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QUEST, 1997.49, 114-129 0 1997 National Association for Physical Education in Higher Education

Sociomoral Education Through Physical Education

With At-Risk Children

Stephen C. Miller, Brenda J.L. Bredemeier, and David L.L. Shields

This paper presents a theoretically grounded and empirically tested intervention to promote the sociomoral growth of children through physical education. The intervention, which has been implemented with at-risk urban elementary school children, is based on the moral action model proposed by Shields and Bredemeier (1995). The first section of the paper discusses the appropriateness of physical education for sociomoral education. Then, the intervention program goals are identified: promoting empathy, moral reasoning maturity, task motivation, and self-responsibility. Four major components of moral education are then identified and illustrated: cooperative learning, building moral community, creating a mastery motivational climate, and transferring power from teacher to students concomitant with students acceptance of increasing personal and social responsibility. We conclude with anecdotal evi- dence of the effectiveness of the intervention.

For the past several years, we have implemented an experimental physical education program with at-risk students in an urban elementary school. The intervention is designed to enhance empathy, moral reasoning maturity, task motivation, and personal and social responsibility. We have sought to promote these goals through cooperative learning, building both moral community and a mastery motivational climate, and shifting power from teachers to students. The program reflects our belief that physical education is a rich context for promoting sociomoral development.

There is little that we, as physical educators, can do to alleviate the multiple external challenges that many of these young people face, such as poverty, high crime neighborhoods, and poor educational opportunities. Our program's more modest goal is to offer a form of educational enrichment not typically available to this underserved population. We do not believe that the objectives and processes of

Stephen C. Miller and Brenda J.L. Bredemeier both are with the Department of Divi- sion of Social Science at the University of California at Berkeley, CA 94720. David L.L. Shields is with the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at John F. Kennedy Univer- sity, Orinda, CA 94563.

SOCIOMORAL EDUCATION 115

our intervention are limited in their applicability to at-risk youth, though this population may derive particular benefit from the program due to the extraordinary challenges they face.

Our intervention rests in theoretically grounded and empirically tested processes of sociomoral education and adapts them to the physical education context. Over the years, we have collected data that suggests our program is beneficial to its participants (Carlton, Miller, & Bredemeier, 1996). The purpose of the present paper is threefold: to explain why the physical domain offers a potentially effica- cious context for such an intervention; to highlight the major components of our sociomoral intervention program, together with their theoretical underpinnings; and to give concrete examples of how this program is carried out in practice.

The Physical Activity Context

Perhaps the most important reason why the physical domain is a potent context for sociomoral education resides in the easily observable, public nature of participants' activities. Important aspects of one's character are readily apparent as overt behavior constantly gives testimony to inner processes. If one degrades an opponent with trash talk or flares with anger over a defeat, it is all too evident. Moreover, weaknesses and vulnerabilities-both physical and psychological-are often painfully obvious as one practices and performs in front of others. The skilled coach or physical educator can take advantage of these facts and use them for purposes of moral education.

Morality in the physical domain has been a topic of growing interest among sport psychologists. Most of the research to date has focused on moral thought and action in sport contexts (for a review, see Shields & Bredemeier, 1995). Addition- ally, several researchers have examined the effectiveness of sport or physical education intervention programs designed to enhance sociomoral development (Gib- bons, Ebbeck, & Weiss, 1995; Wandzilak, Carroll, & Ansorge, 1988; Bredemeier, Weiss, Shields, & Shewchuk, 1986; Romance, Weiss, & Bockoven, 1986).

Whereas both sport and physical education can provide fertile ground for sociomoral development, there are several reasons to emphasize the role of physical education. First, more children participate in physical education programs than in organized youth sport. Second, physical education is less commercialized and formalized than youth sport so teachers have the freedom to de-emphasize competition and outcome. Third, well-trained physical educators can work closely with classroom teachers and school administrators to implement integrated sociomoral education programs throughout the curriculum. Finally, the physical educator has a responsibility to initiate children into the ideals of sport and to nurture an appreciation for the moral values upon which it rests (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995). This point needs elaboration.

