Conflict, Contradiction, and Contrarian Elements in Moral Development and Education

Larry Nucci

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781135616083
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

The premise of this book is that individuals and societies have an inexorable urge to morally develop by challenging the assumptions of the previous generation in terms of what is right and wrong. The focus is on the nature and functional value of conflicts and challenges to the dominant moral and social values framework. Through this analysis, individuals develop moral character through conflict with their local authority figures, including parents. The moral structure of societies evolves through intergenerational challenges to and contradictions with the dominant social order. The book is divided into three parts to help frame this discussion:
*Part I directly takes up the issue of resistance as it occurs at a cultural level, and the implications of such resistance for moral education and socialization.
*Part II explores the normative forms of adolescent resistance and contrarian behavior that vex parents and teachers alike.
*Part III brings back the issue of societal structure and culture to illustrate how negative features of society--such as racial discrimination and economic disparity--can feed into the construction of negative moral identity in youth posing challenges to moral education.Taken together, this collection presents a rich counterpoint to the pictures of moral growth as the progressive sophistication of moral reasoning or the gradual accretion of moral virtues and cultural values. It will benefit those in developmental, social, and cognitive psychology, as well as sociology, political science, and education.

Part I
Resistance and Conflict at a Societal Level in Relation to Socialization and Educational Practice

1
Resistance and Subversion in Everyday Life

Elliot Turiel
University of California, Berkeley

Opposition, resistance, and subversion are central aspects of social interactions in most cultures that are largely neglected in most explanations of social and moral development. The focus of research on moral development has been either on socialization into the social system or on the types of judgments made at different ages about matters like justice, welfare, and rights. In this chapter, I present a position on morality that gives a central role to conflict, resistance, and subversion in social relationships. Social relationships are many sided, entailing the application of judgments from several domains. Even within the moral domain, positive orientations to justice and concerns for the welfare of others bring with them conflict, opposition, and resistance in the face of inequalities and injustices. Resistance and subversion are common because social arrangements and practices often embody inequalities.

Social resistance and subversion are, therefore, part of most people’s everyday lives and have their roots in childhood. I discuss ways in which resistance and subversion are manifested in childhood, become more salient in adolescence, and are particularly common among adults in positions of lesser power within social hierarchies—that is, people in lower social castes or classes, minorities, and in much of the world, girls and women. Accordingly, moral resistance is not reserved for those at supposed “higher” levels of development or people supposedly classified as special or elite in their personal moral characteristics. As part of everyday life, resistance is not restricted to organized social and political movements. Social conditions embedded in cultural practices, social norms, and societal arrangements motivate people to act. However, this is not only in the usual sense of people acting in line with societal expectations; social conditions evoke opposition, resistance, and subversion.

Opposition in Childhood and Adulthood

Martin Luther King, Jr. has long been recognized as a great moral leader who spearheaded extremely significant changes toward social justice for African Americans in the United States. However, King himself recognized that social change is connected with the aspirations of large numbers of people affected by societal injustices. As he put it in his famous letter from a Birmingham (Alabama) jail (King, 1963), “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed …. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will come. This is what happened to the American Negro” (pp. 6, 12).

King wrote his letter while imprisoned for leading a nonviolent demonstration in Birmingham. The letter was in response to a public letter sent by eight prominent clergymen admonishing King for his civil rights activities. In the response, King challenged religious and governmental authorities to support protest and demonstrations to combat injustice. Conflict and tension, King (1963) maintained, can serve positive moral ends:

I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive tension that is necessary for growth … to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. (p. 5)

King also levied a corresponding challenge to psychologists when he addressed the American Psychological Association at its annual meeting in 1967. Recognizing the tendency for psychologists to focus on social adaptation and adjustment, he pointed to the imperative to study ways it is not morally beneficial to fit in socially. As he put it (King, 1968, p. 185), “There are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some things to which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will.” Many explanations of social and moral development are, indeed, tied mainly to social adjustment insofar as they focus on compliance and internalization of societal norms. If tension in society is needed for social change, and if resistance is part of everyday life, then those theories have serious shortcomings. However, Piaget (1960/1995b) provided a basis for an alternative view to compliance and internalization in his formulation of moral autonomy, by which he meant “that the subject participates in the elaboration of norms instead of receiving them ready-made as happens in the case of the norms of unilateral respect that lie behind heteronomous morality” (p. 315).

Piaget proposed that the autonomous morality of late childhood is preceded in early childhood by heteronomous morality, with its norms of unilateral respect. Because norms are ready-made in heteronomous morality, young children presumably do not oppose or defy authorities: “From this it follows, for example, that if distributive justice is brought into conflict with authority … the youngest subjects will believe authority right and justice wrong” (Piaget, 1960/1995b, p. 304). With regard to young children and the origins of morality, Piaget’s proposition differs from my own. Young children begin to form moral judgments that are not ready-made and that are not determined by authority, rules, or the customs and conventions of society (Turiel, 1983, 1998, 2002).

