The Role of Moral Reasoning and Domain Judgment in Adolescent Risk Engagement.

Moral reasoning, engagement in risk, and domain placement of risk as a moral, conventional, or personal issue were assessed in two groups of students: an intervention group participating in an alternative school program employing the just community approach to education, and a control group from the larger high school with which the alternative school is affiliated. Students completed a questionnaire assessing the frequency with which they engage in four types of risk (delinquency, substance involvement, sex, and suicide); a questionnaire assessing how participants categorize decisions about whether to engage in these risks (as decisions of morality, social convention, or personal discretion); and the Defining Issues Test. Overall, students perceived risk as a personal choice, with the exception of delinquency, which was perceived as a moral choice; however, for substance involvement, this relationship differed by level of risk engagement. Domain placement of risk moderated the reasoning-behavior relationship such that students who considered delinquent activity to be a least partly a moral issue, and whose behavior corresponded to their judgments, exhibited less preconventional reasoning and more post conventional reasoning than those whose behavior did not correspond with their judgment. This relationship differed by school, indicating that the intervention had positive outcomes. (Contains 14 references.) (Author/EV)