Perception as a possible source of conservation: evidence for length conservation.

In conservation problems, it is commonly assumed that equivalence judgments are not facilitated by observation of the stimuli following transformation. The reverse is usually assumed to be the case. These assumptions were tested in a training experiment. Perceptual counterparts of a series of conservation of length tests were presented to subjects who were catagorized as conservers or nonconservers on conservations of length pretests, and to conservers and nonconservers given conservation of length training. Perceptual performance of the untrained nonconservers was significantly worse than that of the other 3 groups, that is, trained nonconservers, untrained conservers, and trained conservers. These findings are interpreted as consistent with the hypothesis that conservation is attained with the support of perception, not in spite of it.     

The relationship of childhood upbringing and university degree program to environmental identity: experience in nature matters

Education has been proposed as an important way to increase environmental concern. Beyond providing information, education could also encourage a stable sense of oneself as connected to the natural world, or environmental identity (EID), which is a predictor of environmental concern and behavior. This study explored the relative roles of environmental education at university and previous personal characteristics on the level of individual EID. Results from a questionnaire distributed to 919 French students in different academic curricula (ecology, other sciences and political sciences) showed significant difference in levels of EID for students in ecology compared to others, but also that EID was strongly influenced by personal experiences of nature and social context regarding conservation. These results suggest that academic curriculum is more a result than a cause for high environmental identity. We discuss the results in terms of education and access to nature for children and young people.     

Alternative identities in multicultural schools in Israel: emancipatory identity,mixed identity and transnational identity 1

Economic and technological processes of globalization and the increasing migrations of people in the world undermine dominant national identities. One of the main characteristics of our time is the instability of identities and the continuous invention of new/old identities. Traditions and ethnic identities are deconstructed and reconstructed. Immigrants, first, second and also third generation, participate in the dynamic of identity production. It is as part of this global process of identity production that recently founded multicultural schools in Israel have to be understood. The Kedma, Shevach/Mofet and Bialik multicultural schools provide alternative identities to the prevailing national identity: an emancipatory identity to Mizrahi (Oriental) children, a mixed identity to children of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and a transnational identity to the children of migrant workers. Rather than facilitating integration into the discriminatory hegemonic national identity, these alternative identities provide new empowering options for young immigrants within Israeli society.     

Transfer of visual identity matching-to-sample in two california sea lions (zalophus californianus)

In order to assess the abilities of two California sea lions to generalize an identity concept, both animals were taught a two-choice, visual matching-to-sample task. We hypothesized that initial identity-matching problems would be learned as conditional (if...then) discriminations but that an identity concept would emerge after training numerous exemplars of identity matching. After training with 15 two-stimulus identity matching-to-sample problems, transfer tests consisting of 15 novel problems were given to the animals. Pass-fail criteria were defined in terms of performance on Trial 1 of each test problem, performance on test trials compared with baseline trials, and performance on four-trial problem blocks. One sea lion passed on the second transfer test and the other passed on the third; both demonstrated successful generalization of an identity concept by all criteria used. A second experiment consisted of presentation of stimuli previously learned in a different context (arbitrary matching-to-sample). Both subjects immediately applied an identity concept to accurately solve these new problems. These tests conclusively demonstrate transfer of an identity matching rule in California sea lions.     

Children's reasoning about disclosing adult transgressions: effects of maltreatment, child age, and adult identity

A total of two hundred ninety-nine 4- to 9-year-old maltreated and nonmaltreated children of comparable socioeconomic status and ethnicity judged whether children should or would disclose unspecified transgressions of adults (instigators) to other adults (recipients) in scenarios varying the identity of the instigator (stranger or parent), the identity of the recipient (parent, police, or teacher), and the severity of the transgression ("something really bad" or "something just a little bad"). Children endorsed more disclosure against stranger than parent instigators and less disclosure to teacher than parent and police recipients. The youngest maltreated children endorsed less disclosure than nonmaltreated children, but the opposite was true among the oldest children. Older maltreated children distinguished less than nonmaltreated children between parents and other types of instigators and recipients.     

High school identity climate and student identity development

This research investigated whether schools characterized by high school students as being rich in identity promoting features contribute to student identity development. A theoretical model posited that student perceptions of teachers as caring role models and their school as cultivating the whole student will foster student exploration and confidence about future identity development. Hypothesized mediators of these effects were student perceptions of a positive social climate, of experiencing meaningful studies and of affirmation of their agency and exploration. Participants were 2787 male and female students from the Jewish public-religious sector in Israel in 152 classes of 25 high schools. Results indicated that (a) schools with identity promoting features contribute to student identity development, (b) teachers as role models is a more potent variable than teacher caring in predicting student identity development and (c) experiencing meaningful studies is an especially important contributor to student exploration and identity confidence.     

