2-183 - Children’s Perspectives on Their Own Moral Experiences: Narrative Approaches to Moral Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The development of children’s moral understandings and values is based on the meanings that children construct from their social experiences. Yet moral development research has largely relied on decontextualized assessments of moral reasoning (Killen & Smetana, 2015). This symposium brings together presentations investigating moral development using a narrative approach that is ideally suited to reveal how children construct moral meanings from the actual events that they experience in their lives (Pasupathi & Wainryb, 2010).
The first presentation used structural analysis to examine children’s description of their own values, and how these accounts vary according to the relative importance of such values as guiding principles in their lives. The second explored how children’s narratives reveal age and context differences in children’s conceptions of disrespect. The third investigated how children’s moral voice is either supported or suppressed as they position themselves relative to adults in their narratives of conflict. The final presentation analyzed how war-exposed youths’ efforts to construct meanings from their experiences can promote resilience but also trigger profound moral risks.
Presentations are based on narrative corpora including over 3,000 stories, drawing on samples of youth across a broad age range (5- to 18-years) and in diverse educational and cultural contexts. Methodologically, studies demonstrate innovative qualitative and quantitative approaches to the narrative analysis of content and structure. Collectively, presentations add to the literature on typical and atypical moral-developmental trajectories, and exemplify how children’s constructions of meaning can both support and thwart their moral understandings of themselves, others, and their social worlds.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chairs

• Holly Recchia, Concordia University

• Ella Daniel, Tel Aviv University

Individual Presentations

• Children's Perspectives of their Own Values during Middle Childhood - Presenting Author: Reut Vraneski-Shachnai, Tel Aviv University; Ella Daniel, Tel Aviv University

• “My Best Friend Made Fun of Me”: Examining Contextual Elements in Children’s Narratives of Disrespect Experiences - Presenting Author: Shannon Audley, Smith College; Kelcie Grenier, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

• Moral Voice is Suppressed in Children's Conflict Narratives when they Position Adults as Enforcers rather than as Consultants - Presenting Author: Marsha D Walton, Rhodes College; Alice J. Davidson, Rollins College

• War-Exposed Youth Narrate about their Own Morally-Laden Experiences: The Unveiling of Problematic Moral Trajectories - Presenting Author: Cecilia Wainryb, University of Utah