Faculty of Education - Theses

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Moral development in early childhood

Milne, Rosemary Anne ( 1984)

This study is of moral development in young children, with a focus on justice as fairness, a term appropriate to the life experience of three- and four-year-old children. The subjects were twenty-eight children attending two groups in a preschool centre (sessional kindergarten), eighteen female and ten male. The ages ranged from three years four months to four years eight months at the commencement of the study. The children were studied for one year at their kindergarten. Five problem areas were explored: (1) moral reasoning; (2) behaviour in peer conflict interactions; (3) relationship between moral reasoning in response to hypothetical dilemmas and behaviour in real-life conflicts;(4) construction of an instrument to describe and measure early moral reasoning and behaviour; (5) moral education within a preschool setting. Semi-structured interviews using Kohlberg-type dilemmas, and naturalistic observations of spontaneous social interactions in free play situations, were the methods used. Pretest and post-test interviews and observations were six months apart. Teachers of one group of children participated in a moral education project which included a process for using naturally-occurring peer conflict in the kindergarten to facilitate moral development.