Symbolic,identity, and probe delayed matching of sounds by the bottlenosed dolphin

The short-term memory for sounds of the bottlenosed dolphin was tested using symbolic, identity, and probe forms of the delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) task. The forms differed in the number (one or two) or nature (symbolic or identity matches of sample sounds) of postdelay test stimuli available as memory retrieval cues. Although symbolic DMS was difficult to learn, the final performance level was approximately equal to that for identity or probe DMS. On all tasks, the dolphin’s responses were above 80% correct through to delays of 90 sec and, in some cases, through to delays of 180 and 240 sec, the “limits” being governed mainly by the dolphin’s reluctance to continue being tested at long delays. Encoding of sample stimuli into their learned symbolic representation was hypothesized to have reduced symbolic DMS to a recognition memory task, resulting in the observed equivalence of performance with the other two recognition memory tasks. The probe DMS results, unlike those for identity or symbolic DMS, showed no significant proactive interference effects from samples of prior trials. Instead, proactive interference was traceable to the probe value of the prior trial. Overall, the auditory DMS data for the dolphin were functionally similar to results reported for monkeys tested on symbolic, identity, and probe visual DMS tasks.     

Social Context Effects on Children's Performance of Number Conservation Tasks: plausibility and evidence

Abstract Recent controversy over Piagetian tasks concerns whether the experimenter's actions result in children misunderstanding the question. Evidence for this has been derived from differences in performance of conservation tasks according to whether the transformation is intentional or accidental. Studies reporting large differences according to transformation type are claimed to be flawed procedurally. Including a preliminary talk and restricting questions to one domain result in little or no transformation type effect. Whether children's correct judgments in accidental versions are reliable indications of their knowledge has also been disputed. They may reflect children's ignoring of the transformation or covert counting. Using an identity conservation pretest 192 Yemeni children were selected to be tested on number conservation tasks varying in transformation type, numerosity and equality. The results were analysed using a model‐fitting procedure. Identity nonconservers were affected by transformation type but not numerosity whereas identity conservers showed the opposite pattern. The identity nonconservers may simply have been so bemused by the adult experimenter introducing a soft toy in the accidental conditions that they guessed. For identity nonconservers guessing will result in greater success than reasoning.     

Aspects of the professional identity of preschool teachers in Greece: investigating the role of teacher education and professional experience

In this paper, we present the results of a research programme we developed to investigate the professional identity of preschool education teachers in Greece. Our aim was to investigate parameters affecting not only the creation but also the reform of professional identity and to highlight potential differences in terms of professional identity. Contemporary approaches to professional identity – developed since the 80s – raise issues related primarily to participatory processes, reflection, autonomy and emancipation. Teachers’ professional identity is gradually developed through an ongoing process of three interrelated and complementary steps: (a) pre-service teacher education, (b) vocational integration and (c) exercise of professional duties and in-service training. We interviewed 20 teachers on their professional identity. We chose two categories of teachers based on two criteria: (a) their studies, and (b) their professional experience in the field. Tentative findings showed that professional experience was more important than studies in the construction of their professional identity. Professional identity also relates to both their professional experience and the dominant beliefs about early childhood education.     

Children's perceptions of national identity in Wales

The project forms part of a larger doctoral study which examines children's perceptions of national identity and its construction and importance in the world of the child in Wales. The research took place in a primary school class in the South Wales valleys, in a class of 27 children aged 7–8 years. Following an introductory activity, children drew a picture of a ‘Welsh person’. They were then interviewed with their artwork about their ideas of national identity in Wales. The initial findings revealed that the young children in this study, contrary to cognitive development theory (Piaget, J., and A.M. Weil. 1951. The development in children of the idea of the homeland and relations to other countries. International Social Science Journal 3: 561–578; Aboud, F., and M. Amato. 2001. Developmental and socialization influences on intergroup bias. In Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Intergroup processes, ed. R. Brown and A. Gaertner, 65–85. Oxford: Blackwell), had a complex and well-developed view of their own national identity. The children were able to consider in some depth, what characterises their concept of the national identity. Children categorised themselves using a range of parameters such as place of birth, parental nationality and current and previous residences. These findings contribute to previous studies in the Welsh context, which have been conducted with older children. The largest self-categorisation group was Welsh but a further interesting factor was that there were more children who categorised themselves as English rather than British.     

