On Some Determinants for Distributive Justice in Children : A Study Based on Three States of India

Distributive justice is concerned with the way resources are allocated in an identified group (Tyler and Smith, 1998) . It is assumed that justice concepts would be related to cognitive-moral development. At the same time, justice rule preferences seem to be the results of parental practices. The present study aims to find out the effect of demographic determinants such as maturity (measured in terms of age), gender, regional variation and socio-cultural determinant (i.e., parenting style} on distributive justice of school students. Three groups of school students (boys and girls) are selected from West Bengal and two different states of North-Eastern India, namely, Meghalaya and Tripura. Distributive Justice Scale of Enright, Franklin and Manheim (1980) and Parental Authority Questionnaire of Leman (2005) are used in this study. Ordinal regression results indicate that the probability of choosing higher categories of distributive justice is significantly greater in case of older students than younger students. Regional variation also plays an important role in the development of distributive justice of students. Probability of choosing higher categories of distributive justice is higher in case of West Bengal students than the students of Meghalaya and Tripura. Among three different parenting styles, only permissive parenting style is significantly negatively correlated with distributive justice. High scores on permissive parenting style decrease the probability of choosing the higher categories of distributive justice. Thus the study indicates that not only demographic variables, such as maturity and regional variation, but also socio-cultural variable such as parenting style play important role in the development of children's idea of fairness concept. It also implies that permissive parenting style inhibits the development of fairness concept in children.