Moral education and domains in the classroom: Is nothing as practical as a good theory?

Abstract

Reviews the book, "Education in the moral domain" by L. P. Nucci (see record 2001-06857-000). In his book "Education in the Moral Domain", Nucci summarizes more than two decades of developmental research indicating that it is impossible to ignore children's active understanding of sociomoral rules in search of simple "habit formation." Instead, he argues, children routinely form complex conceptions of both sociomoral events and adults' legitimate roles in those events and if adults ignore these conceptions it will only undermine their attempts at moral education. In the past, ideas like these were seen as damaging because they suggested that children should "question authority." By contrast, the recent developmental research reviewed in this book indicates that, although children and adolescents do sometimes "question authority," there is a surprising amount of consensus in children's and adults' sociomoral understanding and behavior. This book provides an intellectually compelling summary of recent developmental research on children's sociomoral development with a clear eye on the implications of that work for classroom moral education and the larger moral climate of schools. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)