Sport is a moral practice, grounded as it is in the concepts of fairness and freedom. To the extent that physical educators teach sport skills, they are responsible for helping participants grasp the underlying moral principles involved (Arnold, 1988). Sport without an appreciation for fairness is not sport at all. The physical educator should help class members develop an appreciation for the way different sport structures carefully balance offense with defense, challenge with skill, in- fraction with reparation, risk with safety, and so on. Of course, coaches have this

116 MILLER, BREDEMEIER, AND SHIELDS

responsibility too but, as the American Academy of Physical Education has stated, physical educators have a unique opportunity to teach ethical values and influence the moral behavior of students through sports and games (Park, 1983).

Another reason that the physical education class may be an advantageous setting for sociomoral education is its affective appeal. Most students, including those who have not had positive experiences in school or who are poorly motivated academically, view physical education as "set apart" from their academic day. The freedom from desks and books, and the chance to be socially interactive and physically expressive, invite different ways of relating interpersonally with peers and teachers. Additionally, for some, its connection to sport infuses the physical education class with a level of interest unparalleled in other parts of the curriculum.

Components of Moral Education

Our approach to moral education is rooted in the structural developmental tradition of psychology, classically articulated by Piaget (1932) and elaborated by Kohlberg (198 1,1984). This approach highlights a distinction between moral content and moral structure and features an interactionist epistemology. Moral content refers to the moral values, beliefs, or attitudes that a person holds, or to the particular moral decisions or judgments that they make. But much as a person's language reflects the use of an underlying preconscious grammatical structure, so the con- tents of a person's moral cognitions reflect an underlying moral "grammar" or structure. Moreover, the underlying structure of moral reasoning undergoes quali- tative changes in its organizational pattern during the course of a person's development. These changes result from an interaction between the person's social experience and the person's developing ability to actively organize information gleaned from that experience.

Sociomoral education programs should include a plan for promoting moral reasoning maturity. After all, we cannot expect a person to act in a consistently moral manner if they are unable to reason coherently and cogently about moral choices. But it would be naive to believe that simply stimulating growth in moral reasoning competency will, by itself, significantly benefit the program participants. Although moral reasoning often is a major influence on moral behavior, other factors need to be taken into account.

Rest (1983, 1984) has provided a useful model of the complex psychological processes that necessarily take place in situations where moral action is required. He proposes a 4-component model of moral action, highlighting four psychological processes that must be activated and coordinated for moral action to occur. First, a person must interpret the situation as one that involves a moral decision. Rest labels this the process of moral perception. Second, the person must weigh the competing moral claims and decide what is the best or right course of action. This process is termed moral judgment. Third, the person engages in a process of choice, deciding whether to give priority to the moral values involved or to some other value, such as self-gain. Finally, if the person has decided to give priority to their moral values, they must still marshal the physical and psychological resources needed to translate intended action into real action. This is the process of moral implementation.


Bredemeier and Shields (1995, 1996) have expanded Rest's 4-component model into a 1Zcomponent model by identifying three sources of influence that operate on each of the four processes. Two sets of influences are particularly important for the sociomoral education program we describe below: influences stemming from personal competencies and orientations, and those stemming from the environment. To specify our program goals, we identified four personal attributes- one for each major moral action process-that we sought to encourage in our program participants. To develop educational strategies, we identified four environmental influences that we then used to design specific intervention strategies. We elaborate on these goals and strategies below.

