Cognitive approaches to moral development

If we are concerned with young people and how they interact with their communities, we must be interested in the pscyho-social factors that influence children and adolescents to act the way they do. On this occasion, I am interested in "moral development"; that is, what are the prevailing theories regarding moral (and to some extent, social) development? Moreover, why should we care?

The foundational theory of moral development belongs to Jean Piaget, who posited that there are cognitive structures that develop in late childhood and early adolescence which are linked to stages of development of moral reasoning in young people (1965). Piaget constructed a set of "moral experiments" to test attitudes and behaviors in young children and the differences in slightly older children. He found that young children tend to understand and conceptualize morality in terms of obedience to authority figures (adults) whereas older children think about morality in terms of peer groups. Older children, he observed, displayed a sense of reciprocity and empathy, due possibly to the fact that their social environments consisted primarily of interactions within an "egalitarian" peer group.

Lawrence Kohlberg (1971, 1976, 1978) used this notion of the relationship between cognitive structural development and moral understanding/behavior to argue that there are a defined number of cognitive structures, that develop in a series, that are tied to conceptions of "justice" in adolescents. Moreover, he claimed (convincingly to many) that these stages are universal across different societies.

This is by no means an exhaustive view of theories of moral development, but it is important to note the influence of Piaget and Kohlberg on current understandings of child social and emotional development. The notion of "service-learning" embodies this Kohlbergian constructivist-psychological framework (whether consciously or not). That is, service-learning, as a pedagogical approach, assumes that conceptions of justice and reciprocity are developing at a certain stage (K-12) and those conceptions may be enhanced through exposure to diverse environments. In fact, Kohlberg's theory applied in the educational context relies heavily on John Dewey's ideas of experiential education.

I would argue that this is precisely why we should care about the prevailing psycho-social view of "moral development": because this view is informing how children are educated in public schools. I will be exploring challenges to Kohlberg's theories in terms of actual pro-social behavior on the part of adolescents in a post later this week. For more on cognitive approaches to moral development see Colby, A. & Kohlberg, L. (1987) The measurement of moral judgment. Volume 1: Theoretical foundations and research validation.

On Citizenship

What does it mean to be a "good citizen"? It is debatable that there was ever an answer to that question. Philosophers, political theorists and essayists have made names for themselves attempting to provide a definition of "citizenship", with varying degrees of success. These definitions, more often than not, explore the relationship between the citizen and the state. Sometimes, they are couched in the language of "rights" and "responsibilities". John Rawls has made a life's work extolling the virtues of the "deliberative democracy" where the citizen must actively participate in the affairs of state for democracy to be at its most efficient. To oversimplify, the citizen owes the state some form of payment in return for the state's protection. When we look at the Rawlsian citizen, service to the state is a defining characteristic.

This perspective is reflective of the overarching American narrative of citizenship. Beginning with William James' "Moral equivalent of War", American social discourse has emphasized a notion of sacrifice for the greater good. To be "good citizens", we must unite for a common cause, against a common enemy. The idea of self-denial as a path to a better country is bound up in American mythology, and consequently we turn to this idea when we want people to become more involved. Our politicians and community leaders call on a perceived sense of duty to inspire people to be "better citizens" and become involved in service activities.

Increasingly, however, it seems that we may be missing the point. The beauty of the overarching narrative is its simplicity and applicability. If all people in a society define themselves (at least in part) according to the same basic themes, then there is the potential to impact their behavior by appealing to those themes. But what if things don't work that way? What if individuals do not form their identities based on a set of limited, constant ideas. Post-modernists argue that the meta-narrative does not exist, and all that matters are personal narratives (another simplification). So now the question is, how do we appeal to millions of distinct personal narratives to influence individuals to be "good citizens"? Can we? Should we? Is there anything useful about "responsibilities" talk, and are we expecting too much from individuals?

A statistical footnote

It is possible the title of this post is slightly dramatic for the content, but I'm working on the science of reader attention, so bear with me.

While perusing the National Center for Education Statistics' website, I came across this study. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study : 1988, the researchers analyzed trends of voluntarism and community service among a cohort of young people. The researchers took the initial cohort from 1988 and interviewed them again in 1992 (when the young people were in 12th grade) then again in 1994 and 2000 in an attempt to gain some insight into patterns of service 2 years and 8 years after high school graduation.

The researchers present their findings as general conclusions, some of which are what I would expect:

* females were found to volunteer more in high school than males and;
* students from high socio-economic status families were more likely to volunteer than those from middle to low socio-economic status.

Some of the other conclusions, particularly those relating to how mandatory or incentive-based volunteering in high school relates to the incidence and persistence of volunteering and civic activity after high school are a little more difficult to unpack. Those conclusions are interesting, but I found myself drawn to a couple of seemingly innocuous footnotes.

The first footnote is an answer about what their cohort is doing 2 and 8 years after high school graduation. It reads:

In 1994, 56 percent of the 1992 senior cohort reported being enrolled in at least one academic course in a 2- or 4- year college, and 63 percent reported being employed in either full- or part-time jobs. Eighty-eight percent reported being involved in at least one of these activities.

So where's the other 12 percent? Are they missing? Incarcerated? In the army? Part of the answer can be found in the appendix to the study where the researchers discuss their statistical methods. Individuals that were identified as dropouts in the second follow up interview (1992) were dropped from the study entirely. The same paragraph notes that some individuals were dropped from the sample because of "emigration, death, and other reasons".

The authors are forthcoming about the limitations of their study, due in part to a small sample size. They note that their conclusions are still useful because they identify general trends that may be of interest to other researchers, particularly those researchers interested in the impact of mandatory voluntarism through schools on motivations to serve in later life.

It would seem to me, however, that those "missing members" may also hold some answers to questions about the limitations of current models of youth service programs.