The purpose of moral education is to increase the likelihood that students will develop into people who engage in moral conduct and who work to improve the moral structure of society. An integral part of that purpose is accomplished through the development of students' moral knowledge. It is sociomoral understanding that provides the capacity to evaluate the moral elements of social situations and the normative structure of society. Knowing the good, however, is not always sufficient to motivate someone to do the good. For moral action to take place the individual must also want to do what is moral, rather than to engage in actions that lead to other goals.

There are two basic ways in which individuals are motivated to do something. One is to respond to external incentives in the form of punishments and rewards. The second is to engage in actions because of their perceived value to the individual (Deci 1995). It is obviously much easier for teachers and schools to manipulate external rewards and punishments than it is to somehow connect up with or influence students' intrinsic reasons for doing something. Yet it is the connection with intrinsic, nonpragmatic motivation (Subbotsky 1995) that is the most effective and enduring way in which to link up moral reasoning with action. As we saw in Chapter 7, this means building up the linkages among children's moral affect, their moral understandings, and their construction of personal identity. The integration of these three elements of affect, reasoning and identity form the “moral self.”

Childhood Antecedents Of The Moral Self And Classroom Practices

The connections between moral identity and behavior do not have much force until middle childhood and adolescence.