Moral Judgments and History Teaching

Abstract

Affective objectives, stressing the humanity aspect of history, are often written into history syllabuses. Yet these objectives are very soon eroded because of the relative lack of knowledge of the psychological equivalent of affective objectives. It is suggested in this paper that Piaget's theory of the development of moral judgment from a stage of heteronomy or morality of obedience to one of autonomy, of reciprocity towards other humans who are now viewed as selves equal to oneself, may provide the much needed psychological basis. By providing adolescents with the opportunity to interact with a much extended social environment of humans past and distant, the history teacher is able to promote maturity of moral judgment as an important aspect of social development. Some normative data relating to this transition in adolescents are briefly presented and some of the conditions that stimulate the shift towards a more advanced stage of development are discussed, with particular reference to Turiel's research.

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