Lawrence Kohlberg--Entrada de Wikipedia (Versión en Inglés)

Lawrence Kohlberg

Early life
Lawrence Kohlberg grew up in a wealthy family and attended Phillips Academy, a renowned private high school, in Andover, Massachusetts. His father, Alfred Kohlberg, was an importer of lace handkerchiefs from China and an ardent supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy. His mother, Charlotte Albrecht, was an amateur chemist who later invented a fireproof coating used on rockets. Larry, or Laurie as he was known as a youth, was the youngest of four children, having one older brother and two older sisters. His parents separated while he was still young. The following divorce was acrimonious with various charges being shot back and forth on the pages of the New York Times.

Following World War II, after finishing his high school education, Kohlberg enlisted in the Merchant Marine and became an oiler on the U.S.S. George Washington. Later he joined the Haganah, and on their ship, the Geula, he and his shipmates transported Jews attempting to escape from Europe to Palestine. They accomplished this by smuggling them in banana crates that were secretly beds, fooling government inspectors that formed the British blockade of the region.[citation needed] Kohlberg was captured and interned in Cyprus until escaping.
He married Lucille Stigberg in 1955. They had two sons, David and Steven. He later divorced and was linked with Ann Higgins (D'Alessandro) prior to his suicide in January 1987.

Schooling and research


Kohlberg enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1948 and graduated that same year with a bachelor's degree because his test scores were very high. He earned his doctorate degree from University of Chicago in 1958. After attending college, his career started at Yale University. He taught as an associate professor of psychology from 1959-1961.
Kohlberg then taught in 1962 at the University of Chicago in the Committee on Human Development, further extending his time with academia. In 1968, 40 years old and married with two children, he became a professor of education and social psychology at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he met Carol Gilligan, who later became a colleague and critic of his moral development stage theory.


During a visit to Israel in 1969, Kohlberg journeyed to a kibbutz and observed how much more the youths' moral development had progressed compared to those who were not part of kibbutzim. He decided to rethink his current research and start by beginning a new school called the Cluster School within Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. The Cluster School ran as a 'just community' where students had a basic and trustworthy relationship with one another, using democracy to make all the school's decisions. Armed with this model he started similar 'just communities' in other schools and even one in a prison.


Stages of Moral Development


Main article: Kohlberg's stages of moral development
In his 1958 dissertation, Kohlberg wrote what are now known as Kohlberg's stages of moral development.[2] These stages are planes of moral adequacy conceived to explain the development of moral reasoning. Created while studying psychology at the University of Chicago, the theory was inspired by the work of Jean Piaget and a fascination with children's reactions to moral dilemmas.[3]


His theory holds that moral reasoning, which is the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental constructive stages - each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than the last.[4] In studying these, Kohlberg followed the development of moral judgment far beyond the ages originally studied earlier by Piaget,[5] who also claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages.[4] Expanding considerably upon this groundwork, it was determined that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice and that its development continued throughout the lifespan,[2] even spawning dialogue of philosophical implications of such research.[6][7]


Kohlberg was interested in how people would justify their actions if they were put in a moral dilemma, so he used stories about them in his studies. He would then categorize and classify evoked responses into one of six distinct stages, each grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.[8][9][10] These stages heavily influenced others and has been utilized by others like James Rest in making the Defining Issues Test in 1979.[11]

Death


Kohlberg contracted a tropical parasite in 1971 while doing cross-cultural work in Belize. As a result, he struggled with depression and physical pain for the rest of his life. On January 19, 1987, he requested a day of leave from the Massachusetts hospital where he was being treated, and reportedly commited suicide by drowning himself in the boston harbor.
In an article written in 1987:The body of Lawrence Kohlberg, a professor of education at Harvard University who had been missing since Jan. 17, was found Monday in Boston Harbor after it washed up at Logan Airport. Professor Kohlberg, 59 years old, had suffered from a tropical disease for 20 years. He left Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., on a day pass on Jan. 17., and his car was found abandoned on a residential street in Winthrop, Mass. on Jan. 21.