The Role of Agent and Social Context in Judgments of Freedom of Speech and Religion

Abstract

This study examined children's, adolescents', and college students' judgments of the rights of child and adult agents to freedom of speech and religion in 3 social contexts: the general level of society, the school, and the family. Two hundred forty participants, evenly divided into 5 grade levels (mean ages 6,6, 8,5,10,6,12,4, and 22,7) made judgments of the legitimacy of authority prohibition, rule evaluation, generalizability, and rule violation for all freedom/social context/agent combinations. Concepts of freedom of speech and religion were found to emerge in the early elementary school years, and endorsements of freedoms were increasingly affected by social context and agent with age. College students were less likely than any other age group to affirm children's freedom of religion in the family context. Considerations of the mental competence and maturity of agents and the potential for harm to ensue from acting on freedoms played an important part in the decisions of older, but not younger, participants.

The Relation between Law and Morality: Children's Reasoning about Socially Beneficial and Unjust Laws

“…Older children appeared to have a greater appreciation of the importance of religious freedom and parental autonomy and were critical of government intrusion into the religious and family sphere in this instance. These findings parallel those from studies of children's developing conceptions of freedom of religion (Helwig, 1997) showing that with age, the religious freedom of children is increasingly seen as legitimately regulated by familial authorities (e.g., parents), but not by governments or school authorities. Prior research (Helwig, 1997), however, investigated conceptions of religious freedom only in straightforward or "prototypical" examples, in which freedom of religion did not conflict with other social goals.…”

“…The present study sought to examine legal judgments by comparing and contrasting laws that have socially beneficial purposes with unjust laws, and by examining reasoning in situations that entail conflicts between social benefits and individual rights and autonomy. This strategy is similar to one pursued in other research on children's judgments of societal, political, and moral concepts such as civil liberties and democracy, and has proven successful in uncovering new competencies in elementary school children's understanding in these areas (Helwig, 1997(Helwig, , 1998Helwig & Kim, 1999). The results of the present study reveal that children's reasoning about laws is multifaceted and that children consider a number of factors in evaluating laws and making judgments of legal compliance.…”

Children's Social and Moral Reasoning

“…However, research examining children ' s reasoning about rights and democracy shows that these concepts have emerged by the early elementary school years. For example, research investigating children ' s and adolescents ' reasoning about freedom of speech and religion (Helwig, 1995(Helwig, , 1997(Helwig, , 1998 found that by 6 years of age, children judge restrictions of these rights by governments or other authorities as wrong and illegitimate. Moreover, children, adolescents, and adults view freedom of speech and religion as moral rights that should be upheld in all countries.…”

Early Childhood as a Foundation for Civic Engagement

“…Using this approach, researchers have found that by around 10 years of age, most children view participation and decision making as important children's rights (Ruck, Keating, Abramovitch, & Koegl, 1998). In addition, Helwig (1995Helwig ( , 1997 reported that, in contrast to the earlier work of Melton (1980), abstract concepts of freedom of speech and religion were found in some children as young as six years of age.…”