Building Socio-Moral Behaviour in Romanian Middle-School Education

Abstract

Moral and civic education is complex and achieved in time. Students are active subjects of society involved in community life by means of their families, groups of friends but also specific relationships they have with various institutions. Moral development theories are elements that support the illustration and translation of the educational space into the form of skills, moral habits, positive character traits expressed at the level of the school population. Our research demonstrates the importance of using moral and civic education strategies consistent with the curriculum objectives and content, to contribute to the formation of character traits and socio-moral behaviour of students. The theme was researched during the 2015-2016 school year at “G. M. Cancicov” Middle School Bacău and involved the support of 4 headmasters of 6th-grade classes, together with 2 teachers of Civic Culture and Religion teaching at these classes. The research group consisted of 90 students, aged 12-13, of whom 45 are girls and 45 boys. There were applied initial evaluation, formative evaluation and final evaluation tests. Comparing the results from the initial and final evaluations it was found that the students’ situation has improved, most students have translated into practice the theoretical elements accumulated, they built a sense of will and character, as well as moral feelings (friendship, comradeship, respect, etc). From the observations made in various situations it was found that all students have acquired certain moral norms, theoretical aspects were put into practice to a higher degree, students showed more respect towards older, vulnerable people and others, became more polite, with attitudes of openness towards others, regarding punctuality, sincerity and other features as compulsory character traits.