| This exploratory study examines the moral theme comprehension ability of Japanese third and fifth grade elementary school students in comparison to Japanese university students. The findings add international support to the work of Narvaez, Gleason, Mitchell and Bentley (1999) as well as Bock (2004) and show developmental differences in moral theme comprehension even after accounting for reading ability and the use of grade level texts. Unique to this study, the quantitative data also show significant same-age differences that may be attributable to prior exposure to the moral stories. Further study is merited to assess the role of prior exposure and moral theme comprehension especially among younger elementary school students. Qualitative data collected from the 162 participants suggest a Japanese cognitive framework that may differ from current models used in Western research and should be further analyzed in collaboration with Japanese cognitive psychologists. Discussion of the general findings provides lessons to be learned from Japan for Western character education specialists as well as curriculum development specialists. In addition, although the level of moral theme comprehension among Japanese youth is quite high, Japanese educators can further develop their own course of study by employing pedagogical practices currently found in the Western research literature. Implications from the study suggest that future avenues of research concentrate on the role of autonomy, integrity, the formation of a moral identity, and actual theme construction from a cross-cultural perspective. |