Program Goals The processes of moral perception, judgment, choice, and implementation

are undergirded by a set of personal competencies or attributes (Shields & Bredemeier, 1995). For example, the process of moral perception is facilitated by an elevated capacity for empathy. Empathy helps a person perceive the interests, desires, needs, and vulnerabilities of others, all of which raise issues relevant to moral perception and action. To the extent that people are characteristically empathetic, they are more likely to perceive the moral dimensions of situations. Not surprisingly, delinquent youth tend to be less empathetic than nondelinquent youth (Ellis, 1982; Jurkovic & Prentice, 1977; Kendall, Deardorff, & Finch, 1977). The term at-risk, of course, certainly should not connote a predisposition to juvenile delinquency. Still, the plethora of studies dealing with delinquent teens may offer some suggestions for early educational intervention with at-risk children. Thus, one of the goals of our sociomoral education approach is to augment the empathetic capacities of participants.

The process of moral judgment is rooted in a capacity for mature moral reasoning. Development in moral reasoning allows the person to better grasp the moral issues at stake, understand the logical relations and priorities among competing moral values, and form coherent and defensible judgments about what action is best. There is a wealth of literature suggesting one characteristic of delinquent youth is delayed development in moral reasoning (for reviews, see Blasi, 1980; Jurkovic, 1980; Nelson, Smith, & Dodd, 1990). Again, most "at-risk" kids are not delinquent, but developmental delays in moral reasoning may contribute to the constellation of factors that place youth at greater than average risk for developing antisocial behavior patterns. Correspondingly, a second goal of our approach is to promote the moral reasoning competency of participants.

One personal attribute related to the process of moral choice is motivational orientation. According to Nicholls (1983, 1989, 1992), there are two primary motivational orientations that are operative in achievement contexts. In short, people can be motivated by a desire to perform a task better than others (termed "ego" orientation). Alternately, a person can be motivated by the challenge to obtain greater mastery at a skill or task relative to their own past performances (termed "task orientation"). These motivational orientations, in turn, appear closely related to moral outlook (Duda, Olson, & Templin, 1991; Nicholls, 1989; Stephens & Bredemeier, 1996). It is likely that a task orientation, relative to an ego orientation, promotes a greater valuing of moral concerns, especially when one's ability is perceived to be low. Therefore, a


third goal of our sociomoral approach is to promote task-oriented motivation in achievement activities.

Finally, the process of implementation is facilitated, according to Shields and Bredemeier (1995), by the development of self-regulation skills. For our purposes, we redefined these as self-responsibility skills, in keeping with the work of Hellison (1978, 1983a, 1983b, 1985, 1986). These skills require such interrelated competencies as impulse control, the ability to delay gratification, ego resiliency, and self-direction. If one is to take responsibility for one's own moral choices, self-responsibility skills are essential. Hellison has shown that physical activity programs can be an effective intervention context to enhance personal and social responsibility in at-risk populations (DeBusk & Hellison, 1989; Hellison, 1983; Hellison & Templin, 1991). Consequently, promoting self-responsibility skills is the fourth goal of our educational approach.

Program Intervention Strategies Educators cannot promote changes in personal attributes directly but only

via organizing the environmental pole of experience. For our program, we identified four arenas of environmental influence that provided us with guidance for developing specific interventions: social interdependence, moral atmosphere, motivational climate, and power relations.

We noted earlier that the process of moral perception is related to the psychological capacity for empathy. One of the most fundamental dimensions of environmental structure that impacts on empathetic responses is the type of social interdependence in place. By social interdependence, we mean how the interpersonal interactions and rewards for achievement are structured-cooperatively, competitively, or independently. When an environment is structured cooperatively, it tends to promote more empathy than when it is structured competitively (Barnett, Matthews, & Howard, 1979; Johnson & Johnson, 1989). This is particularly true, we believe, in situations characterized by both means and goal interdependency (Johnson & Johnson, 1989). In other words, if the participants need to coordinate their efforts in order to achieve a mutual "superordinate" goal, empathy is likely to be stimulated.' Thus, cooperative learning is one major strategy we employ in our approach to moral education.

