African American and Latin American elementary students (ages 6-12) from low-income, urban neighborhoods were interviewed about the fairness of 4 teaching practices. Five conceptions of fairness, identified in previous studies with Caucasian students, were evident This suggests that, to some degree, American children from diverse ethnic groups agree on how the learning process should be organized. Nevertheless, sociocultural variation was also evident. Consistent with previous studies, most children rated peer tutoring as fairest, but some African American and Latin American children equated peer tutoring with cheating. The children of color, when justifying their positions, introduced 4 new educational issues (worry about grades, solitary work, work quality, and resistance to schoolwork): They saw learning situations as taking on some of the properties of tests. Findings support a sociocultural approach to the study of moral reasoning, and measurement that is respectful of individual as well as group variability.
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