Discussions of moral issues emerging in family conversations about science

Mother–Child Conversations about Children’s Moral Wrongdoing: A Constructivist Perspective on Moral Socialization

“…This is not to say that researchers simplistically assumed that conversations consist of parents teaching children moral lessons or that children are passive recipients of such lessons. In fact, researchers have explicitly acknowledged that children's contributions to conversations remain an important unexplored question and have speculated that children may shape the content and tone of conversations by switching topics, ignoring parents' requests for information, or challenging parents' interpretations (Callanan et al, 2014;Laible & Murphy, 2014). In some studies, the conversations between young children and their mothers have been examined for evidence of the extent to which children talk about moral dimensions of their everyday lives (e.g., Dunn & Hughes, 2014); yet for the most part this research served as a basis for analyzing individual differences in children's language use (e.g., Wright & Bartsch, 2008), rather than as a way to examining the give and take between children and their parents.…”

Saints, and the Rest of Us: Broadening the Perspective on Moral Identity Development

“…Although research suggests that young people often imbue conversations and disagreements that bear on nonmoral topics (e.g., science, chores) with moral concerns [e.g., Callanan, Valle, Luce, & Rigney, 2014;Smetana, 2011], a careful developmental exploration of these issues with an eye towards understanding changes in moral identity has not yet been done.…”

Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk: Conversational Pathways to Moral Development

“…Two chapters in the book offer interesting examples of just such issues. Callanan, Valle, Luce, and Rigney [2014] discuss how moral topics emerge in motherchild discussions of scientific controversies, such as climate change and gender inequality, whereas Hilliard and Liben [2014] consider communication patterns in mother-child discussions of gender bias. Pasupathi's [2014] theoretical chapter argues that parent-child conversations provide a context for the joint construction of moral identity.…”