Family Socialisation and Children's School Outcomes: an investigation of a parenting model

The study investigated relationships between the dimensions of a parenting model and children's school outcomes. Also, a bioecological model was examined which proposes that proximal parenting processes have the general effect of mediating relationships between distal social contexts and children's outcomes, while advantageous individual characteristics enhance associations between proximal family processes and children's characteristics. Data were collected from 900 (460 boys, 440 girls) 11 year‐old Australian children and their parents. The findings suggest that: (a) a parenting model defined by parents’ aspirations, parenting practices, and parenting style has modest to moderate concurrent validity in relation to children's academic achievement and school attitudes, (b) the proximal processes of the parenting model mediate substantially the relationships between family social status and children's academic achievement but not the associations between intellectual ability and outcomes; and (c) there are sex‐group differences in the nature of the relationships between the dimensions of the parenting model and children's school outcomes.     

After the moral panic? Reframing the debate about child safety online

This paper examines the initial ‘moral panic’ surrounding children's access to the Internet at the end of the last century by analysing more than 900 media articles and key government documents from 1997 to 2001. It explores the ambiguous settlements that this produced in adult–child relations and children's access to the Internet. The paper then revisits the policy and media debate a decade later by examining the Byron Review, Digital Britain Report and media coverage of these, in order to explore how these settlements have been negotiated, resisted and transformed over the subsequent period. In so doing, the paper asks whether it is time to reframe the debate about children's occupation of online public space, less in terms of ‘care’ for children's needs that tends to result in exclusionary and surveillance strategies, and more in terms of children's rights and capacities to engage in democratic debates about the nature of an online public space in which they are already participating.     

Being kitties in a preschool classroom: maintaining group harmony and acting proper in a female peer-culture play routine

This study examines how young girls construct emotional themes in their peer-culture play routines and rituals in the daily life of a preschool classroom. This research is part of a larger eight-month ethnographic study of one preschool classroom. The data selected and analysed in this article are taken from a focused six-week theoretical sampling of five female preschool children's play. Micro-level analysis of the data (field notes, videotaping, video revisiting and interviews with teachers and students) revealed how children's peer-culture and emotional themes were socially constructed through a specific play narrative that centred on five females being ‘kitties’. A closer look at one group member named Mary uncovered emotional themes that centred on acting proper and group harmony. Females used their peer-culture and emotional themes to hold group members accountable, resolve conflict and appropriate society's emotional display rules. These data reveal the social–emotional ‘work’ of children and the role of peers in childhood socialisation.     

The Roles of Intuition and Informants’ Expertise in Children's Epistemic Trust

This study examined how children's intuitions and informants’ expertise influence children's trust in informants’ claims. Three‐ to 8‐year‐olds (N = 192) watched videos in which experts (animal/biology experts or artifact/physics experts) made either intuitively plausible or counterintuitive claims about obscure animals or artifacts. Claims fell either within or beyond experts’ domains of expertise. Children of all ages were more trusting of claims made by informants with relevant, as opposed to irrelevant, expertise. Children also showed greater acceptance of intuitive rather than counterintuitive claims, a differentiation that increased with age as they developed firmer intuitions about what can ordinarily happen. In summary, children's trust in testimony depends on whether informants have the relevant expertise as well as on children's own developing intuitions.     

Play and gender in Ontario kindergarten classrooms: implications for literacy learning

Research has highlighted the importance of early literacy development. In light of this, there has been a growing concern around boys’ underachievement on language and literacy assessments. Given the recent mandate for play-based learning in Ontario kindergartens, this paper examines children's literacy integration during play from a gender perspective. An analysis of 380 minutes of children's play revealed that girls and boys often played separately across the 12 kindergarten classrooms in this study. Importantly, the centres at which girls and boys played offered different literacy support. Our findings showed that gender played a salient role in children's play choices affecting the types of academic skills children practiced in their play. In this paper, we shed light on the need for gender awareness and sensitivity in policy mandates and teacher practice.     

