Effects of Moral Dilemma Discussion on Children's Distributive Justice Reasoning

가설적 갈등상황에 대한 집단토의가 유아의 분배정의 추론에 미치는 영향

A major concern in the area of moral education is to find an effective educational method capable of supporting maturity of moral reasoning in young children. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of distributive dilemma discussion on children's distributive justice reasoning. The subjects were fifty 5-year-olds selected from a kindergarten in the city of Kumi. 26 children participated in a 10 week discussion intervention; another 24 children constituted the control group. The experimental procedure consisted of 3 parts; a pre-test to determine the experimental and control groups, moral discussions on dilemma situations based on 10 stories for the experimental group, and a post-test for both groups. The moral discussions were audio-taped. The results showed that children in the experimental group used more varied and elaborate distributive justice reasoning as the discussions proceeded. Moral discussions facilitated distributive justice reasoning.