Furthermore, the origins of opposition and resistance are in early childhood. Young children do not accept authority as right when they contradict justice (Laupa, 1991; Laupa & Turiel, 1986). As an illustrative example, consider the judgments of a 5-year-old boy, as made in a study designed to examine distinctions between the domains of morality (pertaining to welfare, justice, and rights) and social convention (pertaining to uniformities coordinating interactions within social systems). In that study (Weston & Turiel, 1980), children from 5 to 11 years of age were presented with hypothetical stories of preschools depicted as permitting certain actions. One example was that children were allowed, in this school, to be without clothes on warm days (classified as a conventional issues). A second example of an act permitted within a school pertained to the moral issue of physical harm: Children were allowed to hit each other. Whereas most of the children judged both types of acts as wrong prior to the presentation of the hypothetical stories, the majority at all ages judged the school rule regarding clothes acceptable and the one regarding hitting as unacceptable. The findings of the study are consistent with findings from a large body of research documenting that children’s moral judgments differ from their judgments about conventions on a variety of dimensions (which I do not discuss here). For the purposes here, it is judgments about authority in the context of the study that are relevant. Consider the following excerpts of responses by the 5-year-old boy. The first excerpt begins with his answer as to whether it is acceptable for the school to allow children to remove their clothes; the second excerpt begins with his answer as to whether it is all right to allow hitting.

Yes, because that is the rule. (WHY CAN THEY HAVE THAT RULE?) If that’s what the boss wants to do, he can do that. (HOW COME?) Because he’s the boss, he is in charge of the school. (BOB GOES TO GROVE SCHOOL. THIS IS A WARM DAY AT GROVE SCHOOL. HE HAS BEEN RUNNING IN THE PLAY AREA OUTSIDE AND HE IS HOT SO HE DECIDES TO TAKE OFF HIS CLOTHES. IS IT OKAY FOR BOB TO DO THAT?) Yes, if he wants to he can because it is the rule.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

No, it is not okay. (WHY NOT?) Because that is like making other people unhappy. You can hurt them that way. It hurts other people, hurting is not good. (MARK GOES TO PARK SCHOOL. TODAY IN SCHOOL HE WANTS TO SWING BUT HE FINDS THAT ALL THE SWINGS ARE BEING USED BY OTHER CHILDREN. SO HE DECIDES TO HIT ONE OF THE CHILDREN AND TAKE THE SWING. IS IT OKAY FOR MARK TO DO THAT?) No. Because he is hurting someone else. (Turiel, 1983, p. 62)

Even at the young age of 5 years this boy is of two minds about rules and authority. With regard to clothing, he accepts the rules of the school as stipulated, but with regard to hitting he does not. He judges permitting children to remove their clothes as acceptable because of the rule and because the boss (i.e., the head of the school) has the authority to impose the rule or practice. When it comes to permitting children to hit each other, however, this boy is unwilling to grant the boss the authority to institute or implement the rule. If we looked only at this boy’s judgments about clothing, it might appear that he is compliant (or heteronomous) about school rules and authorities. His judgments about the act of hitting reveal that he makes discriminations between different types of rules or commands and wants to place restrictions on the jurisdiction of a person in a position of authority. In doing so, he expresses opposition to rules and authority from a moral standpoint (autonomy).

The responses of this boy indicate that the origins of opposition are in early childhood. Although that study was not designed to examine opposition, other research has shown that children do engage in oppositional activities and get into conflicts with siblings, peers, and parents (Dunn, 1987, 1988; Dunn, Brown, & Maguire, 1995; Dunn & Munn, 1985, 1987; Dunn & Slomkowski, 1992). These oppositional activities exist, in the same children, alongside positive, prosocial actions and emotions.

Now consider two examples illustrative of opposition, resistance, and subversion among adults—but implicate children as well. These examples do not come from research, but from recollections in adulthood. The first are my own recollections, and the second come from those of a sociologist from Morocco, as reported in Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (Mernissi, 1994).

To place the first example into a cultural context, I need to provide some personal background. I was born on the Greek island of Rhodes (my father’s birthplace), where I lived until I was 6 years old. My family then lived in the city of Izmir in Turkey (my mother’s birthplace) for 2 years. We then moved to New York City. My contacts and knowledge of Greek and Turkish cultural practices were maintained because we were part of a large community of people who had immigrated from Greece and Turkey to New York, and because I went back to those places for extended periods many times (I have also conducted research in Turkey). The most relevant feature of cultural practices for the present purposes is that, for the most part, men were in socially dominant positions and women were in subordinate positions. In my parents’ generation, women did not work outside of the home and men had almost exclusive control of the family’s finances. Typically, women were given an allotted amount of money (e.g., a weekly allowance) for household expenses.

