Week 12 · Chapter

Chapter 12 — Middle Childhood: Social-Emotional Development

Child Development Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 7 (analyze development in middle childhood: concrete operational thought, information processing, intelligence and learning, self-esteem, friendship, bullying, and moral reasoning) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, the quiz, and the workshop all build on it.

In plain language

This chapter is about how school-age children, at about 6 to 11, come to see themselves and get along with one another. Children in these years start to judge their own abilities by looking at classmates, which researchers call social comparison (measuring yourself against peers). Their friendships grow deeper, and some children meet bullying (repeated, unwanted aggression that uses a difference in power). Children also start to give more careful reasons for why something is fair or unfair, which is moral reasoning (the reasons a person gives for calling an action right or wrong). You will learn to read all of this in what children actually do and say, without labelling any child.

Why you already care about this

Picture a classroom on the afternoon of a class election. A child of about 9 loses by a few votes, looks at the winner's tally on the board, and says, "I'm bad at everything." A friend leans over and whispers, "You're not bad at kickball." The teacher writes the next item on the board, and the moment passes.

That small scene holds most of this week. The child is measuring themselves against a classmate. One loss in one area is being stretched into a verdict on the whole self. And a friend steps in with loyalty, offering a different area where the child does well. Earlier in childhood, a loss like this might have passed with a few tears. In the school years, it gets weighed, compared, and talked about.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

name Erikson's industry vs. inferiority and place a school-age child on it;
explain self-esteem and social comparison, and say why one setback is not a verdict on the whole child;
tell friendship apart from peer acceptance;
check a scenario against stopbullying.gov's three-element definition of bullying, and tell bullying apart from ordinary conflict;
state what adults and peers can do about bullying as stopbullying.gov states it;
name Kohlberg's three levels in order, and present Gilligan's critique with each side's case;
describe family structures and transitions without ranking them;
read record R7 of the running case with two theories and end in one plain sentence.

Carry this line with you: score the reasoning, not the child.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 2 introduced Erikson's psychosocial theory and its stages. Week 3 taught you to keep what a child did apart from what it might mean. Week 7 placed toddlers on Erikson's first two stages. Week 10 taught initiative vs. guilt, self-concept, and aggression in early childhood. Week 11 opened middle childhood with concrete operational thinking.
This week: the social-emotional domain in middle childhood — Erikson's fourth stage, self-esteem and social comparison, friendship and peer acceptance, bullying, moral reasoning, and families.
How they connect: the logical thinking you met in Week 11 is what lets a school-age child compare themselves with others and argue about whether a rule is fair.
Where we're going next: Week 13 begins a new period, adolescence, with puberty, the teenage brain, and formal operational thought.

Two earlier ideas carry this week. From Week 10, aggression is behavior meant to harm someone, and it can be physical, verbal, or a matter of shutting a child out on purpose. From Week 3, every observation record keeps the behavior in one column and the interpretation in another. You will use both on the running case, the illustrative, unnamed child whose eight records follow them from birth to 15.

1. Place the school years on Erikson's fourth stage

Think about a youth soccer practice on a cool evening. A 7-year-old who could barely kick straight in the spring now passes the ball to a teammate and looks over at the coach. The coach nods. The child grins and runs back into position. Something in that nod matters a great deal to a child of this age, and you have probably seen it yourself.

Erikson (1950), in Childhood and Society, described eight stages across life, and five of them fall in childhood and adolescence (Dataset E). You met the first two in Week 7 and the third, initiative vs. guilt, in Week 10. This week brings the fourth.

Industry vs. inferiority is the fourth of Erikson's psychosocial crises, in middle childhood at about 6 to 11. A child either builds a sense of competence by working at and mastering valued skills, or comes to feel that they do not measure up.

Industry is a school-age child's growing sense of competence that comes from working at and mastering skills the child's community values, such as reading, a sport, or a craft. The other pole, inferiority, is a sense of not measuring up.

