A model of moral identity: applications for education

The purpose of this chapter is to build an intellectual bridge between moral psychology and education. Our hope is that the findings from moral psychology will inform and explain best practices in moral education. With that end in mind, we briefly and selectively review the moral education and character education literature highlighting some of the challenges these domains have faced. Next, we review the moral identity literature and offer our own model of moral identity formation emphasizing the "characteristic adaptations" (i.e., moral orientation, moral self, moral emotions, and social relationships and opportunities) of the model. Finally, we illustrate and explain how some of these "characteristic adaptations" have been or could be used in the development of successful moral education programs, and provide specific examples for application of our model in the domain of sex education.