The first part of this two-part paper provides a general review of adult development and is premised on an understanding of andragogy. Andragogy is the art and science of helping adults learn. It is based on the following four assumptions about adults: (1) as people mature they become less dependent and more self-directed; (2) experiences serve as…

To combat the problem of teenage pregnancy, public health clinics have made birth control counseling and free contraceptives available to minors and many public schools have implemented sex education programs. Despite the development and implementation of these programs, teenage sexual activity and pregnancy have increased. The increase in…

A study was conducted to examine young children's ideas about a psychology study in which they had participated, and to assess their perceptions about the voluntary nature of their participation. Subjects were 28 third-grade students and 28 fifth-grade students. Findings indicated that while no significant grade level differences existed in…

This volume presents materials related to a symposium that addressed adult faith development. Chapters 1 and 2 provide background information on this topic and an overview of the symposium. Chapter 3 contains the hypotheses paper by Charles Bruning and Kenneth Stokes that was the basic document of the symposium. It provides a review of the…

This a report from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) Panel on Moral Education. Topics discussed include the following: (1) why moral education now; (2) morality and religion; (3) what is moral education; (4) moral education in the social context; (5) characteristics of the morally mature person; (6) the teacher as a…

Developmental differences in attitudes toward physically disabled individuals were measured with an instrument requiring spontaneous responding and utilizing a systematic scoring taxonomy. Additionally, relations between attitudes, moral judgment development, and belief in a just world were explored. Forty high school freshmen and 40 seniors as…

The purpose of this study was to compare the relative merits of two causal models in which moral reasoning, sex, and social class were used to predict classroom behavior problems. Model A implied that conduct problems would decline linearly as moral maturity increased. Model B implied that the lowest as well as the highest levels of moral maturity…

A questionnaire was administered to 70 children in two age groups who averaged either 5 years, 8 months, or 10 years, 7 months of age, for the purpose of documenting their understanding of legal process and courtroom procedure. Questions probed factual knowledge and social cognition and perception. Subjects were also asked about four moral…

Perry's theory of intellectual and ethical development of college students is briefly reviewed. This theory was based on work with Harvard University students, and addresses dualism, multiplicity, and relativism. In the first stage, a student sees the world in right-wrong, black-white terms, with no room in the thinking process for conditional or…

Developmental theories, especially the moral development theory of Lawrence Kohlberg, can enhance the teaching of adolescent literature. Expanding on J. Piaget's model of moral development, Kohlberg's model consists of three levels--preconventional, conventional, and postconventional--subdivided into six stages: (1) punishment and obedience, (2)…

Investigations of moral development have usually relied on longitudinal research on adolescent males; such research has served as a basis for national educational efforts to foster moral development. To represent female as well as male perspectives in constructing theories of human development, conceptions of morality and conceptions of self and…

A 20-year study to monitor moral developmental stages is summarized with a focus on the invariant sequence and internal consistency of each stage. It is theorized that an individual passes through several stages in attaining moral judgment. As children grow older, they are able to integrate diverse points of view on a moral conflict. Each stage…

Epistemological loneliness refers to the isolation adolescents may experience as the result of cognitive relativism, ushered in by the emergence of formal operational thought. To examine the relationship between cognitive relativity, epistemological loneliness, and depression in adolescence, 108 adolescents (29 seventh graders, 29 ninth graders,…

Reports the results of a survey of current textbooks in developmental psychology for common citation of pre-1940 publications. The historical significance of the contributions of individual persons and landmark studies are discussed. (SDH)

Discusses the theoretical and practical importance of the interaction between children and their environment. Discussions of moral dilemmas in children's literature provide a rich source of interaction that could help children clarify the basis for moral development of higher levels of moral reasoning. (Author/SDH)