Moral educational conceptions of children and adolescents: dialogue between the moral judgment theory of Piaget and the social domain theory of Turiel

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to investigate the moral educational conceptions of children and adolescents, focusing on their understanding of the role of parents as educators and character formers. It is an exploratory, descriptive research of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The data were collected through structured interviews, using an instrument based on social domain theory and Piaget’s theory, with participation of 45 persons aged 10 to 13 years, students of a public school in a peripheral neighborhood of a municipality in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region. The results indicated: little presence of moral justifications and the large proportion of conventional justifications; obedience even when not legitimizing parental authority; little claim for autonomy; it was noted that the legitimacy of parental authority, the binding character of a rule and rule compliance predominate to a greater degree in situations that have previously been classified as being of moral, prudential and conventional domains, different from situations of personal domain. Considering the results it can be said that, from the point of view of the participants in this sample, the role of the parents is strongly related to the establishment of rules about all the contents of the children’s social interactions. In addition, their authority is often legitimized, except on matters perceived as personal domain. In consulting the literature of the area, it is observed that parents and children have different perceptions about justice, obedience, autonomy and respect in their relationships. We suggest new researches with diversification of the samples and the insertion of the variable “religion”, given the amount of justifications referring to it.