Roman Catholics Developing a Moral Compass: Parochial School Graduates' Experiences and Reflections of Living the Cardinal Virtues

This qualitative study explored moral experiences using personal interviews and oral history narratives gathered from adult participants. The purpose of the research study was to seek a deep understanding of students’ moral development in Roman Catholic schooling and the sustainability over time. The study focused on former parochial school students’ perspectives of their moral experiences as children in Catholic parochial schools of the 1950s and 1960s. Participants were adult volunteers, age fifty-five to seventy-five years old, who had attended Catholic parochial schools. They responded to open-ended questions about their memories of childhood events, such as how the moral experience affected them when it initially happened, and how they feel it has shaped them as adults. Data collection utilized interviews, which were coded for evidence of specific cardinal virtues. The four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) provided an organizational tool from which to understand moral beliefs and actions over time. One key result of this study demonstrated that the majority of participants learned to think independently and critically about the meaning of many tenets from the Catholic Church doctrine in relation to their own moral growth. Along with the development of independent thought, other values such as fairness, honesty, courage, and balance in life emerged as important factors in their moral formation. This work indicated that aspects of moral development were grounded in their parochial educational experiences and could be positively affected in situations that produced conflict or frustration. The latter supported findings in selected literature on moral development.

Author dc:creator

• Brevetti, Melissa

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Smith, Joan
• Vaughn, Courtney

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Laird, Susan
• Maiden, Jeffrey
• Houser, Neil

• moral development
• cardinal virtues
• Roman Catholic schools
• oral history research

Language dc:language

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11244/14624

OAI record oai:identifier

https://shareok.org/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Ashareok.org%3A11244%2F14624