Morality in Everyday Life: Developmental Perspectives

This collection brings together current research on morality in human development. Morality in its various forms is a dominant influence on the conduct and evaluation of day-to-day life. The pervasiveness of the moral domain can be detected in every aspect of social life; moral commitments shape the goals and aspirations of individuals and moral judgments are apparent in discourse about most forms of human interaction. Two broad themes integrate this book: social context relationships and development. Contexts include interpersonal as well as societal communities and cultures.

"Killen and Hart, moving beyond their Kohlbergian roots, present chapters which mainly bring a social perspective to moral reasoning development. Several pay detailed attention to interactions between children, and between children and adults. This rich data demonstrates the vital importance of naturalistic studies, which are examples of how the cognitive developmental framework is being transmuted into the developing field of cultural psychology. They also illustrate research rigour, and conceptual sophistication about the problems of defining morality." The Psychologist

"This book is a terrific achievement...I quote from it all the time. The paperback version makes the book widely accessible. Itas a must for advance level courses." William Damon, Professor of Education and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, Stanford University

"The editors of this volume deserve praise for bringing together, in a single volume, many different strands of moral issues and perspectives. Killen and Hart have put together an important collection of papers that will prove to be an invaluable resource to anyone interested in understanding the topics, theories, research issues and debates that inform contemporary moral psychology." Culture and Psychology