Teacher Education for Democratic Classrooms: Moral Reasoning and Ideology Critique. Draft.

This paper examines the moral reasoning of preservice and inservice teachers; reviews and summarizes empirical studies that have examined teachers' levels of principled reasoning; relates that information to the construction of democratic classrooms, which are a critique of both authoritarian and status quo democratic systems; and presents implications for teacher education programs. A computer search of the ERIC and PsychInfo databases yielded 30 studies on the use of 2 systematically validated measures of principled moral reasoning: (1) the "Defining Issues Test (DIT)," based on Kohlberg's stage theory, which measures receptive moral reasoning; and (2) the "Moral Judgment Interview (MJI)" which measures expressive moral reasoning. A summary of these studies indicates that most teachers cannot spontaneously reconstruct democratic systems in their schools nor critique the ideology structuring their schools. However, when school leaders advocate a principled critique of status quo social structures, teachers have the ability to collaborate toward that end. Four appendixes provide annotated reference lists of all articles identified through the search that utilized MJI or DIT scores in assessing in-service or pre-service teachers' moral reasoning. (Contains approximately 60 references.) (LL)