Moral Judgments of Modern Children and Teenagers in Russia

Abstract

Social interaction, rules and regulations for shared activities, moral development of children and its manifestations have long been the focus of attention among Russian and foreign researchers and educators, yet there still remain many open issues. The goal of this paper is to outline possible means, which would help evaluate the level of children's collaborative skills and, consequently, enable educators to target communication skills training more precisely. Moral judgments shared by children are regarded as manifestation of values and standards regulating their collaboration (joint efforts).A Research MethodThis research is based on prototypical study by Jean Piaget and his colleagues (Piaget, 2006), which 1) reveals changes in child's attitude to rule regulating his activity in the process of mastering specific (cooperative) type of teamwork (play); 2) exposes changes in initial norms as children introduce new rules in the process of joint activity (collective play); and 3) describes specific characteristics of these processes for different age groups. Employing the basic method of J. Piaget (suggesting children concrete situations for discussion), we established more intricate procedure for processing their answers: all judgments expressed by the children were recorded on the tape. Hence, we could include into our analysis all versions of answering offered by the children, not only Piaget's definite (non-ambiguous) judgments. We also introduced more rigid criteria for classification of the input data. Data analysis took into consideration the following: 1) whether the direct answer corresponded to certain type of norms; and 2) whether the appendant argumentation corresponded to the direct answer. Taking all these into account, we constructed the following categorical grid for the analysis of moral judgments:1. The so-called first type of norms ( See Appendix 1).2. The non-first type of norms, which includes: 2.1. A type of norms; 2.2. A third type of norms; 2.3. Particular answers named for the purposes of our study of the other 'non-first' type, which includes direct corresponding answers without argumentation as well as corresponding answers with argumentation which content is not related to norms of collective organization. 2.4. Dubious, ambivalent answers: a) dubious answers (and/or); b) comments which change in the process of reflection; c) blended answers, where the answer and its argumentation relate to different categories; d) answers of special type: a constructive denial + formal but not actual consent;To proceed further we must clarify the terms used in description. In Piaget's prototypical study only non-ambiguous answers were subjected to statistical analysis, and respondents' answers were categorized through descriptive oppositions, which enabled J. Piaget to distinguish two stages in moral development: heteronomous morality and This categorizing paradigm clearly demonstrates not only Piaget's principles as researcher but also his own cultural background. Switzerland is country where society is traditionally seen as consolidation of subjects, and this could well be the reason why Piaget called the second stage of moral development the autonomous morality. In Russian culture (where systemic networks and structures tend to seek unification through submission), this term may not be appropriate. This consideration has brought us to introduce modified implication of Piaget's normative categories, naming heteronomous morality as the first normative set of standards, and morality as type of norms, with certain specifications for attribution of the latter.Firstly, the study revealed particular category of answers, which we named third type. It covers judgments made by children and teenagers, which began with phrasing: Contrary to the rules, I think... I believe... …