The Ethics of U.S. High School Students: 2008 Josephson Institute Report
Every two years the Josephson Institute conducts a national survey of ethics among U.S. adolescents. The 2008 data were gathered through a national sample of 29,760 respondents in public and private high schools.
“The results,” the Institute concludes, “paint a troubling picture of our future politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals.”
Findings: Good intentions; behavior not so much
- 98% said “It’s important for me to be a person with good character,” and 96% said, “It’s important to me that people trust me.”
- 93% agreed, “In business and the workplace, trust and honesty are essential.”
- 91% said, “People should play by the rules even if it means they lose.”
- 89% declared, “Being a good person is more important than being rich.”
- 84% affirmed, “It’s not worth it to lie or cheat because it hurts your character.”
Things go south
Despite largely orthodox statements about virtuous living, a supermajority of kids admitted behavior that did not measure up to their aspirations. Perhaps this was foreshadowed by the 59% who claimed: “In the real world, successful people do what they have to do to win, even if others consider it cheating.”
- 82% lied to a parent about something significant one or more times in the past year.
- 82% copied another’s homework one or more times in the past year.
- 65% lied to a teacher about something significant one or more times in the past year.
- 64% cheated during a test at school one or more times in the past year.
- 53% admitted they had done things in violation of my religious beliefs one or more times in the past year.
- 42% said, “I sometimes lie to save money.”
- 30% stole something from a store one or more times in the past year.
The analysis suggests things may be worse than they appear:
As bad as these numbers are, it appears they understate the level of dishonesty exhibited by America’s youth. More than one in four (26 percent) confessed they lied on at least one or two questions on the survey. Experts agree that dishonesty on surveys usually is an attempt to conceal misconduct.
Despite these high levels of dishonesty, the respondents have a high self-image when it comes to ethics. A whopping 93 percent said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character and 77 percent said that when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.
In 2012 we’ll begin hiring the people who took this survey to work in our businesses. How do you suppose that’s going to work out?
There is a Jewish proverb — Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6) — which, translated into 21st century American English might go something like: Get your parenting right the first time so we can all get on with our lives.
Given high levels of dishonorable behavior on one hand and high levels of self-satisfaction on the other, the Josephson ethics study suggests we have work to do around the household.
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Comments
Wow! Scary stuff.
It’s worth noting that the intentions are good. Most of the data from this survey indicate kids “know right from wrong.” Where it falls apart is where things often fall apart — as the apostle Paul put it to his friends in Rome: “Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.”
The questions that strike me are: “What do we reward? What do we affirm? What do we support?”
Answer those questions the right way and I bet we’d see a higher correlation between belief and behavior…
Answer them wrong and, yeh, scary stuff.
Wow. Good stuff. Keep it up!!!!
God Bless
I remain skeptical. "My goal is to be transparent, you know, like Paris Hilton," a 17-year old told me about 6 months ago. She may be dumb, vain, condescending, but "she doesn’t pretend to be anything other than that and that’s why I like her."
I might not agree completely with his analysis of her popularity but I believe, in an age of unprecedented bombardment of half-truths and whole-lies, where advertisements are impossible to get away from, that there is a strong desire for students to be transparent.
Maybe that has something to do with the dreary results. I bet it is possible that stats are getting worse because students are becoming more honest. But that is all just theoretical. I do have hope.
From http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/386605.html
Riddle, who for four decades was a high school teacher and principal in northern Virginia, agreed that more pressure could lead to more cheating, yet spoke in defense of today’s students.
“I would take these students over other generations,” he said. “I found them to be more responsive, more rewarding to work with, more appreciative of support that adults give them.
“We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things,” he said. “We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer.”
“We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things,” he said. “We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer.”
That sounds like today’s public educational attitude that 2+2=4 is too restrictive, 2+2 caan equal 5 if that answer gives the student a better self-image.
That might make for better esteem in the school environment, but in the real world finding the correct answer is usually more important.
I did a poor job expressing my thoughts in the previous post and wish to try again: The results of the Josephson Institute survey were shocking. I agree with Jim that the study suggests we have work to do around the household.
David, I hope you got a chance to read the article I pasted a link to just before the quote you reference. Overly-accommodating, as your 2 + 2=5 exemplifies, is absurd (although, I don’t think that is the point being made by Riddle or the article). I think the point is bigger than finding the correct answer or maintaining self-esteem, I think it’s about fixing a flawed system…
Quotes from the article:
“You can reinforce the character trait of integrity…We overload kids these days, and they look for ways to survive. … It’s a flaw in our system that whatever we are doing as educators allows this to continue…"
"Adults are not taking this very seriously. The schools are not doing even the most moderate thing. … They don’t want to know. There’s a pervasive apathy.”
Yes, beyond helping students master their sums, I think the salient factor is whether we’re teaching them how to learn as distinct from parroting predigested answers to questions that are not as plain as 2+2=x.
The 59% who affirm that, “In the real world, successful people do what they have to do to win, even if others consider it cheating,” have a warped model of the real world. Until we realign their perceptions about that — and the sooner the better — they will strain our capacity to conduct business spiritually engaged.