Worked example — placing the stage. Dataset E lists the crises in order:

trust vs. mistrust (infancy, about birth to 1)
autonomy vs. shame and doubt (toddlerhood, about 1 to 3)
initiative vs. guilt (early childhood, about 3 to 6)
industry vs. inferiority (middle childhood, about 6 to 11)
identity vs. role confusion (adolescence)

Industry vs. inferiority is stage 4 of the 5 childhood and adolescent stages. After it, 5 − 4 = 1 stage remains in childhood and adolescence: identity vs. role confusion, which Week 14 takes up. In words: the school years sit between early childhood's initiative and adolescence's search for identity.

Notice what "valued skills" means, because you will meet children from many communities. Which skills count depends on the child's community. In one family it may be reading; in another it may be helping run a family business, caring for younger siblings, or learning a traditional craft. Erikson's idea is about competence in what the child's world values, not about one kind of school success.

Misconception check — the timetable. Students often think a child enters industry vs. inferiority on a 6th birthday and leaves it on an 11th. It is tempting, because the stage comes with ages. The cure: Erikson's ages are approximate, and the stage is a model of a central tension, not a calendar. The crisis names and their order are what the course keys; the ages never are.

2. Weigh yourself against others: self-esteem and social comparison

Return to the class election. The child who lost looked at the board and compared their vote count with the winner's. That habit, measuring yourself by other people, is common in these years. You likely did it too.

Self-esteem is a child's overall judgment of their own worth. In middle childhood it becomes more differentiated, so a child can feel capable in one area, such as sports, and less capable in another, such as spelling.

Social comparison is judging your own abilities by comparing them with those of peers. It becomes common in middle childhood, partly because school puts children side by side every day, and partly because the logical thinking of Week 11 lets a child line up "my score" against "their score".

Worked example — separating the areas. Read the election scene the way the course reads every scene: behavior first, then meaning.

What the child did and said: looked at the winner's tally; said, "I'm bad at everything."
What a friend said: "You're not bad at kickball."
What it might show: social comparison in one area (votes), stretched into a judgment of the whole self.
What the friend added: a second area, kickball, where the child feels capable.

In one sentence: the child's remark is social comparison in one area, and the friend's reply points to the differentiated self-esteem typical of middle childhood, where a child can feel weak in one area and strong in another.

Misconception check — comparison as a problem. Students often think a child who compares themselves with classmates must have low self-esteem or a problem. It is tempting, because comparison can sting. The cure: social comparison is typical in middle childhood. What matters is whether one area is allowed to stand for the whole child. One lost election is one area, not a verdict.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of an area where you compared yourself with others as a child, such as a sport, a class, or a talent. Did the comparison push you to work harder, make you want to quit, or both?
(b) How could a coach or teacher respond to "I'm bad at everything" in a way that separates one area from the whole child? Write what they might say.

3. Make friends: friendship and peer acceptance

Picture a city library's after-school homework room. Two 10-year-olds sit side by side every afternoon. One forgets a pencil; the other hands one over without being asked. When a third child teases one of them, the other says, "Leave her alone." You can tell those two are doing more than sitting near each other.

Friendship is a close, two-way bond between two children that, in middle childhood, rests more on loyalty, trust, and mutual support than on shared activity alone. Think back to Week 10's preschoolers. A 4-year-old's "friend" is often whoever is playing with the blocks right now. A 10-year-old's friend is someone who sticks up for you and keeps your secrets.

Peer acceptance (how well a whole group likes a child) is how much a child is liked by the peer group as a whole, such as a class or a team, which is different from having one close friend. A child can be widely liked and still have no one to share a secret with. Another child can be on the edges of the class and still have one loyal friend. The course describes both in words and never sorts real children into "popular" or "rejected" types.

Worked example — telling the two apart. Sort each note from an illustrative after-school program.