The second goal of our sociomoral education approach is to promote moral reasoning maturity. Most early efforts at promoting moral reasoning maturity re- lied on the use of a moral dilemmas discussion format (Reimer, Paolitto, & Hersh, 1983). While these programs did succeed in stimulating moral reasoning development (for reviews, see Higgins, 1980; Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989; Schafli, Rest, & Thoma, 1985), they were hampered by an inadequate emphasis on the connection between moral judgment and moral action and between the individual and her or his social context. A more comprehensive approach to fostering mature moral judgment involves promoting changes in the moral atmosphere of the group (Power et al., 1989).

By moral atmosphere, we mean group members' shared understandings about how to behave. Over time, through the synergistic interactions of its participants, groups develop collective moral norms that define expected behavior on the part of group members. Often, these collective norms are more compelling influences on actual behavior than the moral judgments of the individual actor (Power et al.,


1989). Unfortunately, collective norms in many at-risk populations tend to be antisocial. For example, in a physical activity setting, cheating can be an expected behavior. Consequently, moral education involves the development of a moral atmosphere conducive to prosocial behavior. Collective norms based on such values as caring, fairness, and democratic participation can help promote the development of both an individual's moral character and the group's sense of moral community.

Closely related to the concept of moral atmosphere is that of motivational climate. Motivational climate refers to the relative salience of mastery and performance informational cues in the environment. Mastery climates, which emphasize skill development, progressive learning, and effort, are conducive to fostering a task orientation. For example, a physical educator who bases feedback on individual skill development rather than comparison to peers is helping to create a mastery climate. In contrast, performance climates, which emphasize competitive success, tend to augment an ego orientation. Performance climates are less conducive to fostering sociomoral growth because of their focus on defeating, rather than helping, others. Thus, another strategy we employ in our program is the nurturance of a mastery motivational climate.

Interpersonal power relations are a critical environmental influence on one's ability to gain skill in implementing moral choices. Fortunately, Hellison (1978, 1983a, 1983b, 1985,1986) has developed a sophisticated approach to empowering students through a cumulative progression of tasks or goals. As we interpret it, Hellison's approach is intended to progressively shift power from authority figures to the students themselves; meanwhile, the students learn to take on increasing responsibility for themselves and others. As the participants increasingly become more empowered and responsible, they are able to more faithfully implement their moral visions. Correspondingly, the fourth strategy in our sociomoral education program is the transfer of power from teacher to students in pace with participant acceptance of responsibility.

Table 1 summarizes the sociomoral education goals and intervention strategies as they relate to the four primary processes of moral action. It is important to emphasize that these interventions are interrelated. Cooperative learning, for example, works best in an atmosphere where there is mutual respect (moral community), where the self-referenced accomplishments of each are celebrated (mastery climate), and where students are assuming most of the power and decision-making (self-responsibility).

Table 1 Moral Action Processes, Sociomoral Education Goals, and Program Intervention Strategies

Moral Action Perception Judgment Choice Implementation Process:

Program Goal: Empathy Moral Task Self-Responsibility Reasoning Orientation

Intervention: Cooperative Moral Mastery Power Transfer Learning Community Climate

MILLER, BREDEMEIER, AND SHIELDS

Implementing Our Sociomoral Education Program

We have presented our approach to moral education as if it were neatly de- duced from theoretical paradigms. In fact, however, it has evolved from an interaction between theory and practice. While the old adage is true that nothing is more practical than a good theory, it is equally true that good theories need to be flexible and open to revision in accordance with experience "in the field."

Below, we elaborate on each of the four interventions. We draw from our experience implementing the program with 4th and 5th grade students during 10- week sessions over a period of several years. In each section, we expand on the theoretical basis for each strategy and comment on some of the practical dimensions of implementing it. Before turning to the interventions, however, it may be helpful to offer a small glimpse into the social context of the children who participate in our program.

