O presente trabalho investiga e reflete sobre o que pensam os cuidadores a respeito do desenvolvimento moral dos acolhidos. O referencial teórico utilizado foi a Epistemologia Genética, em especial o Desenvolvimento Moral na obra de Jean Piaget. A pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender como se caracteriza o ponto de vista dos cuidadores sobre a contribuição de suas ações cotidianas para o desenvolvimento moral de seus acolhidos. A pesquisa se desenvolveu em um Núcleo de Abrigos Residenciais ligado a Fundação de Proteção Especial, tendo como sujeitos 12 cuidadores que atuam com as crianças e adolescentes acolhidos. A metodologia adotada foi qualitativa e de estudo de caso único (YIN, 2010). Foram realizadas observações para a construção do roteiro de entrevista e para a elaboração de três histórias, com questões sobre ações educativas no cenário dos Abrigos Residencias, usadas nessas entrevistas. A análise das respostas foi feita com base em três categorias construídas ao longo da analise: a) Formas de Relação, b) Criação de Normas e Regras, c) Valorização dos Sentimentos. Os resultados obtidos indicam que os cuidadores percebem-se como colaboradores do processo de socialização das crianças e adolescentes que vivem abrigados. Notam-se tentativas de propiciar e garantir a toda criança e adolescente o direito e o acesso ao cuidado e à educação (como ações práticas) ligadas aos afazeres cotidianos dos ARs e às possíveis demandas da vida futura. Os cuidaores não diferenciaram explicitamente a dimensão psicológica correspondente ao desenvolvimento cognitivo e moral das crianças e adolescentes. Quanto às normatizações nos ARs, segundo o ponto de vista dos entrevistados, são predominantemente decorrentes de relações coercitivas, baseadas no respeito unilateral e na heteronomia, apesar de em algumas situações haver indícios de relações cooperativas baseadas no respeito mútuo. O sentimento de respeito é compreendido pelos cuidadores entrevistados como um sentimento interindividual decorrente dos vínculos estabelecidos a partir da convivência e de afinidades, com predomínio do respeito unilateral. Há pouca argumentação que destaque o sentimento de respeito mútuo numa perspectiva de reciprocidade. / The present work investigates and reflects on what caregivers think regarding the moral development of children and teenagers who live in residential shelters. The genetic epistemology was used as theoretical referential, particularly Jean Piaget’s study of moral development. The research aims to understand how is the characterization of the caregivers standpoint about their contribution in the daily action can contribute to their moral development. The research was developed in the Núcleo de Abrigos Residenciais (Center of Residential Shelters) connected to Fundação de Proteção Especial (Foundation of Special Protection), and the subjects were 12 caregivers who work with sheltered children and teenagers. The methodology adopted was qualitative and involved single case study (YIN, 2010). Observations were made so that an interview script could be written, as well as three stories including questions about educational actions in the residential shelters, which were used in the interview. The replies were analyzed based on three categories: a) Forms of Relationships, b) Creation of Norms and Rules, c) Appreciation of Feelings. The results suggest that caregivers perceive themselves as contributors to the sheltered children and teenagers’ process of socialization. The attempts to provide and ensure to every child and teenager the right and access to care and education (in the practical sense of the concept) were connected to the everyday chores of the residential shelters and to possible demands of their future life. The caregivers did not explicitly differentiate the psychological dimension which corresponds to the children and teenagers’ moral and cognitive development. The establishment of norms in the residential shelters, according to the subjects interviewed, happen predominantly due to coercive relationships based on unilateral respect and heteronomy, although there are, in some situations, indications of cooperative relationships based on mutual respect. The feeling of respect is understood by the caregivers interviewed as an interindividual feeling which results from bonds established from social contact and affinities, with predominance of unilateral respect. Mutual respect in terms of reciprocity is rarely highlighted.

