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Ethical Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th-9th Grade Students

Ethical Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th-9th Grade Students. Kirsi Tirri, Petri Nokelainen & Kristiina Holm University of Helsinki Finland. Four components of morality (Bebeau et al., 1999). Moral judgment Moral sensitivity Moral motivation 4) Moral character. Moral judgment.

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Ethical Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th-9th Grade Students

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  1. Ethical Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th-9th Grade Students Kirsi Tirri, Petri Nokelainen & Kristiina Holm University of Helsinki Finland

  2. Four components of morality (Bebeau et al., 1999) • Moral judgment • Moral sensitivity • Moral motivation 4) Moral character

  3. Moral judgment • “Moral judgment is judging which action is morally right or wrong. Once a person is aware that various lines of action are possible, one must ask which line of action is more morally justified” (Bebeau, Rest & Narvaez, 1999)

  4. Moral judgment and reasoning • Gifted adolescents as a group score higher than their peers in moral judgment (Narvaez 1993) • The high achievers can have an average to high moral judgment scores • Adolescents formulate different dilemmas from the hypothetical dilemmas used in the tests to asses moral reasoning (Colangelo 1982, Tirri 1996) • Moral judgment requires moral sensitivity and moral motivation

  5. Moral character • “Moral character means having the strength of your convictions, having courage, persisting, overcoming distractions and obstacles, having implementing skills, having ego strength” (Bebeau, Rest & Narvaez, 1999)

  6. Moral sensitivity • “Moral sensitivity is the awareness of how our actions affect other people. It involves being aware of the different possible lines of action and how each line of action could affect the parties involved (including oneself). Moral sensitivity involves imaginatively constructing possible scenarios (often from limited cues and partial information), knowing cause-consequent chains of events in the real world, and having empathy and role-taking skills. Moral sensitivity is necessary to become aware that a moral issue is involved in a situation” (Bebeau, Rest & Narvaez, 1999)

  7. Ethical sensitivity • Reading and expressing emotions • Taking the perspectives of others • Caring by connecting to others • Working with interpersonal and group differences • Preventing social bias • Generating interpretations and options • Identifying the consequences of actions and options

  8. Data • The data was gathered during fall 2006 from Helsinki and Jyväskylä (Norssi ja Huhtaharju) • 7-9-grade students (N=249) • 53% girls 47% boys • Gifted 53%, average 47% • A questionnaire with 28 items (4x7) • Likert-scale 1-5

  9. Research Questions • Are there any differences in the self-reported ethical sensitivity between • (1) Lutheran non-confirmed and confirmed students; • (2) female and male students; and • (3) academically average and above average students?

  10. Results: First question • Results regarding the first question showed that those students who have had more religious education at school and also were confirmed in the Lutheran church, self-reported higher ethical skills than their younger and non-confirmed peers. This finding supports our initial hypothesis that ninth graders, who have had more religious education at school and also were confirmed, assess themselves more as ethically sensitive than their younger and less educated peers.

  11. Results: Second question • Results regarding the second question showed clearly that female students estimated their ethical skills higher than their male peers. This tendency can be explained by the types of items measuring ethical sensitivity skills. The majority of them measure caring ethics with emotional and social intelligence. In earlier Finnish studies, both 6th and 9th grade girls were shown to be more care-oriented in their moral orientation than their same age male peers who were clearly justice-oriented (Tirri, 2003).

  12. Results: Third question • Results regarding the third question showed that more academically gifted students estimated their ethical skills as higher than the opinions of average ability students. This finding supports other researchers’ notion that gifted students have a privileged position in the maturation of moral thinking because of their precocious intellectual growth (Andreani & Pagnin, 1993; Karnes & Brown, 1981; Terman, 1925).

  13. Future Studies • Results regarding the psychometric properties of the ESSQ showed that more data (also cross-cultural) and further statistical analyses are needed to prove its usefulness in practice. • Correlations between ethical sensitivity and cultural, religious and spiritual sensitivities

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