National Identity in a Multicultural Society: Malaysian Children’s Literature in English

This article explores the question of how children’s literature reflects national identity in a diverse society. Drawing parallels with Ellison’s Invisible Man, it speculates on how literary omissions and misrepresentations of diverse groups may influence the minds of young readers in their attitudes toward themselves, their nation, and others. In a sampling of the current children’s picture book literature of Malaysia in English, it relates current thinking in multiculturalist and post-colonial theory to the forms of multiculturalism found in these works. It examines this literature’s representations of history, diversity, class, gender, and values to determine who is represented, how they are portrayed, who is excluded, and what values are promoted, exploring what image of national identity this literature projects.

Connecting Teacher Beliefs to the Use of Children’s Literature in the Teaching of Mathematics

This article presents examples that illustrate how teachers use childrens literature in the teaching of mathematics. The examples are related to four curriculum ideologies that have influenced mathematics education in the USA for the last 75 years. It discusses why it is relevant to help teachers understand the ideological positions that influence their use of childrens literature during mathematics instruction, summarizes the four ideological positions, and presents results of a study of how teachers ideological positions relate to their use of childrens literature in the teaching of mathematics. The study examines two research questionsCan an instructional tool be developed that will highlight for teachers the different ways in which they and others use childrens literature to teach mathematics? and Can that instructional tool stimulate teacher discussion and reflection about their own beliefs and the ideological nature of the instructional environment in which they learned (as students) and teach (as teachers)? Study results indicate that both questions can be answered in the affirmative.     

Conveying a Stance of Religious Pluralism in Children’s Literature

Religious discrimination is a global concern, as social dissonance and devastating violence result from religious intolerance. In order to develop socially competent, global citizens and create a peaceful society, religious diversity must be explored in public school classrooms; yet it remains a controversial and seldom addressed topic. Children’s literature that conveys religious pluralism can help teachers start this crucial conversation. A content analysis of 14 religiously pluralistic texts was conducted to understand how children’s authors enact a pluralistic stance. Findings indicate that fiction authors employ five main archetypes to express messages of religious pluralism: the questioner, one truth believer, counterpoint character, atheist, and coach. Both fiction and nonfiction authors confront issues of religiously disguised violence, provide educational information about religious beliefs and practices, emphasize commonalities between religions, maintain an assertive and respectful voice when describing religious beliefs, and highlight the existence of multiple spiritual paths. Implications of these findings for classroom practice are discussed.     

Motor Impairment in Children’s Literature: Asking the Children

How do schoolchildren respond when they encounter a wheelchair user in a fictional text? This article describes a doctoral project where groups of children were presented with excerpts from books by Hilary McKay and Jacqueline Wilson in which wheelchair users play a significant role. The pupils were asked to discuss issues arising from these readings. The views pupils expressed were relevant, imaginative and positive. Only on two rare occasions did the pupils respond in ways that could be categorised as prejudicial towards disabled people. The article describes the methodology adopted for the study, directly quotes from and explores the views of the pupils. The teaching of children about disability and disabled people currently in the English curriculum for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is alleged to be inadequate; a weakness which could be addressed in the manner described, using literature for sensitive educational debate. This study is unusual in that the research subjects include a group of children who are motor impaired. The Doctor of Education who conducted the research for her thesis and authored this article is also herself a fulltime wheelchair user.     

Representations of Dictatorship in Contemporary Chilean Children’s Literature

This article addresses the disturbing fact that few contemporary Chilean children’s books deal with Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–1990). It explores why dictatorship has such an elusive presence in contemporary Chilean children’s literature, how it has been represented in general, and how children are portrayed in books that do address Pinochet’s oppressive regime. Four Chilean children’s books are examined in detail: two that represent the dictatorship from an outsider perspective, produced by authors in exile, and two written from an insider perspective by authors that grew up under Pinochet’s dictatorship. While the former represent children as superheroes whose actions transcend the dictatorship’s repression, the latter depict children who are politically aware, but do not make the adults’ political fight their own. This key difference is problematized in terms of the implications for narratives of dictatorship produced for a young audience.     

Master’s Students’ Experiences in a Multicultural Counseling Role-Play

This study examined the experiences of master’s students in regard to their participation in a multicultural role-play and review process (Jencius et al. 2004). Whereas the literature has supported the use of role-plays as a multicultural training technique (Alvarez and Miville 2003; Vazquez and Garcia-Vazquez 2003), there is a distinct lack of information on the actual role-play experience itself. The data analyzed from participants’ reported experiences about their student counselor and student client roles in this study offers valuable feedback to those who teach multicultural counseling. Participants reported qualitatively different experiences based on which particular role they held.     

