I don't have any info about the scales below, but Kohlberg's work has been
controversial on the very grounds Elizabeth raises (race/gender/class
bias). It may be difficult if not impossible to find a bias-free measure
of a construct that is so culturally bound as "stages" or "levels" of
morality. But for comparison, you may want to find out how Sarah Lawrence
Lightfoot measured moral development in women (including nonwhite &
non-upper-middle-class ones, i think). --Doug Perkins
> Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 16:42:13 -0500
> From: elizabeth.bounds@vt.edu (Elizabeth M. Bounds)
> To: service-learning@csf.colorado.edu (Service-Learning List)
>
> Through my work in service-learning I am becoming more interested in using
> a survey/instrument measuring moral development in the introductory ethics
> and religion course I teach in the spring. Through some cursory searching,
> I have found the Survey of Interpersonal Values (LV Gordon, 1976), the
> Defining Issues Test (JR Rest 1987, based on Kohlberg)) and the Scale of
> Intellectual Development (T.D. Erwin 1981, based on William Perry). In
> research on service-learning courses, I have so far found little feminist
> questioning of these instruments. So I am wondering--are any of them
> acceptable from a gender/race/class perspective? Are there other
> instruments that might be more acceptable? I suspect this might be of
> general interest so please respond to the list.
>
> Elizabeth M. Bounds 540-231-7617
> Religious Studies Program elizabeth.bounds@vt.edu
> Major Williams 204
> Virginia Tech
> Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135