In most cases, people are often judged by their character, reasoning ability, and responses. This criterion is always related to good behaviors one exhibits, especially when faced with ethical challenges. Each person tends to respond differently to a particular situation, and mostly, there are more than one outcomes that are considered morally acceptable. However, morals vary from one region to region and person to the other. Despite the differences, there are common morals meant to show a person’s goodness. Like other areas, the topic of morals has raised debate, especially in recent years where some activities collide with communities’ traditions. Notably, there is a radical adjustment in morals, and some perspectives have been considered, leading to broad acceptance of some new norms, such as the LBGTQ movement.
With the revolutions in all fields, especially ethics, the great concern is always on the next generation; hence more focus is placed on raising our children right. Much of the behavioral development of human beings is linked to their experiences, especially their upbringing (Morin, 2021; Rutland & Killen, 2017). This character development is further associated with the environment one is brought up in and their education. This shows that school plays a significant part in raising a child. Since much of the character is developed early when children reach their cognition stage, they are always sent to school to learn. At this stage, children are though to identify objects and services. They are further taught how to perceive an experience, translate it, and respond appropriately. Children are taught to differentiate between good and bad morals at this level, hence developing their character.
At this early childhood level, parents and instructors play a significant role in learning. At this point, children tend to learn from those around them. In addition, various factors such as environment and biological genes inherited contribute to character development. Since learning does not end in childhood, childhood behavior does not guarantee that the child will maintain their behavior until their older age. As parents have different characters, too, these children might vary in behavior despite being thought by the same instructor. This shows that parents too influence the learning habits of their children even in school or away from schools.
Literature review
There is a clear socioeconomic gap between the citizens of every country. This gap dramatically influences the environment in which children are brought up. Since children learn from their elders and instructors, the environment they are exposed to can determine the teaching they will adopt (Hilton & Kuhlmeier, 2019). In many cases, lower socioeconomic status parents might not afford a better and ideal environment for their children’s growth. The perfect climate ranges from spending quality time in own compounds to affording the expensive lifestyle that other children from wealthy families can afford. This contributes to the child’s experience, especially in their preschool, where they learn to differentiate between right and wrong. Therefore, children from different social classes might develop other characters depending on their parental status.
Various studies confirm that different parents with different characters and socioeconomic classes contribute differently to their children’s development (Beibert & Hasselhorn, 2016; Straub & Bondü, 2021). Since preschool children are unaware of much of their surroundings and have little knowledge of the good and bad. They depend significantly on the third party to learn moral and social principles. As for this, the parent’s social class determines the time spent by a parent with their kids. Studies confirm that parents from the lower economic class work harder than their counterparts in the high economic class to have more time with their children (Ada, 2019). At this level, they strive to do acts like reading stories, helping with homes works and doing the arts. This actively contributes to children’s cognitive stimulation in the child’s development.
Child-parent relationship and reading ability
The parent’s socioeconomic status plays been confirmed to contribute significantly to the bonding between the child and the parent. This further influences the reading abilities of the child, with most researches ensuring that children from high socioeconomic classes have higher reading abilities. This is facilitated by the lifestyle and time spent with parents. Su et al. (2017) confirmed the predictive power of early family exposer of the children contributes to child reading abilities. Wen et al. (2016) further explain how the parent’s literacy levels contribute to child learning. In this case, it is presumed that most low socioeconomic class parents, although not all are illiterate compared to those in higher socioeconomic class.
After confirming that socioeconomic status contributes to the child’s reading ability, it is, therefore, directly or indirectly likely to affect the child’s academic performance (Chow et al., 2017). Their academic results could be contributed by the time spent with parents, educational materials accessible to them about their class. At this age, their cognitive abilities improve, enhancing their decision-making. Subsequently, they will recognize, feel, interpret before responding to those events through actions. The confirmation of socioeconomic status contributes to a child’s reading ability; it can be directly linked to parent literacy (Pan et al., 2017). This is because children learn from their parents. Hence parents have to be literate to educate their children too.
