The comparative research of the adolescent’s school moral atmosphere perception in
modern Russia
Moral development at the stage of
adolescence is difficult to overestimate. Global
transformations of society in Post-Soviet Russia have affected the system of education. New
type of non-state (private) schools have appeared along with existing widely spread state
comprehensive schools and schools for specific purposes (profound learning of foreign
language, mathematics, etc.). The aim of our study is to identify types of personal values of
teenagers from two kinds of state schools, with ones from a private school being for contrast.
In total 259 pupils from 8 to 11 forms, aged from 13 to 17, from three Moscow schools took
part in the research: 131 girls and 128 boys.
The research is based on the concept of the Just Community, offered within L.Kolberg’s
moral development theory. The subtest of SMAQ questionnaire (Power et al., 1989) to study
the teenagers’ perception of the moral atmosphere (PMA) in school communities, and S.
Schwarz's questionnaire (Schwarz, 1999; Karandashev, 2004) to study the types of personal
values of teenagers, were used.
Similarities and differences in PMA of school by teenagers at different stages of Post-Soviet
society in Russia were found (we compared present data with our data of 2000-2001 on the
sample of 228 subjects).
The research showed peculiarities of PMA and the teenagers’ system of values formation by
private school pupils. The research concludes that values system becoming in adolescence is
associated with the peculiarities of PMA in the secondary school.
That fact permits to make up and realize correction programs. These programs are to
optimize the formation of the system of teenagers’ values through transforming school
communities into more democratic ones.
Key words: social situation of development, moral development, perception of moral
atmosphere of the school, teenagers’ values system