"Most of the group picks this child first for teams." That is peer acceptance, because it describes the whole group's view.
"This child and one other child save each other a seat and walk home together every day." That is friendship, a two-way bond.
"This child is chosen last for teams but laughs with one partner the whole time." That shows lower peer acceptance and a friendship at once.

In words: peer acceptance is the group's view of a child, and friendship is one two-way bond, so a child can have one without the other.

Misconception check — one number for social life. Students often think friendship and popularity are the same thing. It is tempting, because both are about being liked. The cure: peer acceptance describes a whole group's view, while friendship is a two-way bond with one child. A child with one loyal friend has something real, even if the class as a whole pays them little attention.

4. Define bullying: three elements, not any conflict

Think about a lunchroom on a busy day. Two friends both want the seat by the window. They argue, one pushes the other's tray aside, and they both sulk. The next day they sit together as if nothing happened. Now think about a class group chat where, week after week, several classmates leave one child out on purpose and post jokes about them. Both scenes are unpleasant. Only one of them is bullying, and your job is to tell which.

Stopbullying.gov, the federal government's bullying-prevention site, defines bullying as unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.

That definition has 3 elements:

(a) unwanted, aggressive behavior;
(b) a real or perceived power imbalance, a difference in power, such as physical strength, popularity, or access to embarrassing information, that one child uses to control or harm another;
(c) repetition: the behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.

The site names 3 types of bullying: verbal (saying or writing mean things), social, and physical (hurting a person's body or possessions). Social bullying, also called relational bullying, hurts someone's reputation or relationships, for example by leaving them out on purpose or spreading rumors about them.

Worked example — the definition check. Check each illustrative scenario against the 3 elements.

Two illustrative scenarios checked against stopbullying.gov's three elements of bullying
Element	Lunchroom seating dispute	Group chat
(a) Unwanted, aggressive behavior	yes: one friend pushes the other's tray aside	yes: leaving a classmate out on purpose and posting jokes
(b) Real or perceived power imbalance	no: two friends of equal standing	yes: several classmates against one, with numbers and popularity
(c) Repeated, or likely to be repeated	no: it happens once and not again	yes: week after week
Elements met	1 of 3	3 of 3

Step by step: the lunchroom dispute meets 1 of the 3 elements, so 3 − 1 = 2 elements are missing. It is conflict, not bullying. The group chat meets 3 of 3, so it fits the definition, and leaving someone out on purpose is social bullying in the site's types. In one sentence: a one-time argument between equals is conflict, while repeated, unwanted aggression that uses a difference in power is bullying.

Misconception check — every fight is bullying. Students often think any conflict between children counts as bullying. It is tempting, because "bullying" has become an everyday word for anything mean. The cure: check all 3 elements. A one-time argument between friends of equal standing is conflict, and calling it bullying makes the word mean less when a child really needs it to.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Why might a power imbalance be hard for an adult to see from the outside? Give one example that is not about physical strength.
(b) Online, a single cruel post can be shared again and again. How does that connect to the definition's phrase "has the potential to be repeated"?

5. Respond to bullying: what adults and peers can do

Picture a recess yard. An adult on duty sees a group of children circling one child near the fence, and the child in the middle looks frightened. What should the adult do first? This course does not invent its own advice here, and you should not either. You report what the issuing source says.

For adults, stopbullying.gov says to intervene immediately, and that it is ok to get another adult to help. It says to separate the kids involved, to make sure everyone is safe, to stay calm, and to model respectful behavior. It also warns adults not to make the kids involved apologize or patch up relations on the spot.

For peers, the site describes the bystander. A bystander is anyone who sees bullying happen. An upstander is a bystander who sees what happens and steps in, interrupts, or speaks up to stop it. The site lists things a bystander can do to become an upstander: question the behavior, change the subject, act together as a group, walk with the child who is being targeted, and reach out privately afterward to say they care.