The influence of learning motivation
Unlike the child-parent relationship, socioeconomic status does affect the child’s motivation to learn, but not equally in all children. Some factors influencing this distribution are race, grade, and age. It is because these children have different cognitive abilities and levels of learning. Studies show that those from lower classes socioeconomic groups tend to be highly motivated to learn and change their status in the future (Kim et al., 2017, 2018; Liberman et al., 2018; Duan et al., 2018). However, this does not cancel others’ motivation to learn as they also work hard and strive to excel (Dahl & Killen, 2018; Dahl et al., 2017). The motivation of children from poorer backgrounds is due to challenges which they are subjected to due to poverty, thus developing the motivation to succeed and not live in poverty in their adult age.
Early child development and morality
Various studies confirm that even toddlers at the age of 1 to 3 exhibit the characteristics which show that they are aware of the environment they are in. they learn from what is happening in their presence, especially those that are done intentionally and repeatedly that accidental actions (Vondervoort & Hamlin, 2017; Woo et al., 2017; Dahl & Killen, 2018). Moreover, to prove that children distinguish good over evil, in other experiments, children preferred puppets that did not harm their toys (Chernyak and Sobel, 2016; Waugh & Brownell, 2017; Wynn, 2016).
Further studies show how children at younger age shared good moments with puppets that knocked their toys accidentally, thus exhibiting cognitive abilities (Chernyak and Sobel, 2016; Sommerville, 2018; Hammond et al., 2017). In addition, children could show the character that the interviewer expected them to depict during the interview (Vaish et al., 2018; Li and Tomasello, 2018). To ensure that these children relied on their intuitions when reacting to actors’ interviews, props with lesser intention depict they were used, thus confirming children can make their judgment without external intervention (Nobes et al., 2016; Ball et al., 2017). Children also show good intentions, like helping even when not being tested, such as sharing their toys (Margoni and Surian, 2016, 2017).
Research questions
Since this research is focused on the child’s moral ethics development and how their parents can contribute towards their learning, this paper has to answer various questions. The first question this paper should address is; at what age do children develop cognitive abilities. Secondly, the paper should clarify if all children develop cognitive skills simultaneously. Thirdly, it should address how parents can learn that their children have developed cognitive abilities. Finally, this paper should address how parents or instructors can know that these children comprehend what they are through.
In most cases, children can have the same character and behavior despite being brought up in the same environment; the paper should address the differences. Further, the report should address the parental contribution to child behavior development. The paper should analyze parents’ socioeconomic level, attitude, and time spent with their children to satisfy this question. Lastly, after developing good characters, what contributes to the action taking? This can be reflected in areas where children know they are doing the wrong thing but continues doing it despite being corrected.
Design
The experiment is meant to be a controlled setup with minimal external interruptions. The research participants will be sampled from the local schools with the help of the local authorities, parents, and teachers. With the confirmed aim of the research, the researchers will formulate the research questionnaires, which will be used to obtain the relevant data. The research questionnaires will be divided into fill-in questionnaires issued to parents and teachers who can read, comprehend and then answer the questions. The second division of the questionnaires will be guiding the researcher on what to test the kids and fill them regarding the responses they receive from the children.
The research also employs clinical interviews with all the participants to record the verbal and nonverbal hints that might contribute significantly to this research. Further, there will be structure observation, especially by the research supervisor. It will attempt to add more data that the field researcher might have missed. It will also try to address the common problem where participants might give unreliable data due to anxiety and fear of being observed. The data will then be forwarded to the data analyst for processing and report generation with the help of the experts.
Participants
The research sample will consider preschool children aged 3 or 4 years since they are considered in their early cognitive stage. The selection will also assess the child’s background to ensure the sample consists of children from all social classes. Further, the study will consider children in state-owned schools and private schools. This is because state-owned school tends to be relatively affordable compared to private schools. It will also inquire what schools are most preferred for better child development irrespective of their tuition fee.
