The Culture of Morality: Social Development, Context, and Conflict - Hardcover

Turiel, Elliot

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521808332 ISBN 13: 9780521808330

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The Culture of Morality examines how explanations of social and moral development inform our understandings of morality and culture. A common theme in the latter part of the twentieth century has been to lament the moral state of American society and the decline of morality among youth. A sharp turn toward an extreme form of individualism and a lack of concern for community involvement and civic participation are often blamed for the moral crisis. Elliot Turiel challenges these views, drawing on a large body of research from developmental psychology, as well as from anthropology and sociology. He also culls from social events, political movements, and journalistic accounts of social and political struggles in many places of the world. Turiel shows that generation after generation has lamented the decline of society and blamed young people. Using historical accounts, he persuasively argues that such characterizations of moral decline entail stereotyping, nostalgia for times past, and a failure to recognize the moral viewpoint of those who challenge traditions. He also argues that people's discontents with the unfairness of many aspects of societal arrangements, traditions, and established practices are often misinterpreted as a lack of commitment to society or community. Going beyond American society, Turiel's penetrating analysis uses examples of social events, political movements, and journalistic accounts of social and political struggles worldwide. He shows how marginalized populations often oppose cultural arrangements, and mobilize to change the societal status quo. This unique study is a thoughtful integration of extensive research; an original approach to moral development, social justice, and culture. Elliot Turiel is Chancellor's Professor in the School of Education and Affiliate in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health, and a Van Leer Fellow. He is the President of the Jean Piaget Society. Turiel's previous book is The Development of Social Knowledge (Cambridge, 1983), and he has edited or co-edited Culture, Thought and Development (Erlbaum, 2000), Values and Knowledge (Erlbaum, 1997), and Development and Cultural Change (Jossey-Bass, 1999). Within the field of psychology, Turiel is considered one of the leading researchers of moral and social development. His work has served to provide new directions for a number of now-prominent researchers.

About this title

About the Author

Elliot Turiel is Chancellor's Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He is an Affiliate in the Department of Psychology. He served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (1994–99) and Acting Dean of the Graduate School of Education. He is author of The Development of Social Knowledge: Morality and Convention, and is editor or co-editor of Values and Knowledge, Development and Cultural Change: Reciprocal Processes, and Culture, Thought and Development.

Reviews

William Bennett had better beware! The claim that Bennett and other neoconservatives have made so much of--that America is in moral decline--has attracted a relentless new critic. Challenging the key terms in this widely accepted claim, Turiel argues that an authentic morality not only can survive breaks with communal traditions but often demands such ruptures. Among civil rights leaders of the 1960s and among Arab feminists today, Turiel finds exemplars of pioneers who risk conflict to end cultural practices that lend to oppression the name of morality. Likewise, in the widespread refusal of contemporary Americans to accept inherited patterns for family and personal life, Turiel sees not the selfishness and narcissism lamented by Bennett and his allies but rather a laudable new willingness to consider fresh possibilities for individual autonomy and for social justice. Those who condemn America for its moral decadence--in Turiel's view--simply fail to realize that societies, just like individuals, mature in their moral perspectives. Sure to provoke spirited rejoinders in the ongoing debate over the nation's cultural health. Bryce Christensen
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Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521808332
• ISBN 13: 9780521808330
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336