8 - Reaping What We Sow: Cheating as a Mechanism of Moral Engagement

Abstract

Moral engagement model suggests two pathways for fostering strong academic performance. Adolescents reporting communitarian life goals show the most complex views about an ideal school and the strongest sense of agency to work hard, but positive signs of moral engagement are also evident among students with individualistic life goals. It is helpful to remember that moral engagement is evaluated and not moral disengagement or apathy, although the latter reflects conceptually viable approaches to school. Discussions about communal values offer helpful language and practices for encouraging students to resist the temptation to cheat. Such discussions can teach students to take collective pride in their achievements while promoting conduct-focused values of honesty and mutual respect. Educators should remember that schools promoting communitarian values also facilitate moral engagement by emphasizing the benefits of education for individuals, neighborhoods, countries, and the global community. Educators may also promote moral engagement in several ways. Establishing fair routines for achieving classroom goals and drawing connections between those routines and situational demands found in the larger society can help adolescents imagine responsibilities to local and global communities. With help in drawing connections between the details of particular lessons and more general questions of epistemology, students can clarify when and where to direct their efforts.