Materials
The research will first consider using data and materials in past studies, getting preliminary information, identifying what other studies missed, and preparing better materials to address the uncovered areas. Among the ideal materials for this experiment are the documents that will guide the execution of this exercise. Secondly, the participants’ records will be requested from the researchers and the sampled group. Thirdly, since the data developed will be enormous, reliable data storage devices, especially computers, will be preferred with an automated and reliable data backup. In addition, the computers used will be installed with software capable of recording all types of data ranging from numeric to data to text. Finally, tertiary software will be acquired to process the recorded data.
Before the study, information regarding the participants, region, and locality will be acquired. The data collection materials and methods such as questionnaires should be organized and presented to the relevant authorities. Website materials and reference books will be used to give quick statistics to make it easy to notice any anomaly. The anomaly will be investigated until the correct data is accepted. Lastly, the ethical approval documents should be presented to each researcher and other respectful authorities for further approval before commencing the study.
Procedure
Before the research, the researchers who will aid in data collection will be briefed on the study and its aims. They will be familiarized with their study sample through the sample information given by the project manager. During this time, the researchers will also be informed of the ethical procedures which must be observed and how to handle the research participants. Researchers will also address how to respond to severe cases during the study. To ensure that the researchers adhere to ethical protocols, they will be issued research permits obtained from relevant authorities. Lastly, the researchers will be through the simulation of how data will be received, processed, and presented to ensure they know how the entire exercise will be done and its aim.
After briefing the researchers, the project heads will meet the research participants. Since the participants will be minors, the researchers will obtain consent from the parents, teachers, and the local authorities such as town mayors and child protection authorities. Upon meeting the participants and the relevant authorities, they will also be taken through the experiment and be informed of how helpful their participation will be. They will be told how to report or address any misconduct from the researchers and what information to give. They must be informed that they have the right to give the information they are willing to share. Otherwise, they are allowed to deny information they are not comfortable sharing. The participating authorities will sign legal documents proving that all the legal protocols were observed before the experiment.
The research materials will be obtained and dispatched to their respective handlers, with the pre-research preparation done. The field researchers will be issued with the questionnaires and recording gadgets. The subjects aged 3 and 4 years will be first grouped into general groups comprising children from different backgrounds. The simulation of events will be aided by the instructors or teachers who will simulate various situations testing children’s moral responses. The information from each child will be recorded according to their responses.
Further another grouping will be done in which separating children according to their socioeconomic backgrounds. Then the teacher will simulate the moral events again, and relevant data will be recorded. The second grouping will test if children are aware of their socioeconomic family background and if they will behave differently when they are with their peers. The data will then be forwarded to the supervisor and the legal signing of the ethical documents. The signing will only be done when the reported cases have been addressed or forwarded for further investigation and those cases are noted.
Lastly, the records will be forwarded to the data analyst, who will first clean the data and process it. The report will be presented to the researchers and the supervisor upon processing. The research supervisor will then forward the information to the relevant authorities and experts for more analysis. The report and recommendations will then be implemented as the report is archived in the research libraries to help future studies. Then the head researcher will terminate the exercise officially in the presence of all those who participated and read the whole research report.
Data analysis
The data collected will be analyzed using computer software for more accuracy and report integrity. The data analysis will begin by using the SPSS version 21.0 software, where the expectation-maximization algorithm will be introduced to fill in the missing data. The software will also clean the data and ensure its integrity. The software was then prompted to release a report to create suitable behavioral models. The models were further analyzed using the Mplus Version 7.4 software with maximum and minimum estimations. Finally, the two software reports were combined, analysis and best model were adopted with little biasness.
Ethics
Imitating other studies, the research ensured it abided by all moral ethics to avoid violations that might lead to lawsuits and compromise the report’s integrity. First, this study obtained consent from all the relevant authorities before the exercise began. The consent was obtained from researchers, local authorities, especially the child welfare organizations, teachers, and parents on behalf of the minors who are still under the parents’ care. Secondly, the researchers were taken through intensive exercise and training on how to handle the participants. Considering that the participants were minors in their early cognitive stages, there was a need for better training on how to obtain data from them. Thirdly, only valuable data was obtained from the participants willingly with the promise to keep their data secure. This is because sensitive data, especially the intimate life and relationship between parents and their children and financial data, was shared.
