I think many factors contribute to moral development, and there isn't one scale that fits every child's shoes. Gilligan's criticism of Kohlberg was legitimate, because his scale only seemed to apply to privileged white males (webster.edu). Gilligan found a scale among girls that differed from Kohlberg's, showing how gender can influence morality. Since different expectations are required of women, based on gender roles, their moral development is highly influenced by it. Forgiveness, mercy, empathy and sacrifice- things that women seem more in touch with as caregivers- don't always apply in situations of law.
I believe other things influence moral development as well, like class, religion, or political orientation. Poor people are usually more desperate to make ends meet, so I could understand a different moral progression for them. I can see how the meaning of law would get distorted by those less privileged, for some see the law as a way of upholding class structure and therefore keeping them down, especially when race is involved. As for politics, it's pretty clear that what one side finds moral does not apply to the other, and religion ties into that as well. For example, with abortion it really depends on semantics and what one considers alive; how much one understands the sacredness of life or values women's rights. And in my view, a lot of this relativism stems from parenting. I think what the parents valued or the religion they practiced has as much an impact on the moral development of their children as the law does. If I lived in the slums and my parents taught me it was o.k. cheat the law, Kohlberg's stages would hardly apply to me. The same if I were a woman, and I were taught to forgive people no matter what heinous crime they committed, for to be a good caregiver is to love unconditionally. For reasons like these, I don't believe law and morality always go hand in hand.
Source: http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/gilligan.html
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