Worked example — matching actions to the source. At the recess yard, the adult walks over at once and calls a second adult. Each child is moved apart. The adult checks that the child by the fence is not hurt and speaks in a calm voice. Later, a classmate who saw it sits with that child at lunch. Match each action:

walking over at once and calling a second adult: intervening immediately, with another adult's help;
moving the children apart: separating the kids involved;
checking for injury and speaking calmly: making sure everyone is safe, and staying calm;
the classmate sitting with the child at lunch: a bystander becoming an upstander by reaching out.

In words: each step the adult and the classmate took is one stopbullying.gov names, so the response follows the issuing source rather than anyone's personal opinion.

Misconception check — make them shake hands. Students often think the best fix is to have the two children apologize and make up right away. It is tempting, because it ends the scene quickly. The cure: stopbullying.gov warns adults not to make the kids involved apologize or patch up relations on the spot. Bullying involves a power imbalance, so a forced handshake on the spot treats it like a fight between equals.

6. Reason about right and wrong: Kohlberg's three levels

Picture a family dinner. A 10-year-old announces that a classmate copied homework. A younger sibling says copying is bad "because you get in trouble". The 10-year-old says it is bad "because it isn't fair to the kids who did the work". Both children agree it is wrong. Their reasons are very different, and you can hear the difference.

That difference in reasons is what this section is about. Piaget's early account of children's moral judgment, which watched how children think about the rules of their games, is named here in words. Kohlberg built on that interest. In his doctoral dissertation of 1958, named in words, he studied moral reasoning by giving people dilemmas and asking them to explain their choices.

The best known is the Heinz dilemma. A man named Heinz has a wife who is dying, and a druggist is selling a drug that might save her for far more than Heinz can pay. Should Heinz steal the drug? Kohlberg cared less about yes or no than about why. Moral reasoning is the reasons a person gives for why an action is right or wrong.

Kohlberg described 3 levels, each with 2 stages, so 3 × 2 = 6 stages in all. You will be asked to name the levels in order:

At the preconventional level, right and wrong are judged by punishment, reward, and self-interest.
At the conventional level, right and wrong are judged by the approval of others and by keeping the rules and laws of the group or society.
At the postconventional level, right and wrong are judged by principles such as justice and rights that rules are meant to serve.

Worked example — scoring the reason. Return to the dinner table. The younger sibling's reason, "because you get in trouble", is about punishment, which fits the preconventional level. The 10-year-old's reason, "it isn't fair to the kids who did the work", is about fairness to others in the group. One remark at dinner is not a dilemma interview, so this is a reading of two reasons, not a level assigned to either child.

Honesty note. This course keys the names and order of Kohlberg's three levels, not the names of his six stages, because sources word the six stages in different ways. If you meet a stage name elsewhere, check which level it sits in.

Misconception check — a level as a grade on the person. Students often think a Kohlberg level tells you how good a person is. It is tempting, because "higher" sounds like "better person". The cure: Kohlberg scored the reasons a person gave, not the yes or no, and not the person. A level describes reasoning, and the same person can reason differently on different days and about different problems.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a rule from your own childhood that you obeyed only to avoid trouble, and one you obeyed because you thought it was fair. What changed between them?
(b) Why might Kohlberg have cared more about the reason than about the yes or no? Explain in your own words.

7. Hear a second voice: Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg

Picture two students talking about the Heinz dilemma after class. One says, "His wife's life matters more than the druggist's property, so he should steal it." The other says, "But if he goes to jail, who takes care of her? He should keep talking to the druggist and find another way." Both are thinking hard. You can hear that they are thinking about different things.

Gilligan's In a Different Voice (1982), named in words, argued that Kohlberg's scheme undervalued an ethic of care: moral reasoning centered on relationships, responsibility, and attention to other people's needs. The second student's reasoning, about who would care for the wife and how to keep talking, is the kind of reasoning Gilligan had in mind.

The course presents each side's case and gives no verdict.

