References

Research shows that children are capable of thinking and reasoning about ethical issues from an early age[…]

Killen, M., and Cords, M. (2002). Prince Kropotkin’s ghost.  American Scientist 208-210.

Smetana A.G. (1981). Preschool children’s conceptions of moral and social rules. Child Development, 52, 1333-1336; Smetana A.G. (2006)

Smetana A.G. (2006).  Social Domain Theory: Consistencies and variations in children’s moral and social judgments. In Killen, M., and Smetana, A.G. (Eds.), Handbook of moral development. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Nucci, L. (1982). Conceptual developments in the moral and conventional domains: Implications for values education. Review of educational research , Vol. 52, No. 1, pp93-122

Nucci, L. (2005). Education for moral development. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.) Handbook of moral development . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Nucci, L. (2008). Social cognitive domain theory and moral education. In L. Nucci & D. Narvaez (eds.). Handbook of moral and character education. (pp. 291-309). Oxford, UK: Routledge.

Further research shows that the processes of ethical reasoning are largely learned, just like reading or mathematics, they do not come automatically[…]

Lind, G. (2015, in press). Favorable learning environments for moral competence development. A multiple intervention study with 3.000 students in a higher education context. International Journal of University Teaching and Faculty Development (accepted for publication Nov. 21, 2014);

Lind, G. (2002). Can morality be taught? Research findings from modern moral psychology]. Second Edition. Berlin: Logos-Verlag

Rest, J. R., Narvaez, D., Bebeau, M. J. & Thoma, S. J. (1999). Postconventional moral thinking. A Neo-Kohlbergian approach. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum;

A significant body of research shows that such an approach leads to improvement not only in general reasoning skills, but also in ethical reasoning capabilities[…]

General reasoning skills

Abrami P.C., Bernard, R.M., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Surkes, M.A.,Tamin, R., Zhang, D. (2008).  Instructional Interventions Affecting Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions: A Stage 1 Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, vol. 78 no. 4 1102-1134

Higgins S, Hall E, Baumfield V, Moseley D (2005) A meta-analysis of the impact of the implementation of thinking skills approaches on pupils. In: Research Evidence in Education Library . London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.

Kuhn, D. (2005) Education for Thinking . Harvard University Press

Marin, L.M., Halpern, D.F., Pedagogy for developing critical thinking in adolescents: Explicit instruction produces greatest gains . Thinking Skills and Creativity, September 2010

Resnikskaya, A., Kuo, L., Clark, A. Miller, B., Jadallah. M., Anderson, R.C., Nguyen- Jahiel, K. Collaborative reasoning: a dialogic approach to group discussions. Cambridge Journal of Education Vol. 39, No. 1, March 2009, 29–48

Ethical reasoning capabilities

Lind, G. (2002). Can morality be taught? Research findings from modern moral psychology]. Second Edition. Berlin: Logos-Verlag

Lind, G. (2013) A multiple intervention study with 3.000 students in a higher education context. International Journal of University Teaching and Faculty Development, 4.4 (2013): 173-192.

Nucci, L., Creane M.W.,&  Powers, D.W. (2015). Integrating moral and social development within middle school social studies: a social cognitive domain approach. Journal of Moral Education 44 (4):479-496

Research demonstrates that there are flow-on effects from the style of education employed in ethics classes[…]

Gorard, S., Siddiqui N., See, B.H. (2015). Philosophy for Children Evaluation report and Executive summary. 

Higgins S, Hall E, Baumfield V, Moseley D (2005) A meta-analysis of the impact of the implementation of thinking skills approaches on pupils. In: Research Evidence in Education Library . London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.

Lipman, M. (1987). Philosophy and the cultivation of reasoning. Thinking: Journal of Philosophy for Children, Vol. 5, No.4, 33-41.

Lyle, S. (2008). Dialogic Teaching: Discussing Theoretical Contexts and Reviewing Evidence from Classroom Practice. Language and Education, 22.3, 222-240.

Trickey, S. and Topping, K.J. (2004) Philosophy for Children: A systematic review. Research papers in education Vol. 19, no. 3.

Trickey, S. and Topping, K.J. (2007). Collaborative philosophical  inquiry for schoolchildren: Cognitive gains at 2- year follow-up. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77 (4)  787-796.  Abstract