In many respects, women were not content with the inequalities or the control exerted by their husbands. One of the actions women took to subvert the situation was to, when possible, put some money into places available to them and secret from their husbands. Doing so involved elaborate deceptions, as well as a fair amount of risk. Women had several reasons for maintaining secret funds. It was done so they could have some control over their lives and make purchases without the continual oversight of their husbands. It was done to have resources to help members of their side of the family in times of need. It was also done to ensure that resources would be available in the case of a husband’s death. The last reason was particularly important because laws were highly unfavorable toward widows.

The hidden activities I have described were not done in isolation. Women conspired with other women they could trust. In addition, they often discussed their concerns and activities with their children. The second illustrative example, from Fatima Mernissi’s published childhood recollections, shared some of the same features. Mernissi recounted stories from her childhood living in a harem in the city of Fez during the 1940s (Mernissi, 1994). Before relating her story, let me mention that our research has identified another domain that stands alongside the moral and conventional—the domain of judgments about autonomy of persons and boundaries of their jurisdiction (Nucci, 2001). Children form judgments about various activities, including recreational ones that are considered up to individual choice. Although resistance and subversion are grounded in moral judgments, the personal domain can be part of it. When personal prerogatives are systematically restricted in unequal ways, the inequality can turn the personal into moral issues. This can be seen in Mernissi’s story—which on the surface is about the desire of some women to listen to music and dance. On a deeper level, the story is about how in everyday activities there is commitment to combating injustices and inequalities, as well as defiance of those in positions of power.

According to Mernissi (1994), the women, who were confined within the walls of the compound they lived in, were prohibited from listening on their own to a radio in the men’s salon; the men kept the radio locked in a cabinet. It seems, however, that while the men were away the women listened to music on that very radio. As it happened, one day Fatima (when she was 9 years old) and her cousin were asked by her father what they had done that day. They answered that they had listened to the radio. Mernissi told the rest of the story as follows:

Our answer indicated that there was an unlawful key going around …. it indicated that the women had stolen the key and made a copy of it …. A huge dispute ensued, with the women being interviewed in the men’s salon one at a time. But after two days of inquiry, it turned out the key must have fallen from the sky. No one knew where it had come from.

Even so, following the inquiry, the women took their revenge on us children. They said that we were traitors, and ought to be excluded from their games. That was a horrifying prospect, so we defended ourselves by explaining that all we had done was tell the truth. Mother retorted by saying that some things were true, indeed, but you still could not say them: you had to keep them secret. And then she added that what you say and what you keep secret has nothing to do with truth and lies. (pp. 7–8)

Mernissi’s tale is a good example of persistence in the pursuit of what is regarded as right. In addition to violating the rules imposed by the men by listening to the radio, the women resisted by refusing to say how the key was obtained in spite of 2 days of interrogation. As told by Mernissi, resistance on the part of the women went beyond recreational activities like listening to music. The women desired freedoms and rights in many respects, and especially the freedom to venture beyond the walls of the compound. The women also desired a future for their daughters with greater freedoms and opportunities than had been available to them. The women conveyed their goals to their daughters directly and indirectly. As an example, one of the lessons Fatima received from her mother pertained to symbolic ways of resistance toward the goal of social change. Fatima’s mother told her

the whole crusade against chewing gum and American cigarettes was in fact a crusade against women’s rights as well … “so you see,” said Mother, “a woman who chews gum is in part making a revolutionary gesture. Not because she chews gum per se, but because chewing gum is not prescribed by the code.” (Mernissi, 1994, p. 187)

The use of seemingly trivial actions, such as chewing gum, for symbolic purposes occurred in other places and times. Another example can be seen in the activities of women in contemporary Iran. In Iran, women are required to dress in certain ways and cover their faces with veils. They are also prohibited from wearing makeup. However, it is not uncommon for women to defy, in safe public places, the requirements to keep their faces covered and free of makeup. As was the case with the mother’s use of chewing gum, makeup is seen to serve broader purposes in Iran. As one woman put it, “Lipstick is not just lipstick in Iran. It transmits political messages” (“Lipstick Politics in Ira...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Resistance and Conflict at a Societal Level in Relation to Socialization and Educational Practice
• Part II: Resistance, Conflict, and Contrarianism in Youth: Implications for Education and Parenting
• Part III: Moral Education When Social Injustice and Youth Resistance Converge to Produce Negative Outcomes
• Author Index
• Subject Index