Drawing on principles of social domain theory, the current study examined children’s attributions of emotion and moral judgements when interpreting moral and mixed sociomoral transgressions. A goal of the current study was to explore developmental patterns in children’s ability to coordinate their judgements and justifications across the social and moral domains. Links between emotion attributions, domain coordination skills, and externalizing behaviour were also examined as were associations between the above listed variables and perspective taking. Sixty-six typically developing children between the ages of 6- and 10-years were interviewed following the presentation of a moral or mixed moral and social domain vignette. Overall, there was significant variability in responses depending on the type of story. Developmental findings revealed that older children’s moral reasoning was more specific (e.g., “it is unfair to steal”) as opposed to vague (e.g., “it was bad”) and other-oriented, and they tended to show a greater capacity to recognize both moral and social components of a mixed domain transgression. Further, as expected, younger children provided a greater number of positive emotion attributions overall. Consistent with the study’s hypotheses, higher numbers of positive emotion attributions were predictive of higher externalizing behaviours. Emotion attributions were not associated with children’s domain coordination scores, apart from one mixed domain story. Additionally, perspective taking scores did not predict children’s domain coordination scores or emotion attributions. Developmental implications are discussed in relation to social domain theory, as are implications of emotional expectancies, types of justifications and externalizing behaviour. / Graduate

M.A. / Cognitive development has been an important area of research among many theorists in the past. The study of cognitive development includes the study of the development of cognitive functions, processes and abilities (Demetrious, Doise, & Van Lieshout, 1998). Wick-Nelson and Israel (2000) assert that cognitive development remains an important area of research in the field of contemporary psychology. Piaget formulated a stage theory of cognitive development, and although one can draw certain assumptions from this regarding moral development, it does not address it directly. Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, on the other hand, addresses moral development directly, which, indirectly, builds on Piaget’s theories of cognitive development. This implies a theoretical relationship between these two theories, even though Kohlberg’s theory goes beyond Piaget’s initial formulations (Flavell, 1982). In this study, this theoretical relationship is investigated. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between formal operational thought and post-conventional moral reasoning, specifically. In order to investigate this relationship, a correlational research design was used. The two main variables, i.e. formal operational thought and moral reasoning, were measured by means of Kohlberg’s Moral Judgement Interview (MJI) and the Similarities sub-test of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – third edition (WAIS-III). A biographical questionnaire was also included in order to gain information that could be used as independent variables (e.g. age, race, gender, etc.). This was used to categorize the data for the purposes of the statistical analysis. The assessments were done on 150 undergraduate psychology students. The demographic characteristics of the sample were as follows: - Age group: 17-35 years of age - Gender: 36 male and 114 female - Race: 83 Black, 41 White, 16 Indian, 9 Coloured and 1 Asian. Although the sample size was adequate to perform parametric statistical analyses, the level of measurement, which was ordinal, only allowed for non-parametric analyses. Given the fact that the sample was not representative of the general population, only tentative conclusion could be drawn from the results. To this effect, the study was able to show that there are indications that a significant relationship exists between the level of cognitive development and the level of moral development. This finding warrants the further investigation between these two constructs. A significant relationship between maternal education levels and moral development was also found, which is contrary to the findings of other, similar studies. This finding seems to suggest that there might be certain unique factors in the South African population that may affect moral development in different ways than in other, western populations. It is strongly recommended that these differences be addressed in future research.

This study explores the ways in which young people orient themselves as moral/political beings to contemporary contexts. It sets out to understand the nature of these contexts, with a particular focus on the ideological challenges produced by globalisation and postmodernity. In equal measure, it sets out to examine the ways in which young people inhabit this context, drawing on a blend of Activity and Narrative Theory to expose the strategies that they employ to achieve such engagements. As such, it offers contributions which connect together existing literatures from divergent fields in a coherent way, and which place these amongst data reflecting lived experience. The research fundamentally conceptualises its subject matter as concerned with a process of learning (about oneself, and the world in which one inhabits). As such, though it is not concerned directly with the institution of schooling, or the practice of teaching, it contributes broadly to the field of education.The methodology of the research places equal emphasis on literature and empirical work, generating its key contributions by fostering interplay between the two. It operates by bringing together disparate aspects of theory, and holding these against a lived context, as represented by the perspectives of participants. Empirical data was generated this data through two waves of interview. In the first, sixteen teenage participants were asked in pairs to respond to a series of stimulus images. Follow-up interviews with three sets of these pairs sought responses to initial analysis and commentary on its data. Analysis combined content and critical discourse analysis, examining both what participants’ said of their experience in the world, whilst also interrogating the how those responses were constructed.Through this exploration, I demonstrate that the partiality, ambiguity and contradiction borne of processes of globalisation and postmodernity contort moral/political being. These trouble our moral impulses, perceptions and usual mechanisms of response. As a result, usual theoretical frameworks that attempt to describe to moral being are often unsatisfactory. In particular, these tensions problematise the sense of moral functioning as a rational response to known experience, and the modernist portrayal of development as the gradual development of the cognitive mechanisms necessary to do this. Rather, I represent moral/political existence (what I call ‘ideological being’) as a more organic and reflexive process, by which individuals must import meaning and subjectivities, in order to ‘anchor’ partial experience in something amenable to evaluation. In doing so, I draw heavily on existing work on socially mediated being (particularly that of Wertsch and Tappan), and demonstrate the useful and cogent ways in which it might be integrated with a broader ‘narrative’ turn in social theory.