Engaging White parents to address their White children's racial biases in the Black-White context

Multiple studies (n = 1065 parents, 625 females, 437 males, 3 nonbinary, 99.06% White; n = 80, 5 to 7-year-old children, 35 girls, 45 boys, 87.50% White; data collection September 2017–January 2021) investigated White U.S. parents' thinking about White children's Black-White racial biases. In Studies 1–3, parents reported that their own and other children would not express racial biases. When predicting children's social preferences for Black and White children (Study 2), parents underestimated their own and other children's racial biases. Reading an article about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases (Study 3) increased parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address children's biases (relative to a control condition). The findings have implications for engaging White parents to address their children's racial biases.     

The Nature and Consequences of Essentialist Beliefs About Race in Early Childhood

It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people—an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203, M_age = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.     

Self-perceptions,temperament, socioemotional adjustment and the perceptions of parental support of chronically underachieving children

Several studies suggest that children who chronically underachieve are, like children with learning disorders, at risk for negative outcomes and are more likely to experience adjustment problems than are their typically developing peers. This study compares children's self-esteem, perceived competence, negative perfectionism and beliefs of peer acceptance, temperament-based factors (parent-rated), and socioemotional adjustment (parent and teacher rated) of underachieving and non-underachieving elementary school children. It also explores whether children's perceptions of parental support act as a protective factor in children's self-perceptions and socioemotional adjustment. The sample includes 309 fifth and sixth graders 55 underachievers (31 boys and 24 girls), 217 standard achievers (90 boys and 127 girls) and 37 overachievers (16 boys and 21 girls) from the same classes. Significant intergroup differences are found in children's self-perceptions and in teachers’ report of socioemotional adjustment but no difference is observed in parental reports. Children's perceptions of parental support do not differ between groups and do not significantly mediate the association between level of achievement and socioemotional adjustment. Results underscore that whatever the achievement classification of children, their perception of parental support has a unique contribution to their self-perceptions and socioemotional adjustment.     

Storytelling as a democratic approach to data collection: interviewing children about reading

Background Before the 1990s, an individual or medical model dominated educational research methodology with respect to younger children: the subjects of the research were usually considered untrustworthy sources of information. A subsequent shift towards an ecological model has focused on the child's perspective: however, Lewis and Lindsay have described the development of methods for conducting research with children as slow.

Purpose This paper examines how storytelling can be used as a method of collecting authentic and revealing research data from children. The method is suggested as a valuable way in which to gain insights into children's discourse, and is used in this paper in relation to children's discourse about reading.

Sample, design and methods The storytelling method was initially trialled in one school with 36 children aged between 5 and 11 years. The storytelling interview was then used in case studies over a period of a year in three schools, with a total of 88 7- and 8-year-old children. During the interviews, children were asked to tell a story entitled ‘The child who didn't like reading’. Systematic content analysis was undertaken to identify emergent cultural norms and models in the stories. Information on the children's reading practices, and their observations on reading, was also collected for the purposes of triangulation.

Results The children's storytelling gave access to their cultural models of reading. It was found that the stories demonstrated sufficient triangulation with the other data about the children's reading practices to support a sociocultural production of the children's discourse.

Conclusions Storytelling can provide a useful and credible method of collecting research data from children. It may be especially useful with poor readers as there are no literacy demands, and in this respect, affords socially inclusive research.     

'Coming out': Gender, (hetero)sexuality and the primary school

Foregrounding the primary school as a key cultural arena for the production and reproduction of sexuality and sexual identities, this article goes some way to addressing what are absent from many sociological portrayals of young children and schooling. Drawing on data derived from an ethnographic exploration into children's gender and sexual identities during their final year of primary school, the article examines how dominant notions of heterosexuality underscore much of children's identity work and peer relationships. The article further illustrates how boys and girls are each subject to the pressures of compulsory heterosexuality, where to be a 'normal' girl or boy involves the projection of a coherent and abiding heterosexual self. The implications of recognising children's sexual cultures and the pressures to conform to a heterosexual culture are discussed briefly in the concluding section.     

