Survey Finds Many U.S. High School Students Alarmingly Dishonest
by Jim Brown
October 23, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A new survey indicates a majority of American high school students have lied to a teacher or cheated on a test in the past year. And, according to the findings from the Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics, not only have 60 percent of high schoolers admitted to having cheated on a school test during the past 12 months, but 35 percent did so two or more times.Also, the survey found, 62 percent of high school students admit they lied to a teacher about something significant within the past 12 months, while 35 percent said they lied two or more times. And nearly 30 percent of high school students said they had stolen from a store in the last year.
Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of high school students admitted that they lied to a parent in the last year, and another 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative in the past 12 months. These troubling statistics from the Josephson Institute's report card on the ethics of American youth would seem to suggest that the morals of U.S. teens have sunk to an admittedly deplorable depth.
However, the Institute's director, Rich Jarc, says young people often rationalize or condone behavior that is contrary to their stated moral convictions. "A very high percentage of the respondents," he notes, "also felt that they had very high moral character."
While a majority of the high school students responding to the Institute's survey admitted to lying and cheating behavior at school, Jarc observes, "it seems they don't see anything wrong with it." And, he points out, "as a number of the students have also said, they feel compelled to do this to get ahead because they feel the pressure from their other classmates."
The Josephson Institute spokesman says both schools and parents need to do more to counteract such dishonest behavior and attitudes in young people. There are school-based approaches and parental approaches to the problem, but curbing these negative ethical tendencies among high school students requires "a combination of both," he insists.
"It truly does have to start in the home with strong moral values and the parents teaching the kids good character; but the schools also have to reinforce that and not look the other way," Jarc contends. Indications are that "looking the other way" when students cheat, lie, or steal is "what's happening in a lot of schools," he says.
According to the Institute's survey, Jarc notes, 42 percent of high school students believe that "a person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed." He believes this statistic and the Institute survey's other findings suggest a disturbing lack of integrity among American youth that urgently needs to be addressed.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
