Abstract

Chilren's moral reasoning about sport specific and daily life dilemmas was investigated. Four hypothetical moral dilemmas featuring parallel moral issues in sport and daily life contexts were presented to 110 girls and boys in grades 4 through 7. Each child was assigned a "sport" and "life" moral reasoning score based on Haan's (1977) interactional model of morality. Analyses demonstrated that 6/7th grade children's sport reasoning was significantly lower, that is, more egocentric than their life reasoning. Additionally, the amount of this life-sport reasoning divergence was significantly gerater for the older children than for the younger ones who did not demonstarte context-specific reasoning patterns. School level differences in life-sport moral reasoning patterns were compared with the divergent reasoning patterns reported in Bredemeier and Shields (1984) of high school and college athletes. Results are discussed in terms of social and normal development. Verf.-Referat