In an attempt to provide parents, educators, and psychologists with a means of determining the positive moral content of books and media, Notre Dame created the Rating Ethical Content Scale (RECS) under the auspices of the Collaboration for Ethical Education.
This rating scale evaluates four areas:
- Ethical Sensitivity
- Ethical Focus
- Ethical Judgment
- Ethical Action
The goal of the system is to identify and develop the skills that, when taught to small children, form the basis for ethical, morally, and socially acceptable behavior.
The rating scale analyzes each of these four components when considering the content of books, movies, newspaper reports, video games, and advertising. The goal is to find media for kids with a positive message.
Ethical Sensitivity
Ethical sensitivity is the ability to be empathetic to other people’s situations and feelings. It is also the development of good communication skills including voicing one’s own ideas and the development of proper expression of emotions. Ethical sensitivity involves openness to other cultural modalities and experiences and being accepting of feelings and viewspoints that are different from one’s own.
Ethical Focus
Ethical focus teaches ways in which a person can be respectful, be positive, be inclusive, and be involved in the community.
Ethical Judgment
Ethical judgement is using critical thinking skills to make decisions that reflect good choices that have a positive effect on oneself and others. It includes the concepts of fairness and patience.
Ethical Action
This facet of ethical behavior involves being proactive and assertive in helping others and working toward positive results. A person who has mastered this skill has developed respectful relationships and ways of dealing with others, and has learned to manage life events in a positive way.
Advantages of Using This model
The RECS system is a standardized form for judging consumer media. It allows parents, educators, and psychologists to determine if material is appropriate for the particular audience, taking into account the age level and purpose.
The RECS system has a set of questions to ponder for raters, but the system can be adapted for everyday use by parents to evaluate media for their children. The following list of questions is a starting point.
- Does the media create empathy, or does it appear to develop insensitivity to suffering?
- Does it show a caring, sensitive attitude toward others?
- Does the media exemplify communicating feelings in a positive, productive manner, rather than a denigrating manner?
- Does it show people talking and listening to each other’s views?
- Do the main characters or players reflect good choices that provide benefits for all?
- How do they make those choices?
- Does the media exemplify proactive, positive behaviors?
- Does it show someone helping others, doing good for the community, or accepting others into the community?
If most of these questions are answered with a yes, then the media should be a positive influence.
For more information, and reviews of children’s books, visit the Good Media, Good Kids website.
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