Developing
responsibility - a challenge for 21st century teachers. Children's perception
of subjective and non-subjective solutions in solving responsibility dilemmas
University
of Warmia and Mazury, Faculty of Social
Science and Arts, Poland
Abstract:
The turn of the 20th and 21st
centuries was marked by changes in the economic, political and social
sphere. These transitions contributed
to the development of two different subjective attitudes among young people:
(1) related to a sense of control, influence, efficacy and
enterprise/resourcefulness, and (2) related to a sense of helplessness,
reservation and an inclination towards taking too much for granted. Both attitudes may lead to disintegration
and breakdown of social ties, followed by anomy and degeneration or
disappearance of social capital.
A challenge to be met by people involved in the
education process is to promote social interactions among adolescents,
preserving their sense of autonomy and individuality, understood as the ability
to perceive: (1) themselves as the origin of behavior patterns to be followed
and decisions to be made, (2) their goals as the subject of their intentions,
(3) the surrounding world as an environment that offers them a chance to
realize their potential and develop their skills. One of the main factors affecting such attitudes is subjective
responsibility. According to
psychological theories of moral development (Piaget, Kohlberg), we are ready
for subjective control of our moral behaviors as late as at the stage of
adolescence.
The aim of the present study was
to contribute to a better understanding of the way in which children aged 8 to
9 years perceive responsibility. The
research was performed on a group of 42 pupils. The obtained results show how younger primary school pupils
understand the concepts of responsibility, guilt and punishment as well as
whether they believe responsibility to be rooted in subjective or
non-subjective factors. In addition,
the results enabled to determine the degree of initiative taken by the children
as dependent on the origins of responsibility.
Key words: Self-responsibility,
primary education, subjectivity