A Time and a Place for Everything: A Discrete Systems Perspective on the Role of Children's Rough-and-Tumble Play in Educational Settings

This paper emphasizes the following points regarding the appropriate role of rough-and-tumble play (R & T) in educational settings. (1) There has been an important secular trend toward an increasing importance of adult supervision of children's play. As a result, children's R & T must be considered in the context of social values regarding the expected developmental significance of children's play. (2) R & T is an aspect of evolved systems that propel the children into enthusiastic interaction with their environment and can be reasonably supposed to have several beneficial influences on children's cognitive and social development. (3) R & T can be distinguished from aggression, and adult supervised R & T is potentially an important arena for learning the limits of appropriate R & T. (4) It is suggested that supervised educational settings should be concerned with socializing several discrete systems that underlie children's development, including the present emphasis on socializing children to be able to focus attention, inhibit behavior, and be neat and orderly. However, the purpose of the present paper is to present a case for socializing the systems underlying stimulus seeking, extroversion, sociability, and intellectual creativity as well.     

The educational implications of type i diabetes mellitus: A review of research and recommendations for school psychological practice

Type I diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is one of the most common chronic illnesses in children and youth, with many affected students requiring individualized services and supports within educational settings. This article systematically reviews the research regarding the implications of this illness for students' cognitive and academic functioning to clarify the ways in which this disease may limit children's learning and school performance. The authors synthesize the findings, summarize the related literature regarding school‐based supports, and provide recommendations for school psychologists to support the unique psychoeducational needs of this population. Results highlight the need for more research on effective school‐based interventions to ensure academic success for children with T1DM. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A capability approach to children's well-being,agency and participatory rights in education

This article applies a capability approach to examine how children's agency, well-being and participation rights can be developed and supported in educational settings. We introduce Amartya Sen's concepts of agency and well-being freedoms and achievements to highlight the tensions and trade-offs between risks to children's agency and well-being in and through educational processes. We draw upon selected empirical examples to illustrate this relationship further. By positioning the development of children's agency as an explicit and important goal of education, alongside well-being achievement, we aim to broaden the evaluative space for assessing what constitutes quality in children's education. We conclude with some reflections on implications for policy and practice going forward.     

Computer use within a play-based early years curriculum

Early years curricula promote learning through play and in addition emphasise the development of computer literacy. Previous research, however, has described that teachers feel unprepared to integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and play. Also, whereas research has suggested that effective computer use in the early years is associated with adult direction, further research suggests adult presence can inhibit play and reduce children's engagement. Focusing on 12 settings following the Welsh play-based Foundation Phase, this paper explores teachers' experiences of integrating computer use into classroom practice, children's levels of engagement with computer activities and how playful children perceive computer use to be. Teachers confidently delivered a variety of computing experiences. Children consistently rated these activities as play regardless of adult presence and demonstrated moderate to high levels of engagement. Findings and the features of observed practice are discussed in relation to the teachers' role as a play partner and the successful co-construction of the play-based curriculum.     

Measuring Parental Meta-Emotion: Psychometric Properties of the Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Self-Test

Parental meta-emotion, assessed through interviews, involves parents' philosophy about emotions and has been found to be related to parenting behaviors and children's emotional and social competence (e.g., Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996; Katz & Windecker-Nelson, 2004). The Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Self-Test is a true–false (ERPSST–T/F) self-report version of the meta-emotion interview introduced in a parenting guidebook (Gottman, 1997). Although this test is user-friendly, its psychometric properties have not been evaluated. In the first study, 100 parents (89 mothers, 11 fathers) completed the ERPSST–T/F and evidence was found for the internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the measure (Lee, Hakim-Larson, & Voelker, 2000). In the second study, 31 parents (21 mothers, 10 fathers) completed a Likert-type scale version of the ERPSST (ERPSST–Likert) and the internal consistency of the scales was improved. In addition, the scales were found to correlate in expected directions with other measures of parenting attitudes regarding children's emotional expressions, even after controlling for parent gender and social desirability. These findings provide some preliminary evidence for the reliability and validity of the ERPSST–Likert and provide support for further development of the instrument.     

