Resumen

BARBA CASILLAS, Bonifacio. Age and Schooling Influence in Moral Judgment Development. REDIE [online]. 2002, vol.4, n.2, pp.23-45. ISSN 1607-4041.

The article describes the evaluation of moral judgment of a group of professionals, who must of them work in basic education. Evaluation was accomplished by applying the defining Issues Test by J. Rest. The mean differences were evaluated with the t test (alfa = 0.05) and a regression analysis was made. By using the arithmetic means of moral stages and postconventional moral level (P index) the profiles of moral development for the sample and four variables are described. The analysis emphasizes postconventional moral thinking in relation to schooling, age and teaching level. The moral development of adults is compared with that of students. The professionals have a moral profile with preeminence of stage 4 of moral judgment, a characteristic shared with the students. The former have a balance in the use of Rest's moral judgment schema and have a larger postconventional moral growth than the latter. There exists significant differences in postconventional moral thinking related to education, age and educational working level among the professionals. The association between age and postgraduate education is the most influential factor in the postconventional moral growth.

Palabras llave : Moral judgment development; professionals; principled moral reasoning; basic education teachers; Kohlberg.