Gilligan's side: a scale built around justice and rights can rank reasoning about care and relationships lower, even when that reasoning is careful and mature.
The other side: Kohlberg's scheme was built to measure justice reasoning, and later research found mixed evidence for gender differences in moral reasoning.

Worked example — two lenses on one answer. Read the second student's reply both ways. Through Kohlberg's levels, the reply focuses on consequences for the relationship and on finding a way that keeps everyone connected. Through Gilligan's lens, the same reply shows an ethic of care, attention to who will be hurt and who will be left without help. In words: Kohlberg's levels ask how a person reasons about rules and justice, and Gilligan adds that care for relationships is a second way of reasoning that a justice scale can miss.

Misconception check — two kinds of minds. Students often think Gilligan said that men and women cannot reason the same way. It is tempting, because her critique is often summed up as "a women's morality". The cure: her critique is about what Kohlberg's scale values, not a claim that men and women think in two fixed ways. Later research found mixed evidence for gender differences, and anyone can reason with justice, with care, or with both.

8. Describe families without ranking them

Picture a school's family-night potluck. One child arrives with a grandparent who is raising them. Another comes with a parent and a stepparent and two stepsiblings. A third arrives with one parent, and a fourth with two parents and a baby brother. Every one of those children is at the same table, eating the same food. You will work with families like all of them.

Children develop well in many family structures. They include two-parent, single-parent, and grandparent-headed families, a blended family, in which at least one adult partner brings a child or children from an earlier relationship, and families with siblings or with none. The course describes these forms without ranking one above another.

Families also change. Divorce, a parent's new partner, a move, or a new sibling are transitions. Divorce and other transitions are associated with short-term difficulties for many children, while most children adjust well over time. Family conflict and support are among the strongest influences on how a child does.

Worked example — reading a finding as an association. A sentence in a parenting blog says, "Divorce causes children to fail in school." Check it against the course's finding:

The course's finding says divorce is associated with short-term difficulties for many children. That is a correlation, not a cause.
It also says most children adjust well over time.
And it names family conflict and support as among the strongest influences, which means a divorce with low conflict and strong support looks very different from one with high conflict and little support.

In words: the blog sentence turns an association into a cause and ignores the most important influences. Your fixed version says that divorce is associated with short-term difficulties for many children, that most adjust well, and that conflict and support matter most.

Caveat. These findings describe patterns across many families. They tell you nothing certain about any one child, so you never use them to predict how a particular child will do.

Misconception check — destined by divorce. Students often think a child of divorce is destined for poor outcomes. It is tempting, because divorce is hard and the difficulties are real at first. The cure: the findings are associations, most children adjust well over time, and family conflict and support are among the strongest influences. No family form decides a child's future.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) A teacher plans a class activity called "Draw your family". How could the teacher word it so every child at the potluck table above could take part without feeling their family is the odd one out?
(b) Why does this course describe family forms without ranking them? Give one reason that comes from the research and one that comes from respect for families.

9. Read record R7 with two lenses

Now you put the week together on the running case. The running case (Dataset A) is illustrative, constructed for this course, and describes no real child.

Worked example — reading record R7. Record R7 was written at 11 years, in an after-school club, with permission. It holds 2 statements:

Record R7 of the running case (illustrative), behavior and possible interpretations
What the child said	What it might show
(1) Argues that a game's rule "is the rule, but it isn't fair if new kids never get a turn"	weighs a rule against fairness to everyone in the club, including newcomers
(2) Says a best friend is "someone who has your back"	describes friendship in terms of loyalty and trust

Walk the course's order.

