The development of moral orientation in elementary school children

While much research has focused on issues of justice in children's moral learning, little is known about children's use of other moral orientations in solving moral problems. A study was conducted with children drawn from Grades 1, 3, and 5 (total n=54). Fables were used as the moral dilemmas, since previous research had shown that they could be solved from either a justice or a care orientation. In individual interviews, children were asked how they would solve the problems in the fables, whether there was a different solution, and what the best solution (justice or care) would be. They were then asked to explain the logic of the solution they offered. The results from the study showed that (a) children tended to adopt a care orientation as their first solution and to consider it the best solution, (b) there were no differences between first- and third-grade boys and girls, (c) solutions involving violence and tricks appeared among the fifth-grade boys only, and (d) the ability to explain the logic of both orientations to the fables problem was correlated with children's use of abstract reasoning skills on beginning formal operational tasks and with perspective-taking ability.We would like to thank the principal and teachers of the Thetford Elementary School, Thetford, Vermont, for their participation in this project. We are also grateful to Elizabeth Hoffman, Dan Parish, Kathleen Lambert, and Heather Caldwell for their help with data collection, to Carol Kottmeier and Mary Varanese for their coding of the Selman data, and to Ann Huebner, Kay Johnston, Sharry Langdale, Michael W. Pratt, and Lawrence Walker for their comments on the paper. Support for the research was provided by Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College.