Most of the students from this elementary school are from lower income families and are children of color. Like more and more urban public schools, the facilities are marred by walls filled with graffiti and iron bars over broken win- dows. The school has very limited supplies, so the children play with the few balls and jump ropes available. They are often banned from playing on the playground equipment because it is not properly maintained and ruled unsafe. Because the school has no formal physical education program, teaching physical education is left up to the classroom teachers. Among classroom teachers, morale tends to be low and turnover high.

Each year, our program involves about 30 4th or 5th grade students. Trained graduate and undergraduate volunteers teach three hours of physical education per week. During each contact hour, the students are offered formalized instruction, practice time, and opportunity for small group discussions. In addition to our sociomoral education program, the curriculum features sport skills, physical fitness, and games. Below, we describe each of the four primary strategies compris- ing our sociomoral intervention program.

Cooperative Learning

Achievement tasks can be structured in three different ways (Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Cooperative goal structures (sometimes referred to as "positive interdependence") require individuals to work together to achieve a common goal. The fortunes of persons are linked so that one cannot succeed without the others succeeding and one's positive contributions toward the goal benefit all members. In competitive goal structures (negative interdependence), one cannot succeed in a task if others succeed; goals and rewards are mutually exclusive. Individualistic goal structures (no interdependence) occur when individuals work alone to achieve their goals.

Goal structure has a profound effect on the sociomoral development of young children. As Piaget (1932) suggested more than 60 years ago, the development of "cooperative morality" is crucial to sociomoral growth. Furthermore, research over the past half century has demonstrated that cooperative goal structures provide opportunities for enhanced communication and collaboration among group members which, in turn, promotes empathy, interpersonal trust, and a greater appreciation of the needs and interests of others (Johnson & Johnson, 1989). Conversely,


competitive goal structures tend to focus attention on the interests of the self rather than others and often result in distorted communication and hostility. Especially with new or complex tasks, negative interdependence (competition) tends to foster high anxiety levels, cheating, overgeneralization of results, maladaptive problem- solving skills, and lowered intrinsic motivation (for reviews, see Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Kohn, 1986).

Though sport is premised on competition, physical educators have equal opportunity to create competitive or cooperative environments in their physical education classes. In our program, we have changed the goal structure of many "traditional" competitive activities, such as basketball, baseball, ultimate Frisbee, and relay races, through employing superordinate goals. Instead of head-to-head competition in ultimate Frisbee, for example, we challenged the entire group to make more successful passes in three minutes than they did the previous week. On another day, we implemented a team juggling exercise in which a group of 10 students tried to "juggle" 10 tennis balls at the same time by tossing the balls to each other in a pre-arranged pattern. Cooperative activities such as these allow for more positive interactions and verbal encouragement, and we saw many of the students helping each other on their technique.

One common belief is that children like and want competitive games and would be bored with cooperative goal structures. We found this belief to be mis- taken. The students reported that they enjoyed the cooperative activities very much, especially when the goal was challenging. Moreover, they did not seem to feel anxious, as some did in competitive activities. Compared to the times when these children played competitively, we observed very few arguments or fights. In addition, they reported feeling good about making positive contributions to the group goals, and they liked to see their peers succeed as well.

Building Moral Community It is important to develop the reasoning capacities of children so as to maxi-

mize their ability to act morally. As noted earlier, research has demonstrated that immature reasoning is one of the contributing factors to juvenile delinquency. This is true even after controlling for the effects of age, socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and intelligence (Bear, 1989; Blasi, 1980; Chandler & Moran, 1990; Eisikovits & Sagi, 1982; Hains & Ryan, 1983; Jurkovic, 1980; Kohlberg, 1958; McColgan, Rest, & Pruitt, 1983; Nelson, Smith, & Dodd, 1990). Juvenile delinquents are more likely to reason at the preconventional stages, while nondelinquents reason more at the socially approved conventional level2. Further findings indicate that delinquents tend to be developmentally delayed, rather than fixated, in their reasoning maturity (Kohlberg & Freundlich, 1973), and that this delay is most pronounced for those moral issues associated with legal justice (Gregg, Gibbs, & Basinger, 1994).