The record. The table keeps what the child said apart from what it might mean.
The concept. Statement 1 is moral reasoning about a rule. Statement 2 is friendship based on loyalty, the middle-childhood shift away from friendship as shared activity.
Theory one, Kohlberg's levels. The reason the child gives is not about avoiding punishment or getting a reward, the focus of preconventional reasoning. It treats the rule as a rule, as conventional reasoning does, and then judges the rule by fairness to everyone it affects. One sentence is not a dilemma interview, and Kohlberg scored reasoning across whole interviews, so the course assigns R7 no level. A level would describe the reasoning, never the child.
Theory two, Gilligan's ethic of care. "New kids never get a turn" also attends to who is being left out. That is the ethic of care, reasoning centered on relationships and other people's needs, which Gilligan argued Kohlberg's scheme undervalued.
Placing R7 on Dataset E. R7 at 11 years falls at the top of middle childhood (about 6 to 11), stage 4 of the 5 childhood and adolescent stages, industry vs. inferiority. Taking turns in a club game with rules is the kind of peer setting where a sense of competence grows. The ages are approximate.

The reading in one plain sentence: saying a rule "is the rule, but it isn't fair if new kids never get a turn" weighs a rule against fairness to everyone, which Kohlberg's scheme reads as reasoning about rules and justice rather than about punishment, and Gilligan adds that the same sentence shows care for who is left out; R7's "someone who has your back" shows the loyalty-based friendship of Erikson's industry vs. inferiority years.

Misconception check — one sentence, one stage. Students often think one remark is enough to place a child at a Kohlberg level. It is tempting, because the remark sounds like a textbook example. The cure: Kohlberg scored reasoning across whole dilemma interviews, and a single statement in a club is one observation. The course describes the reasoning and assigns no level, which is also how it avoids labelling a child.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Which lens, Kohlberg's or Gilligan's, do you think explains more of R7's statement 1? Give the evidence from the record.
(b) What would you want to observe across more days in the club before saying anything about how this child reasons? Name one thing.

Key terms

Industry vs. inferiority — The fourth of Erikson's psychosocial crises, in middle childhood at about 6 to 11, in which a child either builds a sense of competence by working at and mastering valued skills or comes to feel that they do not measure up. (first used: 1. Place the school years on Erikson's fourth stage)
Industry — In Erikson's fourth stage, a school-age child's growing sense of competence that comes from working at and mastering skills the child's community values, such as reading, a sport, or a craft. (first used: 1. Place the school years on Erikson's fourth stage)
Self-esteem — A child's overall judgment of their own worth; in middle childhood it becomes more differentiated, so a child can feel capable in one area, such as sports, and less capable in another, such as spelling. (first used: 2. Weigh yourself against others: self-esteem and social comparison)
Social comparison — Judging your own abilities by comparing them with those of peers, a habit that becomes common in middle childhood. (first used: 2. Weigh yourself against others: self-esteem and social comparison)
Friendship — A close, two-way bond between two children that, in middle childhood, rests more on loyalty, trust, and mutual support than on shared activity alone. (first used: 3. Make friends: friendship and peer acceptance)
Peer acceptance — How much a child is liked by the peer group as a whole, such as a class or a team, which is different from having one close friend. (first used: 3. Make friends: friendship and peer acceptance)
Bullying — As stopbullying.gov defines it, unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. (first used: 4. Define bullying: three elements, not any conflict)
Power imbalance — In stopbullying.gov's definition of bullying, a difference in power, such as physical strength, popularity, or access to embarrassing information, that one child uses to control or harm another; it can be real or perceived. (first used: 4. Define bullying: three elements, not any conflict)
Social bullying — The type of bullying, also called relational bullying, that hurts someone's reputation or relationships, for example by leaving them out on purpose or spreading rumors about them. (first used: 4. Define bullying: three elements, not any conflict)
Upstander — A bystander to bullying who sees what happens and steps in, interrupts, or speaks up to stop it, as stopbullying.gov describes the role. (first used: 5. Respond to bullying: what adults and peers can do)
Heinz dilemma — Kohlberg's best-known moral dilemma, in which a man must decide whether to steal a drug he cannot afford to save his dying wife; what Kohlberg scored was the reasoning, not the yes or no. (first used: 6. Reason about right and wrong: Kohlberg's three levels)
Moral reasoning — The reasons a person gives for why an action is right or wrong; Kohlberg studied it by asking people to explain their choices in dilemmas. (first used: 6. Reason about right and wrong: Kohlberg's three levels)
Preconventional level — The first of Kohlberg's three levels of moral reasoning, in which right and wrong are judged by punishment, reward, and self-interest; it has two stages. (first used: 6. Reason about right and wrong: Kohlberg's three levels)
Conventional level — The second of Kohlberg's three levels of moral reasoning, in which right and wrong are judged by the approval of others and by keeping the rules and laws of the group or society; it has two stages. (first used: 6. Reason about right and wrong: Kohlberg's three levels)
Postconventional level — The third of Kohlberg's three levels of moral reasoning, in which right and wrong are judged by principles such as justice and rights that rules are meant to serve; it has two stages. (first used: 6. Reason about right and wrong: Kohlberg's three levels)
Ethic of care — Moral reasoning centered on relationships, responsibility, and attention to other people's needs, which Gilligan argued Kohlberg's justice-centered scheme undervalued. (first used: 7. Hear a second voice: Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg)
Blended family — A family in which at least one adult partner brings a child or children from an earlier relationship, sometimes called a stepfamily. (first used: 8. Describe families without ranking them)

