Moral Consciousness of Secondary School Students

This article explores the moral consciousness of Dutch secondary school students. On the basis of a typology of six moral values a measuring instrument is designed, which is used to inquire after the moral orientations of these students. Theoretically these orientations are distinguished along two dimensions of moral reasoning, teleology and deontology, and three categories of moral values relating to first-person, second-person and third-person perspectives. In this way, this article not only focuses on the question whether or not these orientations are present in the student's minds, but also on the question as to how these orientations relate to one another. Especially this latter question is of importance, because it inquires after the structure of the students' moral consciousness. In addition, attention is also paid to the relationship between these moral orientations and certain religious characteristics. As it turns out, there is still a positive relationship between the students' moral consciousness and religion, wherby with certain religious characteristics relating especially relate to teleological, moral orientations.