A direct and simple way to promote development in moral reasoning is through moral dilemma discussion groups (Power et al., 1989). However, we chose not to rely primarily on this educational approach, favoring instead a strategy based on promoting changes in the moral atmosphere of the group. This decision was based on several considerations. Foremost was the recognition that behavior is often more responsive to group norms than individual beliefs. Additionally, if we want children to develop an appreciation for conventional morality, they need a

I22 MILLER, BREDEMEIER, AND SHIELDS

reference group where such morality is held in esteem. The lack of any such peer reference group may be one of the factors placing children at-risk.

Our decision to focus on the moral atmosphere of the group paralleled that made earlier by Kohlberg and his associates. Their efforts to develop "just com- munities" or democratic schools reflected their conviction that only changes in the total moral atmosphere of the group provided the necessary support for comprehensive sociomoral development. They developed elaborate coding schemes for assessing various dimensions of growth in collective moral norms and devised comprehensive educational approaches to facilitate that growth (Power et al., 1989). In short, their goal was to demonstrate that environments characterized by group decision-making, shared responsibility, and mutual trust, respect, and care could greatly impact both individual development and collective behavior.

One way to think about the benefits of promoting moral community is to reflect on the form that moral obligation takes in such a community. All people- simply because they are people-should refrain (when there is no conflicting moral claim) from cheating, stealing, lying, or other forms of moral violation. But in a moral community, the motivation to avoid these moral failings is augmented by membership in the group. "I do not cheat because that is not what we do in this community." "In our group, we always encourage each other." Attachment to the group is simultaneously attachment to shared group moral norms. In a sense, every group member is doubly obligated to abide by moral norms: they are obligated by the universal nature of the norm itself, and they are obligated because of their attachment to a particular group in which morality has become part of its identity.

In physical education classes, building a moral community can occur through such activities as group problem-solving and discussion of real-life moral issues, and through strategies designed to promote group cohesion rooted in a collective moral identity. To build moral community, the group has to take the time to get to know and understand the needs and interests of each of its members. And teachers need to provide ample opportunity to discuss and debate moral issues affecting the group. Teacher-led discussions can help students identify and reflect on key moral issues, values, and behaviors, but it is only through peer interaction that students can come to claim a group moral identity.

In our experimental program, we sometimes used "built-in" dilemmas (Bredemeier et al., 1986; Romance et al., 1986) to stimulate moral discussions, and we frequently discussed issues that spontaneously arose during an activity. For example, in response to a built-in shortage of equipment, we had a discussion about sharing, and in response to actual instances of cheating and aggression, we talked about the appropriateness of these behaviors in our particular group. One key question that we kept posing was, "Whose responsibility is it?' In a moral community, all share in responsibility for one another's actions because behavior reflects not just individual decision-making but the actor's perceptions of what is desirable or permissible in the group. Other key questions that we discussed frequently were, "What kind of group are we?" "What can we expect of one another?" "How do we balance individual freedom with responsibility to the group?" Of course, the answers to these questions changed in accordance with the norms and goals of the group.

We were not always successful in building the kind of moral community we desired. To do so often required an attempt to dislodge street norms that were both


functional and appealing to many group members. Additionally, conventional morality is relatively uncommon in this age group, even under the best of circum- stances. Still, we believe that we made significant progress toward promoting moral community, and we continue to affirm its centrality in sociomoral education. We believe more progress would have been made if the entire school sought to operate as a moral community but, to date, this has not been possible to implement.