This thesis examined differences in reasoning concerning hypothetical versus real-life moral situations in order to better understand the moral development of delinquents in general, and psychopaths in particular. Participants ranged in age from 15 to 18 years and were divided into three subgroups: 14 psychopaths, 15 delinquents, and 15 normal youths (total N = 44). All subjects were individually interviewed and assessed on (a) Hare's (1985) psychopathy checklist, (b) two of Kohlberg's hypothetical moral dilemmas, and (c) a subject-generated real-life moral dilemma. Reasoning regarding these dilemmas was scored for both moral stage and moral orientation. It was found that the normal youths attained a higher level of moral reasoning than both the delinquents and psychopaths. Secondly, it was found that all groups scored lower on the real-life than the hypothetical dilemmas, indicating that hypothetical dilemmas may elicit a person's best level of reasoning, whereas real-life dilemmas may entail factors which lower the level of moral reasoning used in an actual situation of moral conflict. Third, non-incarcerated subjects were found to use more of the perfectionism and fairness orientations (Subtype B) than did the incarcerated. It was also found that psychopaths used more of the egoistic utilitarianism orientation than did non-psychopaths when discussing real-life dilemmas. That is, they focused more on issues related to themselves than did either the delinquents or the normals. Thus, this study reveals a pattern of deficiencies in the moral reasoning development of psychopaths and delinquents when compared to their normal counterparts. As well, hypothetical and real-life dilemmas were found to differ in the level of moral reasoning that they elicited. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this dissertation was to undertake a conceptualization and empirical "mapping" of the ethic-of-care domain - often characterized as self-referential and lacking in rigor. The current focus is upon conventional forms of care, involving notions of moral "goodness" as self-silencing and -sacrificial. Employing a "super" circumplex as a prescriptive and descriptive tool, projected item analyses were undertaken as a theoretico-structural clarification of existing scale items, along with a provisional pool of additional items generated as part of Study 1. Based in part on proposed circular criteria, the Conventional Care Scales (CCS) were developed and submitted to a conjoint principal components analysis along with the battery of other care/dependency scale items. An examination of item circular distributions, factor loadings, alpha-contribution plots, and thematic content revealed several factors expressive of two "faces" of conventional care, submissive and ingenuous. These two forms were shown to have unique correlates with measures of adjustment, interpersonal competencies, other factors of the Five-Factor Model, false-self beliefs, and reported distress in narrated accounts of rejected care giving. Gender differences in the association between indices of adjustment and conventional care were also found. The range of conventional care was also extended through the development of scales reflecting other-directed and socially prescribed dimensions of conventional care. The factor structure for the CSS was also replicated in a second sample (Study 2). Participants for Studies 1 and 2 were composed of undergraduate students (N = 302 in both samples) who completed a battery of questionnaires in the first study and the CCS alone in the second study. Anticipating future clinical directions, secondary analyses using structural equation modelling were conducted on an existing data set (N = 92) which included measures of conventional care and perfectionism, along with indices of psychological adjustment and eating disordered attitudes. Results indicated that conventional care, for which there is little research, was more predictive of adjustment and eating disordered attitudes than perfectionism, for which there exists a large clinical literature. This research contributes to an understanding of ways in which an ethic of care can "go awry," as well as proposes a research platform upon which the clinical implications of morality and self-ideals can be investigated. These findings speak to both the constraints and prescriptions that can inform a philosophical ethic of care. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The objective of this study was to test the efficiency of an educacional program (PECC) in order to improve moral reasoning and cognitive complexity. The sample was 18 tenth-grade students of both genders, aged 15-16 years. Even though there were no structural advances in the moral reasoning leve!, there was an increase of reasoning complexity and in the number of elements that the subjects were able to identify in social dilemma. / El objetivo de esta investigación fue probar la eficiencia de un programa educativo (PECC) para elevar el nivel de razonamiento moral y de complejidad cognitiva. La muestra estuvo constituida por 18 estudiantes de 4to de secundaria, de ambos sexos, de 15 y 16 años de edad. Los resultados indican que, aunque no se dieron avances estructurales en el nivel de razonamiento moral, hubo un incremento de la complejidad del razonamiento y en el número de elementos que los sujetos fueron capaces de identificar en los dilemas sociales.

