Social Justice and Moral Reasoning: An Exploratory Study Among College Students Pursuing Law and Not Pursuing Law

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between moral reasoning and social justice among the students pursuing law and not pursuing law using the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and social psychological measures based on (Wendorf, Alexander, & Firestone, 2002). The study adopted a quantitative research approach and used a sample of 60 students of which 30 students were pursuing law major and the rest of the 30 students were pursuing other majors. The objectives of the study were 1) to identify the significant difference in social justice and moral reasoning among students pursuing law and not pursuing law. 2) To examine the relationship between the age, moral development and social justice among the sample. 3) To examine the relationship between the gender, moral reasoning and social justice. The results revealed that there is a significant difference between students pursuing law and not pursuing law in social justice. The students pursuing law scored average mean higher than the students not pursuing law, indicating that students pursuing law place main importance on the procedural justice criterion. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between age and social justice.