Moral Development in Female Adolescence: A Comparison of Delinquent and Non-Delinquent Girls.

摘要

The relationship of morality to female juvenile delinquency was examined by comparing levels of moral development in a sample of adolescent females adjudicated as juvenile delinquents (JDs) with those of adolescent females not adjudicated as JDs. Within the sample of female JDs, the nature of the offending behavior, that is whether it was a person or a property crime, was also examined to determine whether there is a relationship between the nature of the behavior and the specific aspects of moral orientation.;This study is based on Moral Development theory. As advanced by Lawrence Kohlberg and later revised by his followers and former students (Gibbs, Basinger, & Fuller, 1992), moral development theory is stage based and asserts that the individual progresses from a "relatively superficial level to a more profound and mature level" (Gibbs et al., 1992 p.12). The Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form (SRM-SF) (Appendix A ), developed by Gibbs et al. (1992) as an alternative to Kohlberg's far more demanding Moral Judgment Interview (MJI), was used. The SRMSF has been found to be a reliable and valid method of measuring moral development and one that can be administered and scored with greater efficiency than the MJI. The moral development of a sample of Court adjudicated female JDs was compared with a sample of non-adjudicated female adolescents. Within the Court adjudicated female JD sample, two subcategories were compared in relation to the nature of their delinquency offense and aspects of moral orientation.;Several studies (Gavaghan, Arnold, & Gibbs, 1983; Garmon, Basinger, Gregg, & Gibbs, 1996; Gregg, Gibbs, & Basinger, 1994; Larden, Melin, Hoist, & Langstrom, 2006) investigated a possible relationship between female juvenile delinquency and moral development in samples of female JDs who were in out of home placement or incarcerated. In contrast, this study looked at female JDs who were newly placed on court ordered, community-based Probation and residing in their own homes. No such study was found in my research.;The study samples were smaller than anticipated and not comparable on a number of important demographic variables. While the difference between the two samples, when measuring the level of moral development, was statistically significant, this finding must be considered with great caution given the size and nature of the samples. Differences between the two subcategories of JDs were not significant when the nature of their offenses in relation to aspects of morality was examined.