Education and Moral Development in Children

Abstract

The author suggests that partly as a result of the controversy over the teaching of religion, schools have avoided teaching children about moral and ethical standards for behavior. Instead, children have been taught that morality is relative and is determined by the cultural, racial, or ethnic group to which people belong. We teach a “moral pluralism” that assumes conflicting moral codes can coexist. We are, however, living in an increasingly interdependent world in which we need a universal moral code to govern our interactions. We are caught between the imperative to function as a world culture and a belief that we need to maintain separate racial, cultural, and ethnic identities. The author calls for teaching children about their spiritual identity, defined by their divine qualities and talents, rather than an identity based on characteristics of race, social class, religious background, and ethnicity. She presents strategies that parents and teachers can use to help children develop an identity with all human beings and a common moral code that can be applied to all behavior.