UTICAJ SOCIODEMOGRAFSKIH FAKTORA NA MORALNI RAZVOJ DECE BEZ RODITELjSKOG STARANjA ZAŠTIĆENIH PORODIČNIM SMEŠTAJEM U HRANITELjSKOJ PORODICI

The foster family is the primary agent of socialization in which the child’s personality without parental care is formed and shaped. In the existing social system, in which moral and social values are devalued, a particular challenge and task for today’s family is the moral devel- opment and moral education of its youngest members. The theoretical part of the paper not only presents the most important theoretical postulates and implications concerning moral development, but it also presents the characteristics of children without parental care as a par- ticularly sensitive target group. The foster care institution is presented as a temporary, alterna- tive, socially organized form of protection intended for children without parental care. In the empirical part of the paper, we study the influence of socio-demographic factors that describe the foster family and the child in foster care at the stage of moral judgment of the child pro- tected by this form of protection. The research was conducted to determine the relationship between the specific socio-demographic factors of the foster family and the foster child with the stage of moral reasoning of the child protected by this form of protection. The results of the research found in the empirical part of the paper indicate that the socio-demographic factors of the foster parent and the child are reflected only at certain stages of the child’s moral reasoning at foster care in the positive or negative direction, while at other stages, the correla- tions of the positive and negative directions were not obtained. The results obtained testify to the great heterogeneity of the foster care network and the individual specificities of children deprived of parental care, which implies the need and requirement to respect these specifics and to raise the criteria in the assessment of families who are motivated to foster care and to provide better foster carers training in order to meet one of the most important tasks, i.e. the moral development of the children they are directly caring for. Considering, on the one hand, the axiological dimension that moral education plays in the formation of the moral character of children and young people, the role that the current family arrangement as the primary agent of socialization plays in the moral development of children and, on the other hand, very little research on the moral development of children without parental care, through the realization of this research, we have recognized the contribution to the actualization of this problem of individual and social significance.