Creating the “International Mind”: The League of Nations Attempts to Reform History Teaching, 1920–1939

After the First World War, the League of Nations, through its International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, attempted to reshape the teaching of history in its member states. The League's supporters realized that its long‐term success depended in part on supportive public opinion and that this, in turn, had implications for education. Aware of the strength of national loyalties, the League sought not to abolish the teaching of national history but to suffuse it with the spirit of the “international mind.” To this end, the League promoted revision of history textbooks and curricula, retraining of teachers, and rethinking of teaching methods. National governments responded by including some study of the League in history curricula but ignored the League's broader plans. Nonetheless, the League's attempt to internationalize the teaching of history opened up a debate that continues today as schools seek to strike a balance between claims of national and global history.     

The “pinpointing effect” vs. the “diffusion effect” of peer influence

Classroom teachers are learning to employ the peer group to “shape up” dissidents. However, singling out a child may produce undesirable side effects such as emotional behavior, resentment, etc. Can the same result be obtained by rewarding the class for ignoring the target behavior of everyone in the room? Twelve subjects were selected from six middle school classes, two from each class. Each entire class was rewarded for increased ignoring of the target behavior (whispering): in the three P (pinpointed) classes, for ignoring the whispering of Designated (target) subjects; in the three D (diffusion) classes, for ignoring whispering by all class members. The results indicate that a peer group can decrease reinforcement of a disruptive behavior and thereby decelerate it in a singled-out child (Pinpointing Effect) or a behavior emitted by any child in class (Diffusion Effect) with equal effectiveness. However, patterns in the data suggest that peers ignored P-Designated subjects most, D subjects next most, and P-Undesignated subjects the least and that this pattern of ignoring was mirrored in the pattern of deceleration of the target behaviors in the three groups. These patterns suggest that the Pinpointing Effect may be stronger than the Diffusion Effect, but further study is needed.     

“Helping” Versus “Being a Helper”: Invoking the Self to Increase Helping in Young Children

Can a subtle linguistic cue that invokes the self motivate children to help? In two experiments, 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 149) were exposed to the idea of “being a helper” (noun condition) or “helping” (verb condition). Noun wording fosters the perception that a behavior reflects an identity—the kind of person one is. Both when children interacted with an adult who referenced “being a helper” or “helping” ( 2 ) and with a new adult ( 3 ), children in the noun condition helped significantly more across four tasks than children in the verb condition or a baseline control condition. The results demonstrate that children are motivated to pursue a positive identity. Moreover, this motivation can be leveraged to encourage prosocial behavior.     

“Where's the fox? You've got to read the fox.”

An important reminder that young children know how stories work, and are therefore able to use bibliographic and literary knowledge as they set about the task of learning to read books with maturity and competence. Sue Smedley shows four and five year olds working in intellectually demanding ways to recreate stories for themselves and argues that young children have a right to the kinds of books and stories which call for intelligent and imaginative responses.     

“Beyond the frame”: exploring children’s literacy practices

The aim of this small–scale research project was to examine the literacy events children choose to engage in outside school. Two groups of Primary School children were involved in investigating the use of literacy in their lives, using disposable cameras to record literacy events and texts. The photographs and the discussion stimulated by them provided evidence that these children used literacy in richly diverse ways for purposes which they saw as meaningful. Although limited in size and scope, the study showed that uses of literacy presented by these children reflected community literacy practices (as identified by Barton & Hamilton, 1998). However, it was also clear that the children acted with considerable autonomy, motivation and creativity in making their use of literacy meaningful to them. This paper provides a report on the project and discusses the implications of these findings for the teaching of literacy in school.     

Teaching science as a language: A “content‐first” approach to science teaching

Our research project was guided by the assumption that students who learn to understand phenomena in everyday terms prior to being taught scientific language will develop improved understanding of new concepts. We used web‐based software to teach students using a “content‐first” approach that allowed students to transition from everyday understanding of phenomena to the use of scientific language. This study involved 49 minority students who were randomly assigned into two groups for analysis: a treatment group (taught with everyday language prior to using scientific language) and a control group (taught with scientific language). Using a pre–post‐test control group design, we assessed students' conceptual and linguistic understanding of photosynthesis. The results of this study indicated that students taught with the “content‐first” approach developed significantly improved understanding when compared to students taught in traditional ways. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 529–553, 2008