Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development and Literature

Kohlberg's theory is divided into three levels with two stages per level. Each stage is slightly more complex and more effective than the prior. As children, adolescents, and adults assume more responsibility they may progress through the six levels.

People understand their present stage, all below, and the one immediately above. They may revert to lower stages during stressful times. If a teacher or person in authority uses a control strategy at a level below the student's current level, the student will feel humiliated and may regress to that level.

Essentially all good literature deals with values and can play a role in value formation. To do so requires situations that put the characters into conflict with the values of society and slightly above the current level of the reader/viewer to provide readers opportunities to compare and contrast their values against values of the characters that they admire.

Level one: Stage one (Preschool age 3-4) Stage two (K - grade 3)

Stage one is characterized by a pain-pleasure response for individual satisfaction. Control: Use of physical force for compliance. Short-term effect. Physical constraint - Physical abuse

Stage two is characterized by the attitude: I want to appear fair, but come out ahead. Control: Positive reinforcement - Negative reinforcement - Abuse.

Little Red Riding Hood,
Peter Rabbit,
Rumplestiltskin,
Tempelton in Charlotte's Web,
Sister for Sam,
Road Runner
Garfield

Level two: Stage three (grades 4 - 8) Stage four (grades 9 - 12)

Stage three is characterized by a perception of the social order as a need to please, help, or conform for the benefit of the group. Control: Peer pressure - Concern for feelings of group. Range from cooperation and working together and helping each other to ostracism and shunning or shaming a person and making s/he an outcast.

Stage four is characterized by a perception of a need or duty to obey social rules and regulations to maintain social order to have an ordered society. Control: Individual responsibility, Legal systems with an over reliance on legalism and laws carried to extremes.

There is a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom, Lois Sacher, and Me Elizabeth,
The Great Gilley Hopkins,
Island of the Blue Dolphins,
Witch of Blackbird Pond,
A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich,
That was the, This is Now,
Outsiders,
Romeo and Juliet

Level three: Stage five (maybe grade 11-12 for a few? Stage six (?)

Stage five is characterized by individuals that attempt to define moral principles as social-contracts, or legal-contracts based on an understanding of principles of justice and a democratic community. Control: Governance and sanctions based on general democratic principles: fairness, equity, toleration, freedom of thought...

Stage six is characterized by universal justice and ethical considerations that respect the dignity of individuals. Control: principled self-control.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet; Madeleine L'Engle (1973)
Let a River Be; Betty Sue Cummings (1978).
On My Honor,
The Scarlet Letter,
Wizard of EarthSea Trilogy,
Gift of the Magi,
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,
King of the Wind,
Bridge to Terabithea,
Day No Pigs Would Die,
Freedom Train, Harriet Tubman
Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Jump Ship to Freedom