Beyond Autonomy? Moral Socialization Goals of German and Indonesian Preschool Teachers

Abstract

The moral socialization of preschool children has so far mostly been investigated in the informal context of family, but with an increasing institutionalization of early childhood education worldwide, preschool teachers now play a prominent role as moral socialization agents. Accordingly, we investigated the institutional moral socialization of the three ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity in two different cultural contexts. Preschool teachers (PTs) from urban German ( n = 73) and Indonesian ( n = 135) contexts completed a paper–pencil survey assessing their moral socialization goals for preschool children concerning the three ethics via the Ethical Values Assessment (EVA_S). Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out separately for the German and Indonesian samples and confirmed the proposed three-factor structure. Measurement invariance tests for the EVA_S indicated metric, but not scalar invariance. Thus, subsequent intra- and cross-cultural analyses were conducted with centered values. The results indicate that German PTs emphasized the ethic of Autonomy for moral socialization, while Indonesian PTs promoted the ethic of Divinity. Across cultures, Autonomy and Divinity socialization goals correlated with the PTs’ preference of the ethics in their moral reasoning. Furthermore, Divinity socialization goals were related to the PTs’ religiosity and their preschools having a religious affiliation in both cultural contexts. These findings contribute to our understanding of institutional moral socialization and cultural as well as subcultural contextual influences.