Reader response of private school secondary and college students in light of moral absolutist, moral relativist, and character education perspectives: A qualitative study

This research examined student response to literature that focused on character, values, and virtues to determine if the content of the written response reflected the active meaning-making processes of college and high school students in terms of their ethical and moralistic inculcation and thinking. Particular attention was paid to the impact of moral absolutist and moral relativist perspectives on student conclusions. Although other means of data collection were used such as classroom interactions/observations, reading/writing surveys, and “written” interviews, the main method used in data collection was through student written response.; Participants were 13 college upperclassmen and graduate students in Education 475, Reading in the Content Area, 43 high school students in a 9th grade computer literacy class, and 24 eleventh grade students in an American Literature class. The researcher was the teacher, and three classrooms were the settings for this investigation. Three configurations of student/literature response emerged: The three configurations were a moral categorization scheme, cognitive development and gender comparisons between college/graduate students and 11th grade American Literature students, and a case subject analysis completed with five 11th graders after they read Willa Cather's My Antonia and/or Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage.; Categories of response considered in the investigation included areas of moral understanding, story evaluation, and interpretation, absolutist/relativist reflections, personal philosophizing, character interaction and assessment, and specific virtues' focus. Cognitive development and gender comparisons were made between the college students and 11th grade American Literature students after they read Ralph Waldo Emerson's Friendship essay. Using Marjorie Hancock's Categorization Scheme, a case subject analysis was completed with five 11th graders after they read Willa Cather's My Antonia and Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage.; The results of the study revealed that students were aware of the moral import of literature and the potential for moral education through literature. The literature assessments provided concrete evidence of the moral content of the literature studied. The content of the written responses to literature generally reflected the active role of the reader in the meaning-making process and supported the idiosyncratic nature of response. While a high level of congruency existed among and across the data sets, the data also revealed a diversity of response that attests to the power of literature to evoke from readers, simultaneously, reactions that reflect a normative as well as a highly individual perception of the text.; Based on these data, it is possible to say that the same text, as perceived by two different groups, appeared to communicate many similar value attributes. The text itself, apart from what readers bring to it was an objective element in the classroom arena. The findings suggested the benefits of incorporating a response-based view of literature to assist in inculcating ethics, values, and virtues.