Technology as Play

The role of play in young children's learning has always been considered to be of primary importance. Thus, early childhood programs have been characterized by curricula that provide plenty of opportunity for young children to play and interact with materials, ideas, and people. As we approach the new millennium, the impact of the new information technologies on play and as play, for young children need to be conceptualized and discussed. This article begins that discussion. The view that there are opportunities for young children to play in technological environments as well as with traditional materials and contexts is presented.     

Language development: A complex,systematic, and natural process

Conclusions Although we do not understand very well what the processes are that contribute to language development, it is clear that communication plays a central role. As children strive to become increasingly skilled at communicating their ideas (White, 1959), as they have increasingly complex ideas to communicate (Piaget, 1955), and as they encounter an increasingly diverse set of people with whom to communicate (Brown, 1973), they must learn to use language which is richer and more flexible.When children come to school or to a day care center they already know a great deal about language. They have readily and actively mastered words, sentences and forms of communication which they need in their own family and community. In their new environment—the school or center—children's language development can further be fostered by adults who are receptive to children's efforts at communication. Adults who encourage children to use language in new ways, who attend to what children mean to say and who recognize that children's errors are often not mistakes, are likely to play a positive role in children's language development.Janet H. Kane and Karen Sheingold are on the Staff at Bank Street College of Education.     

美国社会能力培养研究与启示

作为儿童能力发展的重要组成部分 ,社会能力不仅影响着儿童的个性发展和社会适应性 ,而且还影响着儿童未来的社会生活。从 2 0世纪 70年代开始 ,社会能力培养的研究受到美国教育界的高度重视 ,关于社会能力的理论和实践不断得到拓展 ,并在促进儿童的社会性发展上起到了重要的作用。本文着重介绍美国社会能力培养研究的发展以及社会能力研究发展的新特点 ,并在此基础上进一步探讨美国社会能力培养研究对我国素质教育的启示。     

Deaf children's use of beliefs and desires in negotiation

Although several studies have shown that deaf children demonstrated impaired performances on false-belief tasks, the children's belief understanding appeared intact when asked to explain emotions or behavior. However, this finding does not necessarily indicate a full-fledged theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate deaf children's negotiation strategies in false-belief situations, because situations that require negotiation provide a natural context with a clear motivational aspect, which might appeal more strongly to deaf children's false-belief reasoning capacities. The purpose of this study was to compare the reactions of 11- to 12-year-old deaf and hearing children to scenarios in which a mother, who is unaware of a change in the situation, threatens to block the fulfillment of the child's desire. The results showed that deaf children more often failed to correct the mother's false beliefs. In contrast with hearing children, who frequently left their own desires implicit, deaf children kept stressing their desires as a primary argument, even though the mother could be expected to be fully aware of these desires. Moral claims were used to the same extent by both groups. In general, deaf children more often used arguments that did not provide new information for their conversation partners, including repetitions of the same argument. The results were interpreted in terms of the special needs that are required by the hampered communication between deaf and hearing people as well as in terms of the ongoing discussion regarding theory-of-mind development in deaf children.     

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 Socialization of Compassionate Behavior by Child Care Teachers

The present study examined how child care teachers' socialization practices and child characteristics jointly predict children's sympathetic-prosocial responding. A total of 25 teachers of 105 five-year-old children were observed during free play with regard to their warmth, non-directiveness and passivity-activity. The children's reactions to distress simulations in two different situations were observed. The children's inhibition and aggression were rated by teachers and parents. More compassionate behavior was shown by girls as compared to boys and by children in classes with warmer teachers; inhibited children showed tendentially less sympathetic-prosocial reactions than non-inhibited children. Furthermore, girls who showed sympathetic-prosocial reactions were rated as more aggressive than girls who did not, and boys who showed sympathetic-prosocial behavior as compared to those who did not were in classes with warmer teachers. The data suggest that child characteristics as well as socialization practices play an important role in children's interpersonal functioning. Among the teacher variables, their ability to interact in a warm, affectionate way is of central importance for the development of emotional competence in children.     

Interlaced social worlds: exploring the use of social media in the kindergarten

Abstract

The study presented in this article examines mediatization processes in an American kindergarten. The kindergarten is considered as a social world in which forms of communication, as well as the identities of those involved (children, teachers, parents), evolve through the use of digital technologies. The relationships between the different stakeholders are intensified through increased exchange. The role of children in this exchange process undergoes a particularly significant shift, since they come to be seen as active learners. Such developments are only possible if the teacher is prepared to be transparent and to invest a great deal of time. Parents warmly welcome the inclusion of such technologies in the kindergarten classroom and the contribution they make to the children’s learning and family life. Digital technologies, however, are not entirely free of exclusion mechanisms.     

