This study aims to measure level of moral development of elementary school students aged between 1112 years, based on the stages of kohlberg s theory development. This research was supported by the center for urban education and by nichd grant hd 02469 01 to the third author gary kippel and joan lerner carried out. Postconventional moral reasoning is associated with increased. Social contract the person understands that values and laws are relative and that standards can vary. According to kohlbergs moral development theory, individuals who reach the. At this stage, children see rules as fixed and absolute. In each case, he presented a choice to be considered, for example, between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual who is being unfairly. Moral and ethical choices rise above the laws of society, and individuals look within themselves for the answers rather than basing moral decisions on external sources of authority. Not everyone reached the highest stages in kohlberg s theory. According to the theory, moral reasoning develops in six stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than the one before. Preconventional morality stage 1 obedience and punishment the earliest stage of moral development is especially common in young children, but adults are also capable of expressing this type of reasoning. Each level consisted of two stages, leading to six stages in total. Lawrence kohlberg 1958 agreed with piagets 1932 theory of moral development in principle but wanted to develop his ideas further he used piagets storytelling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas.
Moral development and the social environment universitat konstanz. During the preconventional level, a childs sense ofmoralityis externally controlled. Kohlberg has focused on moral development and has proposed a stage theory of moral thinking which goes well beyond piagets initial formulations. Lawrence kohlbergs stages of moral development constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally conceived by the swiss psychologist jean piaget. Kohlberg identified three distinct levels of moral reasoning. These three levels of moral reasoning can be objectively assessed by the defining issues test dit2. Stages of moral development notes semantic scholar. Kohlberg, who was born in 1927, grew up in bronxville, new york, and attended the andover academy in massachusetts, a private high school for bright and usually wealthy students. Doing the right thing is obeying authority and avoiding punishment. Level of moral development as a determinant of preference and. Lawrence kohlbergs stages of moral development wikipedia.
Kohlbergs stages of moral development simply psychology. Many people never enter into this level of moral development 5. Lawrence kohlberg s stages of moral development lawrence kohlberg s theory of moral development is an adaptation of the developmental theory of jean piaget. Kohlberg s research yielded three levels of moral development. Stages of moral development, comprehensive theory developed by lawrence kohlberg in 1958 based on jean piagets theory of moral judgment. People pass through each stage sequentially with the thinking at the new stage replacing the thinking at the previous stage. Stages of moral development according to kohlberg summary at stage 1 children think of what is right as that which authority says is right. At stage 2, children are no longer so impressed by any single authority. Kohlberg defined three levels of moral development. Each new stage replaces the reasoning typical of the earlier stage.
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