Salesians of Don Bosco. Ranking of moral evils (Informal in-school moral scale questionnaire). (1988, October-1989, January). Kenya.

OVERVIEW

DESIGN

This informal questionnaire was administered to 271 students of Roman Catholic urban and rural schools. They included 60 urban boys (14-18 years of age), 80 rural boys (ages 17-19), 130 urban girls (ages 18-20), and 101 rural girls (ages 14-17).

Fifty-eight items, with blanks for two more fill-ins, appeared with a blank in front of each. These were the instructions on the single sheet:

SOME PEOPLE HAVE SAID THESE ARE MORAL EVILS HUMAN BEINGS SHOULD NOT DO OR BE ASSOCIATED WITH. This exercise gives you the chance to agree or disagree. Please, make all notations on the answer sheet. If you DISAGREE (that is if you do not consider these things moral evils) cross the number with an X. If you AGREE that the item is evil, then give a value number from 1 to 5. (1—the worst; 2—very, very bad; 3—very bad; 4—bad; 5—sometimes bad).

Findings were listed for each of four groups with percentages of students in columns, 1-7 (from 1—the worst to 6—not bad and 7—not marked).

FINDINGS

What follows are the responses generated from the four groups of young people. The numbers show how participants ranked the evil in order, from most grave to least serious, for each group:

CONCLUSIONS

A variety of observations can be made about this informal moral scale. Of particular interest are the differences between males and females and between urban and rural respondents.

• It is interesting that all groups rank murder as the most serious and worst of all moral evils.
• Both abortion and suicide are seen as serious evils. With the exception of urban males, who ranked them about the same, the taking of a fetus’ life is seen as worse than taking one’s own life.
• Birth control is not seen as a serious moral evil. Lowest among urban youth, rural males rank it rather high on their list.
• Comparison of studies shows that young African males find rape much more evil than do their American counterparts. Urban females rank it highest of the four groups.
• Not going to church ranks very low in every group except rural males.
• Urban males somehow view teen pregnancy as worse than fornication. The other groups place it somewhere below. Teen pregnancy is seen as least offensive to urban females.

IMPLICATIONS

1. Some may react strongly against a moral scale such as this and question its intent, method, and conclusions. Certainly we must be careful about drawing dogmatic conclusions from such a sampling of this many students from so few schools.
2. Yet, students are usually remarkably honest in taking such a survey. And there is much to be learned about their values and beliefs, the way they process moral teaching, and where they may need further education.
3. African students take morality and behavior much more seriously than do young people in Western societies. There is still a strong moral climate here, and most students are quite eager to discuss issues of right and wrong. Such discussions can and should take place at school as well as at church in most African nations.

Dean Borgman cCYS (courtesy of Don Bosco seminarians)