Thought the research, especially since it was dealing with minors, there was keen supervision to avoid deceptions measures to obtain various information. The measure was attained by ensuring the researchers belonging to certain groups were assessing children with the help of teachers and some available parents. Moreover, all the participants, especially the children, were given the right to withdraw from the research willingly.
Considering cases like the children, they tire quickly hence losing concentration. As for that, they were permanently exempted from continuing with data collection until they were ready or avoided entirely in case they were unable to resume the experiment. Teachers were also given the right to choose which scenario to simulate to aid data collection. Further, parents were given full autonomy to choose the data they could share. If they decided to opt-out of the research, they were allowed to do so with or without explaining why they opted out.
Research outcomes
The research report is expected to give brief background information on what prompted the research. It will also provide a short description of the research procedures and other considered factors. The report is also expected to highlight the gap between the socioeconomic groups considered in the research. Further, it will highlight the parental involvement in the character and moral development of the children in their cognitive stage. Lastly, it will conclude if the socioeconomic class of parents affects the morals, reasoning, and moral actions of their preschool children.
Impact
Considering that most nations are considering the capitalist approach, there will be an increased social class gap. With some philosophers encouraging capitalism, there are higher chances that the poor will remain poor while the masters get richer (Moseley, 2018; Karl, 2020). However, other philosophers are encouraging socialism to make all people equal and lower the poverty gap. Regardless of the outcome in these philosophies, the current situation depicts a huge socioeconomic gap that is likely to impact future generations. With more hope placed in future generations, children are in prime focus; hence more research should be done to ensure that they are not negatively affected by the economic gap between the social groups. The study aims to develop models that can help in realizing models that will ensure the gap does not negatively affect the children’s moral reasoning and moral action.
References
Ada, E. E. (2019). The effect of gender, self concept, socioeconomic status of parents and type of school on students general academic achievement and students achievement in biology. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, Volume-3(Issue-2), 194-201. Web.
Ball, C. L., Smetana, J. G., & Sturge-Apple, M. L. (2017). Following my head and my heart: Integrating preschoolers’ empathy, theory of mind, and moral judgments. Child Development, 88(2), 597-611. Web.
Beibert, H. M., & Hasselhorn, M. (2016). Individual differences in moral development: Does intelligence really affect children’s moral reasoning and moral emotions? Frontiers in Psychology, 7. Web.
Chernyak, N., & Sobel, D. M. (2016). “But he didn’t mean to do it”: Preschoolers correct punishments imposed on accidental transgressors. Cognitive Development, 39, 13-20. Web.
Chow, B. W., Ho, C. S., Wong, S. W., Waye, M. M., & Zheng, M. (2017). Home environmental influences on children’s language and reading skills in a genetically sensitive design: Are socioeconomic status and home literacy environment environmental mediators and moderators? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58(6), 519-529. Web.
Dahl, A., & Killen, M. (2018). Developmental Perspective on the Origins of Morality in Infancy and Early Childhood. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. Web.
Dahl, A., Waltzer, T., & Gross, R. L. (2017). Helping, hitting and developing. New Perspectives on Moral Development, 33-54. Web.
Duan, W., Guan, Y., & Bu, H. (2018). The Effect of Parental Involvement and Socioeconomic Status on Junior School Students’ Academic Achievement and School Behavior in China. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. Web.
Hammond, S. I., Al-Jbouri, E., Edwards, V., & Feltham, L. E. (2017). Infant helping in the first year of life: Parents’ recollection of infants’ earliest prosocial behaviors. Infant Behavior and Development, 47, 54-57. Web.
Hilton, B. C., & Kuhlmeier, V. A. (2019). Intention attribution and the development of moral evaluation. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. Web.