Behavioural objectives in a reading programme: An experiment

Maria Edgeworth was a nineteenth century novelist, primarily remembered for her adult and children's novels. Yet her book, Letters for literary ladies discussed the importance of science education for girls and in conjunction with her father, Richard Edgeworth, she wrote several treatises on education. Their book Practical education advocates an inquiry approach to teaching science and also using scientific practices, such as observation and data collection, to examine and plan children's education. They emphasised the importance and the role of experimentation, observation and critical thinking in the development of children's knowledge, skills and attitudes towards learning. However, the history of science education has to date ignored this seminal work and Maria's contributions to women's science education.     

Speed,education and children as pedestrians: a cognitive change approach to a potentially dangerous naive concept

Previous studies have indicated that children, in the pedestrian accident‐prone age range of 4‐9 years, hold a range of naive concepts of speed, which could be a possible causal factor in determining young children's vulnerability when interacting with traffic. This research reports an attempt to bring about conceptual change in children's concept of speed via the teaching of the science of speed. The course incorporated elements of an integrated educational experience and was specifically designed to involve the minimum of teacher preparation and the maximum of hands‐on experiences. The results indicate that it may indeed be possible to modify naive conceptions via teaching that targets particular concepts.     

Family,schools and Taiwanese children's outcomes

Background Educational reform is a major challenge facing schools in Taiwan. The new educational reform requires that every primary school must have parental involvement programmes in their school schedules, and to support these new programmes, there is a need for research to examine the extent and nature of parental involvement in primary schools in Taiwan, and to investigate the impact of parental involvement on pupil outcomes.

Purpose The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which parents' involvement in schooling is related to primary pupil outcomes, after taking into account differences in family social status and family structure, and the children's perceptions of their school learning environments.

Sample For the analyses data were collected in 2001 from 261 6th-grade Taiwanese students, 128 boys and 133 girls, from four primary schools in the Taichung City school district. The average age of the children was approximately 11 years.

Design and methods In the analysis of the research model, a quantitative approach was adopted, in which each student completed two questionnaires and two academic achievement tests. The first questionnaire included questions to assess family social status, family structure and parents' involvement in their children's education. In the second questionnaire there were questions to measure pupils' self-concept and perceptions of their schools' learning environments. The data were analysed using multiple-regression techniques to examine relationships among family social status, family structure, parental involvement, the school learning environment and pupils' school-related outcomes.

Results The findings suggested that: (a) children's academic achievement is related to their family social status and perceptions of immediate family learning environments, and (b) children's self-concept is associated with their perceptions of classroom learning environments, parents' aspirations and parents' involvement at home. These propositions indicate the differential nature of the relationships among family and school environments and measures of children's school outcomes.

Conclusions In the Taiwanese context, by showing the particularly important association between Taiwanese family environments and children's school outcomes, the present investigation supports the educational reform movement that encourages schools to involve parents more intimately in shared responsibilities.     

Families’ perceptions of early childhood educators’ fostering conversations and connections by sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation

ABSTRACT

Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia emphasises that families have an important role in their children's learning and it recognises that their earliest development is influenced through these relationships and adds that partnerships can be fostered with families by early childhood educators sharing the children's documented experiences. The research discussed employed an in-depth structured questionnaire. It involved 37 families with children aged from three to five years who attended an early learning centre in Northern Tasmania, Australia. The aim of this research was to determine these families’ perceptions, beliefs and experiences of educators sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation. The documentation included hard copy and digital formats of the children's learning, capturing their voices and explorations. The findings show that families consider the sharing of documentation fosters family conversations about the children's learning experiences and helps to create stronger connections between the centre, home and extended family. Another recurring theme from the families’ responses was that children gain pride and a positive sense of identity when their documented work is shared with families.     