Kindergarten Teachers as Models for Children’s Speech

A comparative analysis of kindergarten teachers’ speech with each other and with their students in the classroom demonstrated significant differences on several measures of speech complexity. It was found that adult speech to children used shorter sentences, more simple sentences, and fragments, and fewer compound, complex, compound-complex, and elaborated sentences than adult-to-adult (A-A) speech. On vocabulary measures adult-to-child (A-C) speech showed a lower type-token ratio score and larger percentage of usage of words found in the first thousand most frequent words in the Thorndike-Lorge list. The implications of these results both for language and cognitive development are discussed.     

Families’ Selection of Children’s Literature Books

This study examined families’ choices of children’s literature books for joint story reading. Teachers, parents, and their children from five kindergarten classrooms participated in the study. Over a 4 months period, family members joined other parents twice a week to learn and practice story reading techniques. They selected children’s literature books that were of interest to both of them and their children and were developmentally appropriate. Family members were interviewed and responded to a questionnaire before the intervention. The results provided insight in relation to the parents’ perceptions about literacy, reading with families, and story reading. All members of the families read to their children frequently or daily and engaged the children in conversations about the books read. The books chosen to be read to the children were categorized by genre, with modern fiction being the most popular genre.     

Authenticity,Past and Present in Ghanaian Children’s Literature

In this paper we explore the portrayal of the “authentic” past in children’s literature in Ghana, as well as the problems it poses for the achievement of the broader goal of moulding children to fit into tomorrow’s society. We look at two main aspects: the social and moral settings portrayed in selected books. The social order refers to the time and place in which the story is set, as well as the nature of social organization pertaining to this setting. The moral order denotes the moral and psychological implications of the physical and social environment. Based on these criteria, we examine some unsuccessful texts and contrast them with successful ones. Our aim is to explore how tradition, more broadly conceived, can be effectively used in children’s books in order to combine the goal of cultural preservation and transmission with other equally lofty ones such as stimulating children’s imagination, arousing and sharpening their perception, developing their sense of observation and critical thinking, and shaping their emotional potential.     

Evaluation of a K–5 Mathematics Program Which Integrates Children’s Literature: Classroom Environment and Attitudes

This article describes a one-year study of 120 fifth grade students whose teachers participated in a program entitled Project SMILE (Science and Mathematics Integrated with Literary Experiences). The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which the classroom implementation of Project SMILE positively influenced the classroom environment and student attitudes toward reading, writing and mathematics. This was accomplished by, first, facilitating a series of professional development workshops with the teachers and, subsequently, asking these teachers to use the strategies with their students in their elementary school classrooms. The research represents one of the relatively few studies that have employed learning environment dimensions as criteria of effectiveness in the evaluation of educational innovations. Methodologically, our study supported previous research that successfully combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. The learning environment and attitude scales exhibited satisfactory internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity and, additionally, the actual form of most learning environment scales was capable of differentiating between the perceptions of students in different classrooms. The implementation of SMILE was found to have a positive impact on the students of the teachers who participated in the inservice program in that students attitudes to mathematics and reading improved and there was congruence between students actual and preferred classroom environment on the scales of satisfaction and difficulty. As well, prior research was replicated in that students satisfaction was greater in classrooms with a more positive learning environment, especially in terms of student cohesiveness. Finally, qualitative data-gathering methods were used to construct a case study of the mathematics classes of a teacher who attended the SMILE professional development. This case study supported and illuminated the results from the questionnaire survey concerning the effectiveness of Project SMILE in terms of student attitudes and classroom environment.     

Enjoying A Good Story: Why We Use Children’s Literature When Teaching Adults

Early childhood teacher educators frequently enhance their teaching by reading children’s books to their adult students. It is not unusual for faculty outside of early childhood to question devoting precious class time to read-alouds which they may consider a curious, if not frivolous, instructional strategy. Quality children’s literature can, however, enhance students’ experiences in the college classroom, contribute to their understanding of course content, promote their personal growth and self-understanding, increase their appreciation for quality children’s literature, and enhance their ability to integrate storybooks into their own teaching. Children’s books often capture a child’s point of view. They have the potential to provide historical or cultural perspectives on children and families. They also can lead to the examination of universal truths and can facilitate the discussion of sensitive or emotional issues A list of books with suggested uses is included.     