幼儿眼中好老师标准的调查研究

本调查发现教师的外貌是赢得幼儿喜欢的重要条件，教师良好的教育态度和教育行为则是赢得幼儿喜欢的关键因素；同时，还发现教师存在着不能公平对待每一位幼儿的情况。因此建议：教师要注意自己的仪表，穿着打扮应大方漂亮。给幼儿美的熏陶；在选择幼儿教师时有必要对幼儿教师的气质性格进行测试考查；教师要把爱心渗透在每天的教育过程中；教师要爱每一位幼儿；教师应参与到幼儿的游戏活动中去，做幼儿的好朋友。     

Mental health care for foster children in California

This paper reports on a study conducted to assess the health care needs of foster children in California. To evaluate foster children's mental health problems and the services provided to meet them, 154 program administrators, social workers, foster parents, and health care providers were interviewed in 14 counties. Foster parents and social workers were interviewed in groups, and foster parents and administrators also completed questionnaires. We found that although all counties care immediately for children who are injured, abused, or ill, only one county performs routine mental health evaluations of all children, and in most counties less than a third of children ever receive such evaluations. Informants identified mental health problems as more severe than medical problems in this population, and they identified four major barriers to access to appropriate therapy. Recommendations are that all children should receive comprehensive mental health evaluations, and procedures for immediate and ongoing care with consistent providers who are sensitive to foster children's needs should be included in case management plans, and covered by improved payment mechanisms. Additionally, communication, coordination and joint planning should be instituted among relevant agencies to address foster children's needs, and increased resources and training should be directed towards social service agencies and foster parents.     

When learning a second language does not mean losing the first: bilingual language development in low-income, Spanish-speaking children attending bilingual preschool

This article discusses two investigations which explored the bilingual language development outcomes of comparable groups of low-income, Spanish-speaking, Mexican American children who either did or did not attended a bilingual (Spanish/English) preschool. Study 1 is a replication of a study by Rodríguez, Díaz, Duran, and Espinosa, involving a new sample of 26 children who attended bilingual preschool for one year and 20 control children who remained at home. Study 2 represents a 1-year, longitudinal follow-up of Rodríguez et al.'s, sample of children during and after the children spent another year at home or in the preschool. In both investigations, standardized, objective measures of three components of children's language proficiency (productive language, receptive language, and language complexity) in English and Spanish were obtained at the beginning and end of the academic year. Contrary to fears that have been expressed by some that early exposure to English would lead to children's native language loss, the results of both studies offered no evidence of Spanish proficiency loss for children attending bilingual preschool. Children who attended bilingual preschool, compared to those who remained at home, showed significant and parallel gains in Spanish language development as well as significant and greater increases in English language proficiency over time. Results are discussed in terms of the need for more systematic research to be conducted in this area to inform policy and practice in the early education and development of language-minority children.     

对现实中"师幼共同体"案例的反思

真正的师幼共同体应无条件地接纳幼儿,给幼儿提供一个安全的行动港湾。在共同目标指引下的共同活动和自由的交流沟通是其核心要素。从幼儿园经常发生的典型案例中可以发现,教师不合理地运用权力与奖惩会使现实中的师幼共同体成为虚假的共同体。实践中,“集体有序的常规”先在压倒性地存在于教师的行动空间。建构真正的师幼共同体,需要教育者们反思自身的信念经验,意识到儿童自主活动的价值,并通过儿童的活动组织、创建真正有序而和睦的共同体环境。     

Evaluation approaches for a national ICT initiative: the example of laptops for New Zealand teachers

This paper will highlight the successful evaluation approaches deployed for long-term exploration of the impact of a national policy initiative as well as some of the results and outcomes. An interactive feedback process informed decision-making at the national and local level thereby enhancing both the initiative and its implementation in schools. The integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into schools has been a focus of a plethora of policy initiatives by governments worldwide for over 20 years. The provision of laptops to teachers is one component of the New Zealand compulsory school sector ICT strategy. The evaluation research design was to use a mixed-methods approach incorporating three yearly cycles of annual nationwide surveys, regional focus groups, and school-based longitudinal case studies. Randomized sampling was used to identify 20% of the available laptop schools as potential participants in the survey. The same schools participated in each of the 3 years. A distinctive feature of this evaluation has been the regular feedback loops between the evaluators and the stakeholders. The stakeholders included the Ministry of Education and laptop suppliers as well as schools, school leaders, and teacher unions. In the current accountability, environment schools are increasingly being asked to participate in evaluation studies. In long-term studies, it is important to establish effective relationships with the schools and the policy-makers and to deploy robust evaluation methodologies. This is essential for both validity and reliability of the findings and the useability and utilization of the findings.     

Indicators and Indices of Children's Well-being: towards a more policy-oriented perspective

This article focuses on the potential and actual use of child social indicators and indices in the policy-making process. It opens with a brief overview of the child indicators field and its current development and trends. A discussion of these new developments follows, with special emphasis on the consequences of the changing field to the potential role of child social indicators in the policy-making process. The third section focuses on existing knowledge on indicators of children's well-being and the information needed to enhance their policy impact.
The article then turns to discuss two major efforts to measure and monitor children's well-being: the UNICEF child well-being index and the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) child well-being index. As both cases were mainly data driven, the paper uses them as case studies assessing the potential for using existing indicators of children's well-being in the policy process. The paper if finalized with discussing the two indices within a context of a future oriented research and indicators development agenda for anyone who want to enhance the policy impact of indicators and indices of children well-being.     