Creating a Mastery Motivational Climate Nicholls (1985,1989) proposed that motivation in achievement situations is

rooted in developmentally influenced interpretations of ability. Younger children do not adequately distinguish between ability and effort. As a result, they believe greater ability is demonstrated when a task is accomplished through high effort. By about the age of 10, however, the concepts of ability and effort are differenti- ated and the child comes to see that greater ability is demonstrated when a person can accomplish a difficult task with less effort than someone else. The latter concept of ability is intrinsically rooted in social comparison and, consequently, ability is perhaps most readily apparent when successfully competing against others. In contrast, social comparison is not necessary for the earlier developmental con- ception, and ability can be equated with continual self-referenced improvement at a task.

According to Nicholls, all people are motivated to demonstrate competence. But there are different ways to demonstrate competence. A task motivational orientation is present when a person desires to demonstrate competence via self- referenced improvement. This is the earlier motivational orientation to develop because it doesn't require an accurate differentiation between effort and ability. The later developing ego orientation is present when a person is motivated to demonstrate competence via favorable social comparison. But the ego orientation does not necessarily displace the task orientation. Even after advances in cognitive development make the ego orientation possible, socialization factors play a critical role in determining which motivational orientation is more salient for a person.

The preference for one motivational orientation over the other represents more than just an achievement orientation; it represents a personal philosophy or world view regarding the purpose of achievement activities (Nicholls, 1989). The purpose, in short, becomes either skill mastery or beating others. These world views become more crystallized through further experience in achievement situations like sport.

Different environmental cues tend to elicit and nurture different motivational orientations. A "mastery climate" is rich with cues that tend to nurture a task orientation, whereas a "performance climate" is rich with cues that will nurture an ego orientation. Thus, task or ego involvement in a particular activity is a function both of a person's propensity toward a particular goal orientation and the specific situ- ational cues. These cues include such things as the presence of an audience, the operative goal structure, and the type of feedback given. Competitive situations, the presence of an audience, and feedback based on social comparison are all situ- ational cues nurturing an embrace of ego-oriented goals. Cooperative situations, no audience, and feedback based on personal mastery and improvement are conducive for task motivation.


A preponderance of the literature supports the claim that mastery climates result in more adaptive behaviors. In both the physical and academic domains, mastery-oriented climates have been shown to enhance intrinsic motivation (Goudas & Biddle, 1994; Seifriz, Duda, & Chi, 1992), learning (Ames & Archer, 1988; Theeboom, De Knop, & Weiss, 1995), more internal, stable causal attributions (Ames &Archer, 1988; Goudas, Biddle, &Fox, 1994a, 1994b; Martinek & Griffith, 1994), as well as decreased performance anxiety (Walling, Duda, & Chi, 1993). Moreover, performance-oriented climates that emphasize winning as paramount have been shown to foster attitudes favorable toward aggression and cheating (Duda, Olson, & Templin, 1991; Stephens & Bredemeier, 1996).

In our program we have de-emphasized zero-sum competition and emphasized individual improvement, learning, and having fun. For example, our prepa- ration for the Presidential Fitness Test included having each student keep an indi- vidualized record of his or her progress for each of the physical fitness skills. Teachers helped students set goals based on their individual improvement rather than their normative ranking in the class. ~ l s o , teachers' performance feedback keyed in on individual performance, personal effort, and progress rather than on comparisons with other students.

At first, despite our efforts, students still tended to compare scores against their peers to find out how well they performed a skill. Eventually, however, attention shifted to individual progress. We focused on such values as caring, fairness, and democratic participation to help promote the development of both an individual's moral character and the group's sense of moral community.

An important part of creating a mastery climate involves providing optimal challenges to students. In many of the activities, teachers would discuss appropriate challenges based on what the student had accomplished in the past. Superordinate goals often were used to help groups strive for improvement. For example, we would see how long it took a group of children to make 10 successful passes with a Frisbee and then try to improve on that score. Optimal challenges seem to engage the students, and they reported having fun and trying hard.