Summary

Industry vs. inferiority is Erikson's fourth stage, at about 6 to 11, built on competence in valued skills.
Social comparison is typical in middle childhood; self-esteem becomes differentiated by area.
Friendship is one two-way bond; peer acceptance is the whole group's view.
Bullying needs all 3 elements: unwanted aggression, a power imbalance, and repetition.
Stopbullying.gov tells adults to intervene immediately and separate the kids; bystanders can become upstanders.
Kohlberg's levels are preconventional, conventional, and postconventional, each with two stages.
A Kohlberg level describes reasoning, never the person.
Gilligan argued Kohlberg's scheme undervalued an ethic of care; later evidence on gender differences is mixed.
Children develop well in many family forms; conflict and support matter most.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

On an illustrative school bus, an older, much bigger child shoves a younger child out of a window seat and laughs, and the younger child says it has happened on most mornings for a month. Check the scene against stopbullying.gov's 3 elements, count how many it meets, and name the type.
In an illustrative art class, a 9-year-old says, "My drawing is worse than everyone's, but at least I'm the fastest reader in my group." Name the habit the child is using and what the remark shows about self-esteem in middle childhood.
An illustrative interviewer asks a child about the Heinz dilemma, and the child says, "He shouldn't steal it, because the police would put him in jail." Which of Kohlberg's levels does that reason fit, and why can the reading not be turned into a label for the child?
A classmate writes, "Kids whose parents divorce always have problems for the rest of their lives." Name the misconception and rewrite the sentence so it matches the course's finding.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Element (a), unwanted, aggressive behavior: yes, a shove and laughter. Element (b), a power imbalance: yes, an older, much bigger child against a younger one. Element (c), repetition: yes, most mornings for a month. That is 3 of 3 elements, so the scene fits the definition, and hurting someone's body or possessions is physical bullying. The trap is stopping at "it was mean" without checking the power imbalance and the repetition.
The child is using social comparison, measuring their drawing against classmates'. The second half of the remark shows differentiated self-esteem: the child feels weak in one area, drawing, and strong in another, reading. One area does not stand for the whole child.
The reason is about avoiding punishment, so it fits the preconventional level, where right and wrong are judged by punishment, reward, and self-interest. It cannot become a label because Kohlberg scored reasoning across whole interviews, and a level describes the reasoning on one question, never the person.
The sentence treats a child of divorce as destined for poor outcomes and turns an association into a fixed result. A fixed sentence: "Divorce is associated with short-term difficulties for many children, but most children adjust well over time, and family conflict and support are among the strongest influences."

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, the quiz, and the discussion — and next week, adolescence begins with puberty, the teenage brain, and Piaget's formal operational model.

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