Understanding children's constructions of meanings about other children: implications for inclusive education

This paper explores the factors that influence the way children construct meanings about other children, and especially those who seem to experience marginalisation, within school contexts. The research involved an ethnographic study in a primary school in Cyprus over a period of 5 months. Qualitative methods were used, particularly participant observations and interviews with children. Interpretation of the data suggests that children's perceptions about other children, and especially those who come to experience marginalisation, are influenced by the following factors: other children and the interactions between them; adults' way of behaving in the school; the existing structures within the school; and the cultures of the school and the wider educational context. Even though the most powerful factor was viewed to be the adults' influence, it was rather the interweaving between different factors that seemed to lead to the creation of particular meanings for other children. In the end, it is argued that children's voices should be seen as an essential element within the process of developing inclusive practices.     

体育游戏对幼儿社会化影响的实证研究

游戏是幼儿喜欢参与的获取知识的有效方式和基本途径。体育游戏具有益智、益心、益体属性,在幼儿参与体育游戏的过程中对其身心发展、社会适应、社会行为等有一定的积极作用,有利于幼儿由"自然人"向"社会人"的转化,即促进幼儿的社会化发展。基于此,文章运用文献资料法、考察法、教学实验法等研究方法,从幼儿体育游戏概况入手,参考相关省市幼儿园游戏开展情况,对通化钢铁集团公司第二幼儿园体育游戏实施情况进行分析,进而探讨体育游戏在幼儿社会化过程中的作用,以期为幼儿社会化的有益发展提供参照。     

Families Created by the New Reproductive Technologies: Quality of Parenting and Social and Emotional Development of the Children

The creation of families by means of the new reproductive technologies has raised important questions about the psychological consequences for children, particularly where gamete donation has been used in the child's conception. Findings are presented of a study of family relationships and the social and emotional development of children in families created as a result of the 2 most widely used reproductive technologies, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and donor insemination (DI), in comparison with control groups of families with a naturally conceived child and adoptive families. The quality of parenting was assessed using a standardized interview with the mother, and mothers and fathers completed questionnaire measures of stress associated with parenting, marital satisfaction, and emotional state. Data on children's psychiatric state were also obtained by standardized interview with the mother, and by questionnaires completed by the mothers and the children's teachers. The children were administered the Separation Anxiety Test, the Family Relations Test, and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance. The results showed that the quality of parenting in families with a child conceived by assisted conception is superior to that shown by families with a naturally conceived child. No group differences were found for any of the measures of children's emotions, behavior, or relationships with parents. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of genetic ties in family functioning and child development.     

“大球理论”与教育中父母及子女的权利

“大球理论”是在“自由教育”理论的基础上提出的。“大球理论”认为,父母对子女教育的希望和理想并不意味着要为子女规定固定的成长模式。父母拥有选择子女接受何种教育的权利;但同时,子女也有接受教育的自主权。关于家长在子女教育上的权利,应该既反对压制子女,同时也要公正地对待父母对孩子的殷切希望和他们为抚养子女做出的牺牲;关于子女受教育的自主权,应重视从小培养他们的自主意识,使之懂得追求心灵的自由。     

Children's participation in foster care hearings

Purpose

Empirical research regarding potential risks and benefits of children's participation in the legal system generally, and in the child dependency legal system in particular, is sparse and mostly characterized by small studies without comparison groups. The current study was designed to address the following questions regarding children's participation in dependency court hearings: (1) Is attending court harmful to children? (2) Is attending court beneficial to children? (3) Is judicial behavior with the child in the courtroom related to potential harms or benefits? and (4) Are there age differences in children's reactions?

Method

The authors measured children's reactions to attending dependency review hearings (n = 43) and compared them to a sample of children who did not attend their hearings (n = 50). One to 2 weeks following review hearings, both groups of children were interviewed about their reactions to the court process.

Results

Children who attended their hearings reported more positive feelings about the dependency process (e.g., trust in judge, perceived fairness, and more comfort with their guardians ad litem and caseworkers). For children who attended, there was no evidence of high distress immediately preceding or following their hearings. Court observations revealed that more active engagement by judges was related to positive responses from the children. Most children, including both children who attended hearings and those who did not, believed that all children should be able to attend their hearings.

Conclusion

Overall, the findings suggest that policies encouraging children's attendance at dependency hearings are viewed positively by and not harmful to children.     

Diversity in Children's Literature: Not Just a Black and White Issue

Diverse characters in children's literature have been used for many years to introduce children to a variety of cultures and ethnic peoples. Using characters in literature is also a strategy that is available to educators who wish to introduce children in a classroom to their peers who have disabilities. The article explores both how books can be analyzed and what educators should look for if they are using books that contain characters with disabilities.