The development of social-moral judgment among Israeli kibbutz adolescents was studied from the perspective of Kohlberg's theory of moral judgment development. The sample included 92 adolescents, 64 of whom were interviewed longitudinally over a two-to-nine year period. The study's purpose was to evaluate the validity of Kohlberg's model and measure in a cross-cultural context and to assess the cultural uniqueness of social-moral reasoning among kibbutzniks. The developmental findings strongly supported the validity of Kohlberg's structuraldevelopmental understanding of moral judgment. Stage change was found to be upward, gradual, and without significant regressions. Analyses also supported the internal consistency of the stages as operationally defined in the standardized scoring manual. There were no significant sex differences in moral development and fewer cultural differences than expected. Overall, the distribution of stage scores among the kibbutz subjects was unusually high when compared to the results of parallel studies in the United States and Turkey, the two previous longitudinal studies of moral judgment development that have used the standardized scoring system. The most important cultural variation involved the use of Stages 4/5 and 5. Whereas all of Kohlberg's stages were present among kibbutz members, not all elements of kibbutz postconventional reasoning were present in Kohlberg's model or scoring manual. In particular, the communal emphasis and collective moral principles of the kibbutz subjects were partially missed or misunderstood. This article presents the results of a longitudinal study of social-moral reasoning among Israeli adolescents. The research oh

The child's orientation toward the community can plaj a major role in linking the child's moraljudgment to action. moral atmosphere: an educational bridge between moral judgment and action dark power joseph reimer A theory that attempts to describe a universal sequence in moral development faces numerous challenges. This is especially true, as critics of Kohlberg's theory have made clear, if the theory focuses on the cognitive-judgmental side of moral development and attempts to explain moral action or behavior in terms of moral judgment (Aronfreed, 1976; Mischel and Mischel, 1976). Kohlberg (1971) has made a strong philosophic and empirical argument for focusing on moral judgment as the basis of moral development. Yet Kohlberg acknowledges there is more to moral development than judgment alone. The moral decisions one is likely to make in conflict situations are influenced by the interaction of one's stage of moral reasoning with other factors, such as the values of one's society, the position one holds in the society, the inner strength one has to act on one's convictions, and the salience of the conflict situation in relation to the rest of one's concerns. Kohlberg acknowledges the complexity of this interaction; unfortunately, he and his colleagues have left in abeyance a more exact description of how it shapes moral decisions and action. moral education and moral actionRecent developments in the study of developmental moral education have made it increasingly urgent that the relationship between moral judg-New Directions for Child D&lopment, 2, 1978

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