LEGAL COMPETENCE OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of formation of the components of legal competence of adolescents and young people. The author highlights the cognitive, emotional, evaluative and behavioral components of legal reliability. Using the method of assessing the level of development of moral consciousness “Dilemma of L. Kolberg”, the study was conducted among younger and older adolescents, as well as among young people. The total sample size was 75 people. The obtained results were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis, the method of content analysis, the method of expert assessments, as well as statistical methods for checking the reliability of differences according to Mann‑Whitney U‑test. The obtained results allowed identifying the essential features of legal competence in each of the age groups studied. Younger adolescents have comprehensive information on legal issues, but with age the knowledge component tends to decrease. Teenagers, formally knowing the rules and norms, cannot explain the necessity of their observance, the reason for introduction of this rule, and do not see the causal links between the offense and its consequences. Compliance with the rules in adolescence is a formal, externally demonstrated nature of consent, without internal acceptance and understanding. With age, awareness of the consequences of their actions, readiness to justify their decisions grows, but the emotional involvement, the experience of the moral side of their act and its consequences decrease. Younger adolescents demonstrate an active social position; the older adolescents take an observer’s position without interfering with what is happening. Inaction in older adolescence and the emotional coldness of young men form the anti‑legal, antisocial position of the individual.

legal competence, cognitive component, emotional‑evaluative component, behavioral component of legal competence; adolescents, youth, general and specific characteristics of legal competence, comparative analysis, Kolberg’s dilemmas, technologies of formation of legal competence.

Zavrazhin V. V. Legal competence of children and youth: a comparative analysis. Business. Education. Law, 2019, no. 4, pp. 395–400. DOI: 10.25683/VOLBI.2019.49.406.