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This study examined the application of Lesson Study for professional development (PD) for a domain approach to moral education. A comparison was drawn between the effects of Lesson Study with 17 teachers and 144 students representing middle schools in the same district as a prior study employing intensive traditional PD. In Lesson Study, groups of same grade teachers construct lessons taught by one group member and observed by the others. Teachers meet following the lesson to critique and improve the lesson using criteria established by teachers and informed by outside 'experts.' Findings from analysis of teacher discourse over nine months and end of year surveys revealed improvements in teacher pedagogy, knowledge of moral development, greater sense of professionalism, and efficacy for engagement in moral education in comparison with controls. Fewer lessons were produced, resulting in fewer gains in student moral and conventional reasoning than observed with intensive individualized PD.

This article presents outcomes of two studies examining the impact of preservice teachers' preparation on their practice, knowledge, and self-efficacy for supporting students' social and moral development and conducting moral education in the classroom. The studies centered on the Developmental Teacher Education program at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) that provides intensive coursework on moral and social development coupled with sustained programmatic focus upon developmental approaches to teaching. The first study compared UCB results to research outcomes from a similar experimental program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The second study compared outcomes of the 15-month revised version of the UCB program to those of its original two-year master's program. General findings were that the domain-based moral-education approach used in these programs has positive and sustained effects on teachers' knowledge, sense of efficacy, and continued practice for supporting students' sociomoral development and delivering moral education in the classroom.

Eleven teachers and 254 urban middle-school students comprised the sample of this study examining the social and moral development outcomes of the integration of social cognitive domain theory within regular classroom instruction. Participating teachers were trained to construct and implement history lessons that stimulated students' moral reasoning and conceptions of societal convention. In comparison with baselines and controls, teachers reduced didactic instruction and increased the proportion of class time devoted to small group discussions. Student engagement in transactive discourse significantly increased in participating classes with significantly greater post-test levels of moral reasoning, concepts of social convention, and cross-domain coordination. Student production of operational versus representational transacts through transactive discussion was associated with growth in moral and societal concepts. Teachers continued teaching lessons constructed in the project a year after the research ended.

This article discusses challenges educators face when attempting to sequence moral education. Two factors are identified as primary sources hindering efforts to engage in effective moral education: (a) the premature application of research findings from developmental psychology to classroom practices and (b) the underestimation of the complexity of interactions between development in students' social and moral understandings and their applications in social contexts. Research is reviewed demonstrating that morality develops alongside concepts about societal conventions and zones of personal discretion and privacy. Results of an ongoing study are presented pointing toward a U-shaped pattern in moral development in which frequency of moral choices is higher among younger children and older adolescents than among early adolescents. Research examining contextual moral decision making is discussed in relation to efforts to sequence moral education.

The Arsenio and Lemerise (this issue) proposal integrating social information processing (SIP) and domain theory to study children's aggression is evaluated from a domain theory perspective. Basic tenets of domain theory rendering it compatible with SIP are discussed as well as points of divergence. Focus is directed to the proposition that domains constitute latent structures of SIP. Latent structures are described as cogenerative elements of online processing rather than cumulative stores of social information. Microgenetic studies of the reciprocal role of productive systems described within SIP and latent structures attributed to domain theory are proposed as important to the study of children' aggression. Domain theory studies of social exclusion and bullying are proposed as rich contexts for future research.

Responds to Robert Kunzman's article about the functional relationship between morality and religious faith. Argues that Kunzman's position undermines religious freedom by not recognizing the diversity among religious belief systems and imposes the beliefs of the religious on those who do not hold religious commitments. (CAJ)

Discusses the Defining Issues Test as an invaluable tool for research and practice in moral education. Explains that because such instruments are based upon previous developmental research, they are unsuitable for research on moral development. Argues that these measures stand in the way of generating new knowledge. (CAJ)

Notes that the current national priority of character education has its origins in early childhood and concept of nature versus nurture and sources of human knowledge, placing early childhood educators at the center of the debate. Highlights articles in this special issue, which provides introduction to moral development application and cultural and developmental factors germane to early moral education. (LBT)

Research suggests children readily distinguish between moral wrongs and social norm violations. Moral concepts consistently focus on issues of justice and compassion regardless of religious belief. Moral education can be compatible with, and independent from, religious doctrine. Two principals for such education are suggested as useful for classroom management. (MT)

In an attempt to clarify the confusion about the teaching of morality in the classroom, the author discusses the distinction between the concepts of morality and convention. Young children can distinguish between rules and moral principles, and successful moral discussion is more likely to occur in classrooms employing cooperative goal structures. Includes references. (MD)

Author describes how psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg's work has been influential in a different line of research than Kohlberg's own, sharing observations of the impact of Kohlberg's work on the field of moral education and on the author's own work in the field. (Author/NB)

Offers support for the view that morality and convention constitute discrete conceptual demains and undergo independent courses of development. Argues that moral education should be reexamined to insure that specific activities and responses are appropriate to the domain and to the students' developmental level. (Author/WD)

The study of fourth graders employed a series of sorting tasks with 22 normal and 20 children with behavioral disorders (BD) to determine whether BD children discriminate among three classes (moral, conventional, and personal) of social actions viewed by normal children as distinct. (Author/SW)