The influence of models in forming moral identity

Examples are an important element of traditional education. Though the examples chosen by children and adolescents are often identified as central themes in their development (especially the examples presented by the mass media we sometimes worry about), the role of examples in recent moral pedagogics and psychology has rarely been discussed. A survey of 1150 pupils in Austria and Germany suggested that young people take as their examples primarily persons from their social neighborhood and secondarily those from sports and music. From the point of view of those studied, examples can help to master the developmental tasks facing them. Since children and young people identity themselves with their examples, these become elements of their self or their identity, even their moral identity. Examples influence moral attitudes, insofar as they are perceived by the adolescents.Otto Krille, born in 1878, was a German socialist. In his autobiography, he confessed that his moral identity essentially was influenced by his mother. He appreciated her as a model of a powerful and impressive woman committing herself to the concerns of proletarians. Krille came to be an ardent advocate of the poor working class. His moral development as well as his moral identity had been formed by the example of his mother.But is such development possible in our times? When journalists write about examples and models of children and adolescents, they typically talk about stars such as Michael Jackson, Boris Becker, Madonna, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, not parents, grandparents, older siblings, priests, or teachers. Now and then, journalists draw attention to James Dean, especially his film, Rebel Without a Cause. Many adolescents proved their daring by driving their cars toward steep cliffs and some have been killed in accidents. Bandura (1963)was inspired by such events to conduct his well-known experiments on imitation and learning from models.These journalistic reports allege two issues. First, moral identity of young persons is strongly influenced by models. Young people adopt their values and frequently imitate their behavior. Second, these models are rarely persons from social nearness. Rather they are stars from movies and television, the musical scene, and sport. But is it true that young people admire such models? Which persons are the real models in young persons’ lives?     

“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.     

Children's Perception of Length

The ability of five‐year‐olds to make relative length judgements and relative number judgements was investigated under three conditions. In one condition the items to be compared were presented simultaneously. In the other two conditions they were presented successively, either with a minimal delay or with a delay of 15 seconds. Children were found to be capable of successful discrimination under all three conditions, though their performance was impaired with a 15 seconds delay. The results are discussed with reference to the distinction between identity and equivalence conservation, and with reference to Brainerd's (1973) transitivity of length task. The latter is claimed to be faulty.     

A test of the conservation model for autoshaped leverpressing and polydipsia in the rat

This study examined a conservation model (Allison & Mack, 1982) that predicts a linear relation between the weighted sum of two responses, autoshaped leverpressing and polydipsia, and the amount of food delivered on a variable-time schedule. Fifteen rats were assigned randomly to one of three groups. The rats in Group 1 were maintained at 80% of their free-feeding body weights. Those in Group 2 began at 100% but were allowed to lose weight during the experiment. The rats in Group 3 also began at 100% of their free-feeding weights and were maintained at this level. Each group was exposed to five conditions that delivered less food than that consumed during baseline and to one condition that delivered more food. The results did not support the conservation model. Contrary to the model, the decreasing linear relation between the individual responses, or the weighted sum of the responses, and the amount of food delivered was not found for all rats, and some rats responded more when an excessive amount of food was presented than during baseline.     

Professional identity in early childhood care and education: perspectives of pre-school and infant teachers

This paper explores perceptions of professional identity in the early childhood care and educations sector (ECCE) in the Republic of Ireland (ROI). It is concerned with the status, salary and conditions of those working with children aged four to six in pre-school and primary school settings. Using qualitative methodology, the study garnered personal perspectives and insights into professional identity. It presents new empirical evidence on the attitudes of those working in ECCE towards their professional identity and their aspirations for the future. Findings indicate that professional identity is contentious and problematic. At pre-school level, this is predominantly associated with the lack of a mandatory training requirement. There is compelling evidence that highly trained ECCE graduates are being lost to the sector. At primary school level, while teachers per se enjoy a relatively high social status, their professional identity as infant teachers is compromised within individual school settings. Teachers believe that this is related to a perception that the infant class is akin to ‘playschool’. As a result, they do not get the same respect as teachers working in classes higher up the school. These issues gives rise to fundamental questions about the value of early childhood as well as the value placed on those working with four- to six-year-old children in pre-school and primary school.     

