A cross‐cultural study of pre‐adolescents’ moral, religious and spiritual questions

Abstract

This study investigated differences across four countries in the amount and nature of above‐average ability and average‐ability pre‐adolescents’ everyday life, scientific, moral, spiritual and religious questions. The participants (N = 975) of this study were fifth‐and sixth‐grade elementary school students from different schools in Finland (N = 367), the USA (N = 164), Hong Kong (N = 169) and Bahrain (N = 275). Approximately half of the students in each country came from special programmes or schools serving above‐average‐ability students. The results showed that above‐average‐ability students from each participating country asked more scientific and moral questions than their average‐ability peers. This finding was not found to be gender‐related. Furthermore, in each country the average‐ability students asked more everyday life questions than their gifted peers. The Christian influence in the Finnish and US data, and Muslim influence in the Bahrain data were seen in the spiritual and religious questions asked by pre‐adolescents. Additionally, in all the data sets girls asked more spiritual and religious questions than boys. The results point to the need for teachers to discuss moral, religious and spiritual questions influencing pre‐adolescents’ futures.