Introduction To Theory And Practice

Introduction to Theory and Practice Name Institution Introduction to Theory and Practice Part One Ethics and moral principles help people distinguish between right and wrong. Ethics determine how people behave. But making the right decision is not normally easy. To try to explain why people behave the way they do, Kholberg developed his own theory of moral development that he defined through three stages. They included preconventional, conventional, and postconventional stages and each stage was divided into two parts (Walrath, 2011). In his belief, moral development starts off at an early age with the preconventional stage and then transitions to reach postcoventional stage. Therefore, Kholberg held that moral development referred to how people reasoned about morality and how they behaved when faced with moral issues (Bandura, 2014). Moral maturity is reached at the postconvetional stage. At moral maturity, people are able to define their own moral values and principles and they do not rely on what the society or the law wants. Not a lot of changes have been made concerning the theory. However, the theory has been used widely in psychology and education. The theory has been praised over the years for providing a good explanation on the moral development of children. However, there have been several criticisms towards the theory. The first is that the dilemmas used to arrive at the theory are mostly artificial (Kurtines, Gewirtz& Lamb, 2014). A great case was the Heinz dilemma. Whereas Kohlberg uses a case of an adult, many of his subjects are kids. The sample used is also biased. The theory was based on all male samples. Therefore, the stages just reflect the definition of males about morality. Consequently, it is illogical to use it for the morality of ladies. Men’s morality relies on abstract principles whereas that of women is based on principles of care and compassion showing that there is a sharp contrast between them.Critics have also raised issues whether there are distinct stages of moral development. There is no concrete evidence to support the existence of distinct moral developments. The reasoning between right and wrong relies less on the general rules and more about the prevailing situation (Kurtines et al., 2014). In education, the theory can be used in a classroom where consequences, rules, and standards are concerned. Educators can determine where the personal developments of their students lie, depending on Kohlberg’s six stages. The educators can then use what they know to help their students achieve the best moral characters in response Kohlberg’s six stages. Students can have a chance for self-evaluation and they can review their reasoning and determine the best way they can proceed into the future (Kurtines et al., 2014). Students can also use the theory to ensure that they develop their own understanding of the curriculum and avoid always relying on the teacher to tell them what do. The students are charged with ensuring they are responsible for their learning and they adhere to the goals of their education by ensuring that they are academically enriched. Using the 5th stage of “upholding social contract”, students ensure collaborative learning. This can help students to be more engaged and invo...