Graduate identity and employability

This paper develops the concept of graduate identity as a way of deepening the understanding of graduate employability. It does this through presenting research in which over 100 employers in East Anglia were asked to record their perceptions of graduates in respect of their employability. The findings suggest a composite and complex graduate identity, depending on employer size and sector. There is no one fixed identity for graduates. Nevertheless, certain themes emerged that seriously put into question the traditional model of graduate employability comprising skills, competencies and attributes. What emerges is a four‐stranded concept of identity that comprises value, intellect, social engagement and performance. Thus, when assessing the potential of graduates, performance is not the only criteria that employers take into account. Moreover, the four elements of identity are by no means independent of each other but are expected to interpenetrate producing a composite identity, with different employers emphasising different facets of this identity.

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Integration and representation in rats’ serial pattern learning in the T-maze

Rats were exposed to three-trial series consisting of reinforced (R) trials and one nonreinforced (N) trial in a fixed order, RRN and RNR (Experiments 1 and 2) or NRR and RRN (Experiment 3), on extended visually distinct runways in a T-maze. When initially presented with the same sequence on each series in a session (separate presentations) with the same runway on all trials within a series (Experiments 1 and 3), all the rats developed slower running speeds on N than on R trials. When a runway was sometimes changed between the first and next two trials during separate presentations training (Experiment 2) or both sequences were later intermixed within each session in each experiment, only rats exposed to each sequence on a specific runway maintained these serial running patterns. Rats displayed serial running patterns on a test RNN sequence similar to that on the RNR sequence (Experiment 2), as would be predicted by an intertrial association model of serial pattern learning (Capaldi & Molina, 1979), but responded on test RRR and NRN sequences (Experiment 3) as would be predicted by an ordinal-trialtag/intratrial association model (Burns, Wiley, & Payne, 1986). Results from test series of free-choice trials in Experiments 1 and 2 failed to support a prediction of the intratrial association model that these rats would integrate RRN and RNR sequences. Rather than always selecting a baited runway on both the second and the third free-choice trials, the rats only selected a baited runway on the third trial on the basis of their choice on the second trial, as would be predicted by the intertrial association model. Only after experiencing all possible outcome sequences during forced-choice training in Experiment 3 did these rats predominantly select a baited runway on every free-choice trial.     

Opening the box: literacy,artefacts and identity

This article discusses research which was carried out within the ESRC‐funded Home–School Knowledge Exchange Project (2001–2004). Through a process of collaborative action research an activity based on previous project work was devised. Children were asked to select artifacts from home that would inspile their creative writing in school. This activity explicitly allowed children to present aspects of their identity within the school domain and for knowledge of home practices to permeate the literacy curriculum. The research explored the constraints that the contemporary literacy curriculum imposed on the activity, in particular the problematic status of oracy. The gains that the activity afforded some children, both curriculum‐based (extended pieces of work, improved structure to writing) and personal (increased motivation, heightened self‐esteem), are also examined. The research highlighted the relationship between literacy and identity in that the activity allowed the expression of both figurative and positional identity. Additionally the importance of popular culture in the formation of individual and group identity is discussed.     

Consolidation and Transfer of Learning After Observing Hand Gesture

Children who observe gesture while learning mathematics perform better than children who do not, when tested immediately after training. How does observing gesture influence learning over time? Children (n = 184, ages = 7–10) were instructed with a videotaped lesson on mathematical equivalence and tested immediately after training and 24 hr later. The lesson either included speech and gesture or only speech. Children who saw gesture performed better overall and performance improved after 24 hr. Children who only heard speech did not improve after the delay. The gesture group also showed stronger transfer to different problem types. These findings suggest that gesture enhances learning of abstract concepts and affects how learning is consolidated over time.     

Playing boys: the body,identity and belonging in the early years

In early childhood, the body is frequently used as a pedagogical reference point to establish, affirm and stabilize children’s gendered and racialized identities. Through this naming of the body, identities are disciplined to fit the social expectations and norms that circulate in educational settings. This article uses data from a case study in an early childhood setting to show how material bodies are not only subject to disciplinary regimes but are also sites of agency for varied practices of embodiment. Embodiment, in this sense, functions as a technology of identity and social belonging rather than as a state of being. Finally, the ‘technologies of self’ used by children presented certain dilemmas to teachers who wished to collaborate with children to establish inclusive communities and to respect children’s agency.