A scalable tool for assessing children's language abilities within a narrative context: The NAP (Narrative Assessment Protocol)

Analysis of children's spoken narratives represents a potentially informative approach to language assessment within early childhood settings. Yet, narrative assessment is not readily amenable to at-scale use given the time needed to collect, transcribe, and analyze a child's narrative sample and the lack of consensus regarding what aspects of narrative expression ought to be examined (e.g., language form, language content). The purpose of this study was to describe a direct assessment of children's language abilities within a narrative context, the Narrative Assessment Protocol (NAP), which examines five aspects of language: sentence structure, phrase structure, modifiers, nouns, and verbs. In this study, we present findings regarding internal consistency, test–retest reliability, construct validity, and the concurrent and predictive validity of the NAP. NAP scores from 262 3–5-year-old children participating in preschool programs were assessed for these purposes. Findings indicated that the NAP exhibits reasonable psychometric properties across the areas addressed, to include significant concurrent and predictive relations with a norm-referenced measure of general language ability. Although more research is needed, preliminary findings indicate that the NAP provides professionals with a valid and informative assessment approach for examining children's language skills within a narrative context; such information may be useful for establishing and monitoring children's language growth within preschool programs or language interventions.     

Comparative research on young children's perceptions of play—an approach to observing the effects of kindergarten educational reform

Kindergarten children's perception of play is a reflection of their life and experiences, which can be used as an index of the quality of pre‐school provision and the influence of kindergarten education reform that began in the 1980s in mainland China. Therefore, based on this hypothesis, the current authors argue that to examine young children's perceptions of play is to examine the experiences of their life in kindergarten and, indirectly, the effects of kindergarten education reform. Using photo classification and on‐site interviews, the current research explored 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children's perceptions of play. This article reports on research comparable to previous research which aimed to examine the effect of the 15‐year kindergarten education reform. One of the principles which the reform advocated was that kindergartens and early years practitioners should respect young children's rights to play, emphasizing and providing play over group lessons as the basic activity in kindergarten settings. Similar to the results of previous research, the current research showed that group lessons remained the main reference used by young children to judge the nature and meaning of activities in kindergartens. However, the activity in the interest corners/areas, which has been a main method of organizing children's activities in kindergartens advocated by the top‐down approach to kindergarten educational reform since 1989, was found to be a new criterion in young children's judgements. The current research revealed that kindergarten education reform had achieved some positive effects as expected.     

Physical Activity Play and Preschool Children's Peer Acceptance: Distinctions Between Rough-and-Tumble and Exercise Play

Research Findings: Two forms of exercise play (toy mediated and non-mediated) and 2 forms of rough-and-tumble (R&T) play (chase and fighting) were examined in relation to preschoolers' peer competence. A total of 148 preschoolers (78 boys, 89 Euro-Americans) were observed during free play at their university-sponsored child care center. The gender makeup of children's play companions (same gender, other gender, or mixed gender) as well as the type of play that children engaged in was recorded. Sociometric interviews assessed how well liked children were by their classmates. Analyses revealed that toy-mediated exercise play with mixed-gender and same-gender peers was associated with boys' and girls' peer acceptance. Girls' non-mediated exercise play and boys' R&T chasing was associated with peer acceptance. Boys who engaged in R&T fighting with same-gender peers were better liked by peers, whereas boys who engaged in R&T chasing with other-gender peers were not liked by peers. Practice or Policy: The results suggest that child gender and the gender of one's playmate are important factors in associations between physical activity play and peer acceptance.     

Effects of play interventions on young children's reading of environmental print

This study examined effects of exposure to print and interaction with a more knowledgeable other on 56 kindergarten children's environmental print knowledge. Three classes were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: exposure to print during play in print-enriched settings, exposure to print and functional experiences with a more knowledgeable other (an adult) during play in print-enriched settings, and play in nonenriched settings. Prior to and following three weeks of play in each of five settings (15 week intervention period), each child's ability to read the environmental print appropriate to each setting was assessed in two ways: in-context with the words embedded in their supporting context and out-of-context with the words written on a list. The results indicated that while exposure to print significantly influenced the children's ability to read environmental print when the print was embedded in its supporting context, exposure to the print and functional experiences with a more knowledgeable other around this print significantly influenced the children's ability to read environmental print on both reading tasks. These findings suggest that exposure and functional experiences with adults in print-enriched play settings may offer an important opportunity for young children to associate meaning with print.     

