Nady Febri Ariffiando¹, Mubiar Agustin^2
1S.Pd. Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia, ariffiandonady@gmail.com  
²Dr. M.Pd. Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia, mubiar@upi.edu

Abstract

Moral Cognition is the ability of a person to distinguish right and wrong based on a strong belief in ethics and apply them in action. Moral cognition is also the consideration or reasoning of a moral behavior and decision-making based on moral values. Someone can be said to be moral when all moral actions done are based on moral values that are understood and believed. To understand and to believe, one needs to experience the processing of life events and experiences related to himself and others. There is unity between reasoning and moral behavior. Moral cognition develops through stages and each stage has identifiable forms, patterns and organizations. This research aims to see the moral cognitive difference of elementary school students from the different aspects of school type, gender and parental education level in a sample of five grade elementary students in Bandung Indonesia. This reasearch use quantitative descriptive. Participants in the study were 180 elementary students at primary schools from Bandung (West Java Province), Indonesia selected by cluster sampling. The sample consisted of 90 male and 90 female students from grade five (age 11). The results indicate that (1) Moral cognition between students from SDN, SDIT and PS did not show any significant differences; (2)Moral cognition between male and female students is significantly different; (3) None of the variables father's job, mother's job, father's education, and mother's education can affect significantly moral competence in students. The diference of student’s moral cognition because of the female students responded more emotionally than their male peers. So, this finding can approve that girls are more care oriented in their moral judgments. The strength of socio-cultural factors in a little city affects the role of parents in moral cognitive development of their children. There kinds of school cause no deference of student’s moral cognition. This is likely due to the three schools' environment having similar characteristics in terms of moral education.