Very few studies have examined moral reasoning in students identified as having behavioral disorders and enrolled in a special education setting. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the impact of alternative education programs designed for behaviorally disordered youth on moral reasoning development. This research examined the moral reasoning of behaviorally disordered adolescents enrolled in alternative and traditional high school settings. The results indicate that behaviorally disordered high school students enrolled in either an alternative or traditional school setting are significantly lower in moral reasoning compared to their non-behaviorally disordered peers. The moral reasoning of the behaviorally disordered students enrolled in an alternative setting is similar to that of like students enrolled in a traditional school setting. The correlation between time (months) spent in the alternative setting and moral reasoning is positive, but not significant.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.