Early Play Arousal,Sex-Typed Play,and Activity Level as Precursors to Later Rough-and-Tumble Play

The present study compared two ways of measuring rough-and-tumble play (R&T) and examined three precursors to this play. Early parental socializing influences (particularly from fathers), "boy" sex-typed play preferences, and activity level were all hypothesized to be associated with later R&T. Objective measures of R&T at nursery school were moderately correlated with ratings of such play by parents and teachers at first grade. Arousal during play at 45 months and extent of R&T at 18 months by fathers, but not mothers, were found to correlate significantly with ratings of R&T at first grade. "Boy" sex-typed play was also significantly associated with first grade R&T. These correlations were similar for both boys and girls. There were no correlates with nursery school R&T that were similar for both sexes. Activity levels were not consistently associated with later R&T behaviors. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

Consultation Courses Offered in Special Education Teacher Training Programs: A National Survey

This article argues that how public services and supports for children and families are delivered is closely related to how they are financed. It is therefore essential to examine how financing systems for education and other children's services inhibit or promote more integrated service delivery systems. Two questions are specifically addressed: (a) How do current financ- ing arrangements present specific legal, political, administrative, and attitu- dinal obstacles to implementing comprehensive, community-based children's service approaches? (b) What are some promising strategies for overcoming these obstacles? The article concludes by noting that alternative financing approaches offer unique opportunities for the educational and psychological consulting communities because of the potential of these mechanisms to foster a more integral role for such personnel in children's service provision.     

Foucault at School: Discipline,Education and Agency in Harry Potter

The formative power of children's literature is both great and suspicious. As a resource of socialization, the construction and experience of children's literature can be seen as modes of disciplinary coercion such as Michel Foucault has anatomized. Harry Potter, as a “craze” phenomenon, has attracted particular controversy due to its intense commercialization and dissemination, raising questions about its socializing roles. Here I argue that Harry Potter itself addresses, represents, and reflects on socializing disciplines as both psychological and socio-historical processes, with special focus on and implications for educational scenes and methods. Discipline is shown to be inevitable and necessary, but not only in the coercive ways of Foucault. It is no less important for constructing the self in positive senses. Hogwarts, as the central site of action, becomes a stage for a wide variety of educational models and disciplinary modes and goals. These range from Dolores Umbridge, whose classroom is coercively disciplinary in full Foucauldian sense; through Snape's abuses of power, Albus Dumbledore's modelling of educational and moral values, and Harry's own role as student-teacher exemplifying educational principles which Jerome Bruner and others have called a “community of learning.” This variety of educational experiences explores the possibilities through which discipline emerges not only as coercive, but also as formative in ways that are maturing, strengthening, and rewarding: a possibility with strong implications for questions of socialization and creativity in general. Harry Potter concludes with a reconstitution of self and society, in a way that endorses discipline even as it suspects its coercive abuses. This becomes not only a personal project but an explicitly social and political one, requiring both critique and investment in culture. Socialization then is shown to be a process of formation that is not merely coercive but creative.     

Relation of Young Children's Parasympathetic Reactivity During a Learning Task to Their Self-Regulation and Early Academic Skills

There is growing interest among educational researchers in using heart rate variability (HRV) as an index of children's capacity to regulate their physiological arousal. Links between HRV and young children's self-regulation have, however, been inconsistent, and there is limited research on children's HRV in learning-related contexts. HRV was collected from 86 children aged 3.41 to 5.83 years before, during, and after they engaged in a learning interaction with an examiner. Higher HRV during a pre-learning episode and a larger drop in HRV during the learning interaction were associated with stronger behavioral performance on self-regulation and early academic skill assessments. Children's capacity to modulate their HRV in response to learning opportunities may be linked to their broader self-regulation and early academic skill development. Effects varied by episode and gender, underscoring a need for further research to rigorously evaluate the utility and generalizability of HRV in authentic educational settings.     

