Talking about Right and Wrong

Parent-Child Conversations as Contexts for Moral Development

Cecilia Wainryb, Holly E. Recchia

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781107026308
• eBook ISBN: 9781139698894
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Though it is generally acknowledged that parents are directly implicated in how and what their children learn about right and wrong, little is known about how the process of moral socialization proceeds in the context of family life, and how it gets played out in actual parent-child conversations. This volume brings together psychological research conducted in different countries documenting how parents and their children of different ages talk about everyday issues that bear on right and wrong. More than 150 excerpts from real parent-child conversations about children's own good and bad behaviors and about broader ethical concerns that interest both parents and children, such as global warming or gender equality, provide a unique window into the moral-socialization process in action. Talking about Right and Wrong also underscores distinct psychological and sociocultural processes that explain how such everyday conversations may further, or hinder, children's moral development.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Parent–child conversations: Contents, contexts, and consequences
• 3 Remember drawing on the cupboard? New Zealand Māori, European, and Pasifika parents’ conversations about children’s transgressions
• 4 Taiwanese parent–child conversations for moral guidance: Uncovering the ubiquitous but enigmatic process
• 5 Constructing moral, emotional, and relational understandings in the context of mother–child reminiscing
• 6 Caught red-handed: How Italian parents engage children in moral discourse and action
• 7 Parent mediation of sibling conflict: Addressing issues of fairness and morality
• 8 Judging fairness in the face of gender stereotypes: Examining the nature and impact of mother–child conversations
• 9 Discussions of moral issues emerging in family conversations about science
• 10 “Did you apologize?” Moral talk in European-American and Chinese immigrant mother–child conversations of peer experiences
• 11 Mother–child conversations about hurting others: Supporting the construction of moral agency through childhood and adolescence
• 12 Voice and power: Constructing moral agency through personal and intergenerational narratives
• Part III Parent–child conversations: Processes and mechanism
• 14 Parent–child conversations from the perspective of socialization theory
• 15 Conversations in the home: The role of dialogue and resistance in children’s emerging understandings of morality, convention, and the personal
• 16 Constructing the good enough self: Parent–child conversations and moral development from an identity framework
• 17 Placing discursive practices front and center: A socio-cultural approach to the study of early socialization
• Subject index