Moral development in children

Abstract

The research included twelve children divided equally in two age groups, six/seven year olds and nine/ten year olds, which had the same number of boys and girls. The study aims at exploring the moral development of children. Differences in responses will be analyzed according to age and gender. The results were gathered by interviewing each child by means of moral dilemmas followed by questions which are related to these stories. The answers obtained show some recurrent themes and a number of age and gender differences. Younger children were more concerned with religious beliefs while the older age group was more oriented towards laws and norms. Girls gave more answers, than boys, which reflect consciousness of feelings while boys gave more responses that mirror their understanding of interpersonal relationships. This study was useful to capture the diverse concepts that children employ to derive moral judgements.