A Cross-cultural Exploration of Children's Everyday Ideas: Implications for science teaching and learning

Children's everyday ideas form critical foundations for science learning yet little research has been conducted to understand and legitimize these ideas, particularly from an international perspective. This paper explores children's everyday ideas about the environment across the US, Singapore and China to understand what they reveal about children's relationship to the environment and discuss its implications for science teaching and learning. A social constructivist lens guides research, and a visual methodology is used to frame children's realities. Participants' ages range from elementary to middle school, and a total of 210 children comprized mainly of Asians and Asian Americans were sampled from urban settings. Drawings are used to elicit children's everyday ideas and analyzed inductively using open coding and categorizing of data. Several categories support existing literature about how children view the environment; however, novel categories such as affect also emerged and lend new insight into the role that language, socio-cultural norms and perhaps ethnicity play in shaping children's everyday ideas. The findings imply the need for (a) a change in the role of science teachers from knowledge providers to social developers, (b) a science curriculum that is specific to learners' experiences in different socio-cultural settings, and (c) a shift away from inter-country comparisons using international science test scores.     

Monsters,magic and Mr Psycho: a biocultural approach to rough and tumble play in the early years of primary school

This paper focuses upon the developmental role of rough and tumble (R&T) play with particular attention to the narratives that children use to underpin such activities. A review of the literature suggests that current early years research and practice pays scant attention to children's outdoor free play activities. A piece of original research is described in which playtime activities were ethnographically observed over an 18‐month period. A biocultural approach was used in the analysis of data, in an attempt to encompass the roles of biology, evolution and culture in human development. Findings indicate that the narratives underpinning R&T play were socially complex and highly gendered, and it is suggested that much developmental learning may occur within such free play activities.     

School Trouble: A mother's burden

ABSTRACT The desire for parent involvement in children's schooling is based on the assumption that parents play a significant role in children's educational achievements. As a policy goal, parent involvement includes the participation of both mothers and fathers. However, in practice, parent involvement refers more often to the work of women in support of children's schooling. The coordination and supervision of children's educational activities often demands a significant portion of mothers' waking hours, particularly in the case of mothers whose children are doing poorly in school. This article draws on interviews with parents of children who struggled academically in school to examine the effects of 'school troubles' on mothers who, among the parents interviewed for this study, were much more likely to assume the material and emotional burdens for school troubles.     

Co-Producing Children's Sociality in Parent–Teacher Conferences

The aim of this article is to describe how parents and preschool teachers talk about children's interactional skills in parent–teacher conferences in the Swedish preschool and how this can be related to socialization processes. The analyses show that children's communicative skills, such as turn-taking in conversation and co-operation, are considered as important for both parents and teachers and talked about in terms of trouble or success. Children's skills are often assessed by using chronological age as a parameter. Our analysis suggests that the talk about children's interactional skills may be interpreted in terms of deficiency discourses founded primarily on theories in developmental psychology, and that parents, and particularly the teachers, present themselves as socializing agents with regard to children.     

‘Being in the World’: The event of learning

This paper employs an eclectic mix of paradigms in order to discuss constituting characteristics of young children's learning experiences. Drawing upon a phenomenological perspective it examines learning as a form of ‘Being’ and as the result of learners’ engagement with the world in their own, unique, intentional manners. The learners’ intentions towards their world are expressed in everyday activity and participation. A social constructivist perspective is thus employed to present learning as situated in meaningful socio‐cultural contexts of the everyday, lived world and as a form of participation in those settings. These characteristics of learning are brought together into a holistic, synthesised model, a Gestalt of learning. The proposed synthesis has relevance for and is applicable to educational contexts as a means of making sense of children's learning experiences and of promoting and facilitating them.     

Children's Behavioral Adjustment in Pre-Primary Schools in Tanzania: A Multilevel Approach

Research Findings: The present study concerns children's behavioral adjustment in the context of pre-primary schools in Tanzania. Twenty teachers and 320 children from 20 pre-primary schools participated in the study. Teacher–child relationships, children's behavioral adjustment, and teachers' cultural beliefs were reported by teachers; classroom emotional support was measured through classroom observation. The multilevel findings revealed that high-quality teacher–child relationships and high-quality teacher sensitivity were related to children's prosocial behavioral adjustment. In contrast, observed low-quality teacher–child relationships and low-quality teacher sensitivity were found to be related to children's aggression and anxiety. In addition, teachers' cultural beliefs, concerning play in particular, were found to be related to children's anxiety. The findings support the ecological theory regarding the importance of child characteristics and classroom context in shaping a child's behavioral adjustment in schools. Practice or Policy: The results have implications for pre-primary school teachers in Tanzania, to consider their relationships with children and their sensitivity to children as important aspects for children's behavioral adjustment in schools. They also inform policymakers about the role of pre-primary school teachers in the country.