Children's reasoning about authority in home and school contexts

Abstract The study investigated the development of children's concepts of authority at home and at school. Subjects (35 m, 35 f) in grades 1–6 were asked to evaluate persons issuing two types of commands to children: one which resolves a turn‐taking dispute and one which enforces a conventional rule. Persons of varying ages and with varying positions in the family (parent, older/younger sibling, neighbor) were presented issuing commands at home and a parent was presented issuing commands at school. Results show that children's judgments of authority in the home are based more on authority position than adult status; younger siblings with delegated authority positions are accepted as authorities by more children than knowledgeable adults without delegated authority. Children's authority concepts become increasingly more differentiated with respect to the social‐organizational positions and functions of persons in authority across grades one to six.