Some of my mentors engage in practice of a 'just community approach'
in school settings with a purpose of help 'develop' children's morality,
morality as understood as concepts related to the protection of human rights
& promotion of others' well-being which is viewed most optimally possible
within a community where people are encouraged to 'experience', 'feel' and
engage in autonomous decisions free from the forces of authority. Some of
their research, conceptually stemed from constructivistic perspectives,
reveals rather universality of the existance of kids morality.
     Being asked if it is ok to hit Jim in the face, if her mother says it
is ok, go ahead and hit him, Sally (e.g.) still said it was not ok to hit
him. The reason is usually because it hurts. Kids, as early as 2 years of
age, seem aware of  the concept of this morality (or actually possess the
morality and practice it)  and negative consequences upon others when it is
violated. Whether viewed as an innate element or a product of outside
forces, morality of youths who grew up in desadvantaged environment / spent
some time in institutions where they experience limitted amount of ordinary
interaction with others is measured to be lower than those who did not have
such experience.
    Just to add, within research on moral development, some other related
studies also indicate kids tend to accept parental authority/control upon
their everyday decision making process on what considered as prudential,
moral, and conventional issues, but parent-child conflict tends to occure
when parental control comes in kids' conduct of what they consider as
private, which named the issues of youths' personal domain.
    When there might be serious intrapsychic distortion involved as a cause
of one's moral decline, I am not sure to what extent the constructivistic
veiw points can be possibly applied though.
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Yuki Hasebe
Educational Psychology
University of Illinois, Chicago
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