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Werteentwicklung und Wertewandel bei Kindern – Wünsche an die Forschung.
Human values, or more precisely values, values and changes of values, have get more and more attention of psychological and sociological research in the past 30 years. Based on entries in the most important literature database of psychology (PSYCINFO), there were on average of 27 scientific publications from 1890 to 1950, which bore the word "value" in the title. Between 1951 and 1980 there were 160 and between 1981 and 2010 the number was 456. Although the emergence of the word "value" in the title of a social science publication does not automatically stand for an engagement with values, value preferences and change of values. And even so it has to be taken into account that the total number of psychological publications has risen sharply since 1890, yet the numbers illustrate an increasing interest of social and behavioral sciences in human values. Searching on Google supports this impression.
If you enter "children's values", a Google search results in over 80,000 hits and even the German-language input "Werthaltungen von Kindern" yields more than 600 hits. The current chapter will first provide a cursory overview of the state of social and behavioral science in value research and then turn to the state of this research in relation to children. Above all, the chapter will ask questions and formulate research ideas: What are the fundamental topics of value research related to children and their development? At what age can one say that children have values? Is it changing what children find 'good' in the course of their development? The chapter should not be misunderstood as a review article. A detailed bibliographic relinquishment of the identified research trends is expressly waived. For the most part, the chapter is primarily intended as a collection of ideas.