Early childhood teachers' understanding of inclusive education and associated practices: reflections from Greece

This paper focuses on Greek regular and special preschool teachers' understanding of inclusion; their views about the engagement of children with disabilities in typical day routines/activities; and their preferred strategies for facilitating children's engagement in classroom activities. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 77 teachers (45 regular and 32 special educators) drawn from 47 preschool mainstream settings in Greece. The analysis revealed that teachers hold conflicting and restrictive beliefs about inclusive education. Further, the teachers' accounts indicated that most of the children with disabilities were experiencing significant difficulties in their engagement during free-play as well as structured/semi-structured activities. Lastly, teachers identified a range of strategies that they deployed for promoting children's involvement in classroom activities. The paper concludes by highlighting the need to shift away from a narrow individualistic-deficit assumption of disability towards a socio-constructivist conceptualisation of ‘diversity’ and the establishment of genuinely inclusive school cultures.     

Getting Ready to Learn—And Learning

Research Findings: The study examined children's recognition of emotion from faces and body poses, as well as gender differences in these recognition abilities. Preschool-aged children (N = 55) and their parents and teachers participated in the study. Preschool-aged children completed a web-based measure of emotion recognition skills that included 5 tasks (3 with faces and 2 with bodies). Parents and teachers reported on children's aggressive behaviors and social skills. Children's emotion accuracy on 2 of the 3 facial tasks and 1 of the body tasks was related to teacher reports of social skills. Some of these relations were moderated by child gender. In particular, the relationships between emotion recognition accuracy and reports of children's behavior were stronger for boys than girls. Practice or Policy: Identifying preschool-aged children's strengths and weaknesses in terms of the identification of emotion from faces and body poses may be helpful in guiding interventions with children who have problems with social and behavioral functioning that may be due in part to emotion knowledge deficits. Further developmental implications of these findings are discussed.     

To enter the castle of fear: engendering children's story writing from home to school at KS2

This paper describes a small‐scale writing project in which a class of KS 2 primary pupils were invited to import their own narrative interests into a task designed by their teacher and the researcher within the constraints of the National Literacy Strategy. By employing an adventure genre, based on problem and puzzle solving, pupils were encouraged to introduce familiar scenarios and characters from their favourite stories in books, comics, videos or computer games. The work produced has been analyzed to highlight the different ways in which boys and girls engaged with key aspects of narrative and how this enabled discussion of gendered literacy practices in which boys and girls held an equal stake. The author discusses the importance of developing strategies by means of which children's understanding and transformations of their preferred modes of narrative pleasures can be housed within the current literacy framework.     

Links Among Italian Preschoolers’ Socioemotional Competence,Teacher–Child Relationship Quality,and Peer Acceptance

Research Findings: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations among teacher–child relationship quality (close, conflictive, and dependent), children's social behavior, and peer likability in a sample of Italian preschool-age children (46 boys, 42 girls). Preschool teachers evaluated the quality of the teacher–child relationship and children's social behaviors (i.e., social competence, anger-aggression, and anxiety-withdrawal). Peer-rated likability was measured using a sociometric procedure. Results indicated that conflictual teacher–child relationships were related to high aggressive behavior, and dependent teacher–child relationships were positively associated with children's anxiety-withdrawal. Moreover, we found an indirect association between close teacher–child relationship quality and peer likability through children's social competence. Practice or Policy: The findings provide evidence that the teacher–child relationship is critical for children's social behaviors and that social competence is uniquely related to peer likability.     

Children's Temperament and Academic Skill Development During First Grade: Teachers' Interaction Styles as Mediators

The present study followed 156 Finnish children (M_age = 7.25 years) during the first grade of primary school to examine to what extent parent‐ and teacher‐rated temperament impacts children's math and reading skill development during the first grade, and the extent to which this impact would be mediated by teachers' interaction styles with the children. The results showed that the impact of children's low task orientation and negative emotionality on their math skill development was mediated via teachers' behavioral control and, among girls, also by psychological control. The negative impact of children's inhibition on math skill development, in turn, was not mediated via teachers' interaction styles. Temperament did not predict the children's reading skill development during first grade.