This study compared moral reasoning of first year college students who chose to take the service learning section of a required general education course with students who took the non service learning section of the same course using the Visions of Morality Scale. This study hypothesized that students who chose to take the service learning section of the course would have a higher level of moral reasoning compared to those students who chose to take the non service section. Data was collected from 24 respondents via the Visions of Morality instrument and was joined to data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). The study found that students in the service learning sections of the course scored lower on the Visions of Morality Scale than those in the non service learning sections. Based on CIRP data taken from respondents at the beginning of their freshman year, this study also found a statistically significant difference between students who chose service learning courses and those who chose the non service learning courses in respondent desire to participate in community based action programs. The implications for this study include insight into the reasons why students decide to participate in service courses and subsequently, why some service courses might be more effective than others.

Orientador: Rita Melissa Lepre / Resumo: A presente pesquisa revela a preocupação com a assimilação de valores morais pelos alunos do Ensino Básico, especialmente os adolescentes do Ensino Médio. O objetivo desse estudo foi conhecer e compreender as possíveis contribuições dos memes, uma forma de linguagem e comunicação muito difundida atualmente na internet, como forma de auxiliar os estudantes a compreenderem valores morais. Julgamos importante refletir sobre a necessária atenção que a comunidade escolar precisa oferecer à relação dos alunos com os novos dispositivos virtuais que possibilitam o acesso e compartilhamento de informações em larga escala. A criação e utilização de memes, já considerado um gênero textual, permite aos professores obter importantes informações sobre as compreensões dos discentes sobre a escola e conhecer seus valores morais expressos de forma direta ou indireta nessa linguagem. Nesse sentido, podem se converter em poderoso instrumento pedagógico que auxilie na mediação para a construção de um projeto de educação e desenvolvimento moral. Os memes são instrumentos concretos de análise social e interpessoal, embora sejam virtuais. Representam um novo gênero que reflete uma nova forma de sociabilidade, em um novo espaço, que pode nos dizer muito sobre a sociedade e os valores morais os quais estamos construindo. Com o objetivo de conhecer e analisar os memes produzidos por alunos de uma escola pública do Estado de São Paulo, durante as aulas de história, no intuito de propor um projeto trans... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present research reveals the concern with the assimilation of moral values ​​by the students of Basic Education, especially the adolescents of High School. The objective of this study was to know and understand the possible contributions of memes, a form of language and communication that is very widespread today on the internet, as a way to help students understand moral values. We believe it is important to reflect on the necessary attention that the school community needs to provide students with the new virtual devices that enable access and sharing of information on a large scale. The creation and use of memes, already considered a textual genre, allows teachers to obtain important information about the students' understandings about the school and to know their moral values ​​expressed directly or indirectly in that language. In this sense, they can become a powerful pedagogical tool that helps in mediation for the construction of an education and moral development project. Memes are concrete instruments for social and interpersonal analysis, although they are virtual. They represent a new genre that reflects a new form of sociability, in a new space, that can tell us a lot about society and the moral values ​​that we are building. With the objective of knowing and analyzing the memes produced by students of a public school in the State of São Paulo, during history classes, in order to propose a transversal project of moral education, we have been developing a parti... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

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