Transferring Power From Teachers to Students Hellison (1978, 1985, 1986; Hellison & Templin, 1991) has developed an

approach to physical education designed to promote participants' sense of personal and social responsibility. It has evolved over the years in the crucible of practical experience and is often referred to by cumculum experts as an exemplary approach to fostering social development through physical education (Bain, 1988; Jewett & Bain, 1985; Siedentop, Mand, & Taggart, 1986; Winnick, 1990). The approach has received limited support from case study research (DeBusk & Hellison, 1989; Hellison, 1978).

In concept, Hellison's approach is relatively simple. It is centered around the description of five heuristic levels, each level reflecting social goals toward which students can progressively work. In short, the levels first focus on self-control, then move to active involvement, then to self-direction, and then to caring. Though the levels are not intended to reflect a developmental hierarchy, they do present a coherent set of progressive challenges to students. In addition to outlining these levels, Hellison (1985, 1991) identifies sublevels and various teaching strategies that can be used across the levels.


In our view, one of the most important characteristics of the level sequence is that each succeeding level turns additional power over to the student. Initially, students are only responsible for maintaining self-control. Then, after students have accepted this level of responsibility, they are given additional power to make autonomous decisions through active participation in the curriculum. At the next level, self-direction becomes the explicit focus, and considerable power shifts to the student to set personal goals and plans. Then, building on the gains obtained through self-direction, students are given greater power to shape the community. Finally, students are invited to exercise the responsible use of power in contexts outside the physical education arena.

In our experimental program, we have incorporated the self-responsibility goals and the self-responsibility strategies outlined by Hellison (1985) into our daily curriculum. Instead of using the levels to measure the increase of self-responsibility from day to day, we have used them as a method of communication between teachers and students. The levels provided teachers with an excellent frame- work from which to initiate discussions about appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and they offered a convenient and common language to communicate about self-responsibility goals.

For a few students, it was a challenge to maintain self-control in a group activity. Others, who took easily to the early levels, seemed to welcome the opportunity to help shape an environment that could make a difference not just for themselves but for the entire group. For many, our program was the first time that they were able to voice opinions about what changes should be made to improve their community. Combining the self-responsibility emphasis with that on moral community offered students unique opportunities to contribute. Sometimes this meant self-sacrifice for the benefit of the group or looking past short-term gains in'favor of greater possible long-term gains. For example, after some students broke a seri- ous rule, they were in favor of receiving the more severe of two consequences so as to deter others from breaking the rule in the future.

Summary and Conclusion

In this paper we have suggested that physical education can provide a potent context for enhancing sociomoral growth. We have outlined an approach to sociomoral education that features the goals of developing empathy, moral reasoning capacity, task-oriented motivation, and self-responsibility skills. Our program involves four sets of intervention strategies designed to help us achieve these goals: cooperative learning, promoting moral community, creating a mastery climate, and shifting power to students as they develop the skills to assume greater responsibility.

Our efforts to implement this sociomoral program with at-risk children have been both humbling and rewarding. In general, however, we have been quite pleased with the results. During end-of-the-year interviews, students have reported that the program has enriched their lives. Typical are the following comments:

"When things are not going well in P.E., it is the students' responsibility, not the teacher's, to figure out how to improve them."

"P.E. was fun because no one makes fun of each other if they mess up; we don't argue or fight anymore. We try to make it fun for each other and encourage each other."

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Notes

'We are not suggesting that competition has no place in physical education. In fact, given the overly competitive nature of our culture, learning to compete without becoming obsessed with winning is an important educational goal. But to achieve this goal, competitive experiences need to be nestled within overtly cooperative ones. Particularly in the elementary school, we believe cooperative and individualistic goal structures are most appropriate.

2The terms "preconventional" and "conventional" are drawn from Kohlberg's (1984) stage theory. The preconventional level is characterized by a moral perspective yet to be influenced significantly by social norms. In contrast, the person reasoning conventionally adopts a "member of society" perspective on moral issues.

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