ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we saw that scholarship around moral development tended to reflect at least tacit theories of the larger landscape of human development. This chapter will explore how the research and theory of Erik Erikson (1963, 1964, 1968, 1980) on the life-span of human development implies within it a development toward moral maturity. For educators, Erikson’s theory offers a particularly appealing approach to cultivating an educational process that is both consistent with a view of lifespan human development, as well as supportive of the ethical development of young people. I will argue that this approach to the ethical education of the young actually reinforces the integrity of the learning process as it engages the academic curriculum, as well as the more informal social and civic curriculum of the school.
