.
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Piaget's Theory | Kohlberg's Theory | Domain Theory
Carol Gilligan | Conclusion | Selected References

Conclusion
This segment was designed to provide an overview of the major developmental
theories currently influencing research on moral education. To remain current
with new information and approaches in this very active field you should check
this web site on a regular basis for Featured Articles. To learn about available
books in the field check Books of Interest. For persons wanting to learn more
about traditional character education please checkRelated Web Sites.

This overview was prepared by Mary Elizabeth Murray, Department of

Psychology, University if Illinois at Chicago. Comments or inquiries for further
information should be directed to Professor Larry Nucci, University of Illinois
at Chicago.