Moral Development of Children: Correlates and Intervention

Priya Kumari

Moral Development of Children: Correlates and Intervention

Date

2015-08

Authors

Priya Kumari

Publisher

University of Agricultural Science, Dharwad

Abstract

Moral development of children (6 to 15 years) studied on a sample of 480 from Government and Private schools of Dharwad taluk, Karnataka and Kudra taluk, Bihar revealed that, higher proportion of children (6 to 12 years) from both regions fell in high level of moral values. A higher percentage of children of Dharwad (44%) and only 19 percent from Kudra were in very high category. Only six and thirteen percent from Dharwad and Kudra respectively fell in medium level. None of the children were in low and very low level. On moral judgment among 13 to 15 years, majority from both regions were in moderate level, while 13.9 and 16.7 percent of Dharwad and Kudra respectively were in high level. None of the children were in low level. As majority of high school children in comparison to primary school children of both regions were in moderate level and few were in high level of moral judgment, correlates of moral judgment viz., spiritual, emotional and general intelligence, parenting and family environment of 72 children of Dharwad was studied. Moral judgment was significantly and positively related to emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence and parenting, but not with general intelligence. Few dimensions of family environment were significantly related with moral judgment. The intervention programme consisted of moral dilemmas, poems and stories facilitating character building and manners given in 20 sessions of 2 hours each with 5 session/week to 74 children in both regions. Intervention proved to be effective as the scores of moral judgment was significantly higher at post test, score on immanent justice, moral realism was significantly higher in Dharwad children while score on efficacy of severe punishment was higher in children of Kudra. There was also a shift from pre-conventional to conventional and post conventional stage of moral development among 58 percent of children.