Kim, S. W., Brown, K., Kim, E. J., & Fong, V. L. (2018). “Poorer children study better”: How urban Chinese young adults perceive relationships between wealth and academic achievement. Comparative Education Review, 62(1), 84-102. Web.
Kim, S. W., Kim, E. J., Wagaman, A., & Fong, V. L. (2017). A longitudinal mixed methods study of parents’ socioeconomic status and children’s educational attainment in Dalian city, China. International Journal of Educational Development, 52, 111-121. Web.
Li, J., & Tomasello, M. (2018). The development of intention-based sociomoral judgment and distribution behavior from a third-party stance. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 167, 78-92. Web.
Liberman, Z., Howard, L. H., Vasquez, N. M., & Woodward, A. L. (2018). Children’s expectations about conventional and moral behaviors of ingroup and outgroup members. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 165, 7-18. Web.
Margoni, F., & Surian, L. (2016). Explaining the U-shaped development of intent-based moral judgments. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. Web.
Margoni, F., & Surian, L. (2017). Children’s intention-based moral judgments of helping agents. Cognitive Development, 41, 46-64. Web.
Marx, K. (2020). Theories of surplus value Part 1.
Morin, A. L. (2021). How to help your preschooler develop a healthy moral compass. Verywell Family. Web.
Moseley, F. (2018). Capitalist communism: Marx’s theory of the distribution of surplus-value in volume III of capital. The Unfinished System of Karl Marx, 91-128. Web.
Nobes, G., Panagiotaki, G., & Bartholomew, K. J. (2016). The influence of intention, outcome and question-wording on children’s and adults’ moral judgments. Cognition, 157, 190-204. Web.
Pan, J., Kong, Y., Song, S., McBride, C., Liu, H., & Shu, H. (2017). Socioeconomic status, parent report of children’s early language skills, and late literacy skills: A long term follow-up study among Chinese children. Reading and Writing, 30(2), 401-416. Web.
Rutland, A., & Killen, M. (2017). Fair resource allocation among children and adolescents: The role of group and developmental processes. Child Development Perspectives, 11(1), 56-62. Web.
Sommerville, J. A. (2018). Infants’ understanding of distributive fairness as a test case for identifying the extents and limits of infants’ Sociomoral cognition and behavior. Child Development Perspectives, 12(3), 141-145. Web.
Straub, S., & Bondü, R. (2021). Links between justice sensitivity and moral reasoning, moral emotions, and moral identity in middle childhood. Child Development. Web.
Su, M., Peyre, H., Song, S., McBride, C., Tardif, T., Li, H., Zhang, Y., Liang, W., Zhang, Z., Ramus, F., & Shu, H. (2017). The influence of early linguistic skills and family factors on literacy acquisition in Chinese children: Follow-up from age 3 to age 11. Learning and Instruction, 49, 54-63. Web.
Vaish, A., Hepach, R., & Tomasello, M. (2018). The specificity of reciprocity: Young children reciprocate more generously to those who intentionally benefit them. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 167, 336-353. Web.
Van de Vondervoort, J. W., & Hamlin, J. K. (2017). Preschoolers’ social and moral judgments of third-party helpers and hinderers align with infants’ social evaluations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 164, 136-151. Web.
Waugh, W. E., & Brownell, C. A. (2017). “Help yourself!” what can toddlers’ helping failures tell us about the development of prosocial behavior? Infancy, 22(5), 665-680. Web.
Wen, H., Liang, K., & Liu, X. (2016). Effect of family environment on reading ability: The mediating effects of reading engagement and reading interest among junior high school students. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 48(3), 248. Web.
Woo, B. M., Steckler, C. M., Le, D. T., & Hamlin, J. K. (2017). Social evaluation of intentional, truly accidental, and negligently accidental helpers and harmers by 10-month-old infants. Cognition, 168, 154-163. Web.
Wynn, K. (2016). Origins of value conflict: Babies do not agree to disagree. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 3-5. Web.