Mid-twentieth century
During the late-nineteenth-century and twentieth-century period, intellectual leaders and writers were deeply influenced by the ideas of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, the German political philosopher Karl Marx, the Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, and by a growing strict interpretation of the separation of church and state doctrine. This trend increased after World War II and was further intensified by what appeared to be changes in the nation's moral consensus in the late 1960s. Educators and others became wary of using the schools for moral education. More and more this was seen to be the province of the family and the church.
Still, due to a perceived view of academic and moral decline, educators continued to receive mandates to address the moral concerns of students, which they did using primarily two approaches: values clarification and cognitive developmental moral education.[16]
Values clarification. Values change over time in response to changing life experiences. Recognizing these changes and understanding how they affect one's actions and behaviors is the goal of the values clarification process. Values clarification will not tell you what you should have, it simply provides the means to discover what your values are. This approach, although widely practiced, came under strong criticism for, among other things, promoting moral relativism among students.
Cognitive-developmental theory of moral education and development sprang from the work of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and was further developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg rejected the focus on values and virtues, not only due to the lack of consensus on what virtues are to be taught, but also because of the complex nature of practicing such virtues. For example, people often make different decisions yet hold the same basic moral values. Kohlberg believed a better approach to affecting moral behavior should focus on stages of moral development. These stages are critical, as they consider the way a person organizes their understanding of virtues, rules, and norms, and integrates these into a moral choice.
This information helps to understand socially acceptable behavior of specific eras.
