The Moral Life of Children - Softcover

Coles, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0871137704 ISBN 13: 9780871137708

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000

Synopsis

In this searching, vivid inquiry Robert Coles shows how children struggle with questions of moral choice. Bringing to life the voices of children from a rich diversity of backgrounds, he explores their reactions to movies and stories, their moral conduct, their conversations and relationships with friends and family, and their anxieties about themselves and the fate of the world. Whether they are from the poorest classes of Rio de Janeiro or middle-class America, these children lead lives of intense moral awareness.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Coles is a winner of the National Medal of Freedom.

From Library Journal:

Child psychiatrist Coles received the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for his Children of Crisis , a multi-volume cross-cultural study of American children as moral witnesses to social struggle. The present work, issued in two companion volumes, expands on that theme by including transcripts and thematic analyses of probing interviews with children in Brazil, French Canada, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Poland, South Africa, and Southeast Asia, while occasionally comparing their responses with interviews of American children. Coles's field work methodology is not made explicit enough, the transcripts are highly edited and undocumented, his subjects seem to have been chosen because they were articulate and resourceful, and he admits to an existential bias that one's moral or political conscience is tested only through adversity. Nevertheless, these volumes raise fundamental questions and make an important contribution to the literatures of survival, poverty, and political socialization. Most of his subjects display unnerving composure while living in constant moral jeopardy, and cope by what Coles admiringly terms "an Orwellian attentiveness to the drama of everyday life." These compelling narratives form a vivid testament to the embattled moral stature of children in a diversity of cultures. Both volumes are recommended for those concerned with moral education, the child as citizen, or nationalism as an aspect of childhood. Both include children's drawings that mirror with evident pathos each child's fears and aspirations. William Abrams, Portland State Univ. Lib., Ore.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0871137704
• ISBN 13: 9780871137708
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320