Reasoning as a Pedagogical Tool: Tolstoy’s Real Happening Stories for Children

Viewing Tolstoy’s works from psychological and intellectual perspectives demonstrates his approach to children’s literacy and especially the development of reasoning, which he presents in his writing for children and the stories he includes in his New ABC book (1875a) and four Readers (1875b). This article examines Tolstoy’s reasoning approach in education and its application in his real happening stories for children. Some of Tolstoy’s ideas about upbringing that are expressed in his stories are similar to ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and a Swiss developmental physiologist contemporary to Tolstoy, Jean Piaget (1896–1980). Tolstoy’s real happening stories treat situations that a child might actually experience; they propose and teach scenarios that might influence a child’s or an adult’s thinking about ways to obtain an education. Thus, in Tolstoy’s approach to children’s education, reasoning becomes a pedagogical tool, used to develop knowledge, experience and critical thinking ability.     

Urban Teachers’ Online Dissent Produces Cultural Resources of Relevance to Teacher Education

This paper explores urban teachers’ published responses to education reform. These compositions published online are examined as sources of cultural knowledge that are relevant to teacher education. Using sociolinguistic theory and method, the compositions’ arguments and rhetorical moves are analyzed to interpret the use of digital compositions to respond to education reform initiatives in the United States. The patterned speech contained in these compositions demonstrates forms of agency important to the pursuit of professional autonomy. This finding has implications for teacher education and raises questions about whether and how cultural resources being developed by urban (and other) teachers through online composition may be ethically appropriated to benefit pre-service and in-service teachers.

     

Introduction to the Issue: Exploring Affect in Children’s Literature

Children's Literature in Education -     

Using Literature to Support Low Literate Parents as Children’s First Literacy Teachers

Parents are viewed as children’s first literacy teachers. As such, they are often encouraged to book share and read with their young children. Low literate parents may lack not only basic reading skills, but also second order skills related to sharing books successfully. Early childhood professionals are encouraged to form a dynamic, reciprocal relationship with parents wherein everyone learns and supports the literacy needs of children. Seventeen current children’s books are reviewed and recommended for sharing with children and families.     

Cultural Context and Appreciation to Obama’s Verbal Humor

This paper aims to explain the restraint exerted by the deep structure of culture,such as history,religion,social convention and family,in understanding and appreciating foreign verbal humor,especially foreign statesman’s verbal humor;whereby the significance of the deep structure of culture is revealed.In this paper,Herbert Paul Grice’s Conversational Implicature Theory,i.e.the violation of cooperative principle,is taken as the theoretic base;the deep structure of culture is the analytical background and some of Obama’s remarks and speeches given informal occasions are taken as analyzed examples,from which the essential role of the deep structure of culture is emphasized and focused in cross-cultural communication.     

Cooperation Through Movement Education and Children’s Literature

This article demonstrates evidence-based practice that integrates movement education with children’s literature, in order to promote cooperation among Bengali kindergarteners, from an urban public school in Midwestern USA. First, the authors argue the need for this integration based on limitations of previous scholarship. Second, authors present their developmentally and culturally appropriate conceptual framework based on Bhavnagri and Samuel’s research, along with the theory of cooperation and schema development. Third, children’s understanding of cooperation concepts (helping, turn taking, sharing, dividing labor, negotiating, coordinating, exchanging information, and perspective taking) embedded in literature are analyzed. Concomitantly, children demonstrated same cooperation sub-skills during four movement activities related to the stories. Fourth, authors reflect that cooperation was successful because activities met Johnson and Johnson’s guidelines of high social interactions, high emotional involvement, and effective communication. Finally, the authors recommend that integration of cooperation and movement education is beneficial for educational programs in diverse settings.     

Gender Gap in Mathematics and Physics in Chinese Middle Schools: A Case Study of a Beijing’s District

This study examines the gender gaps in mathematics and physics in Chinese middle schools. The data is from the Education Bureau management database which includes all middle school students who took high school entrance exam in a district of Beijing from 2006–2013. The ordinary least square model and quantile regression model are applied. This study consistently shows that the gender gap is unfavorable toward female students in mathematics and physics while favorable toward female students in Chinese and English. Gender gaps favoring males in math and physics become more noticeable among the students who receive the top tier scores in math and physics testing. However, females’ students’ advantage in Chinese and English decreases along the distribution from the bottom to the top percentiles. There are significant intersections between rural residency and gender. Rural students (regardless of gender) perform less well than urban students in all subjects and rural female student show the worst testing scores compared with the other subgroups in mathematics and physics.