Variations in fearfulness and worries of Xhosa children

Xhosa‐speaking South African children in school settings face several academic and emotional challenges. These may be due to family obligation, conformity to authority figures and over expectations from parents, teachers and society. This study examines the differences in the number and types of reported fears and worries in 200 South African children and adolescents, between 14 and 18 years of age. Responses to a questionnaire investigating the inventory of fears and worries revealed significant differences in the number, pattern and level of fears. The participants endorsed school fears at higher levels than their Senegalese, Australian, Nigerian and American counterparts. Girls and children of low‐income homes tend to exhibit higher levels of fears than children of upper‐class homes. When interpreted within the cultural context, results further indicate that the number of fears decreased with age and that cultures that have fear‐producing stimuli, and that favour inhibition and obedience serve to increase levels of fears and worries.     

An empirical taxonomy of youths' fears: Cluster analysis of the American fear survey schedule

Fears profiles among children and adolescents were explored using the Fear Survey Schedule for Children‐American version (FSSC‐AM; J.J. Burnham, 1995, 2005). Eight cluster profiles were identified via multistage Euclidean grouping and supported by homogeneity coefficients and replication. Four clusters reflected overall level of fears (i.e., very low, below average, moderate, and multiple), and four others exhibited specific peaks associated with school‐related fears, medical fears, and scary things. Demographic characteristics associated with cluster profile membership revealed variability primarily based on gender and age, with some differences associated with community type. Comparisons with prior results on earlier fear surveys and implications for school refusal behavior provide a useful context for discussion. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 673–683, 2006.     

Multilevel Analysis of Child and Adolescent Subjective Well-Being Across 14 Countries: Child- and Country-Level Predictors

This study tests an ecological, relationship-based model of children's subjective well-being with 9- to 14-year-old children (n = 25,906) from 14 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Children completed the Children's Worlds survey, a self-report measure of contextual and well-being indicators. Multilevel modeling was used to predict children's well-being (life satisfaction and self-image) at two levels, child (age, gender, home context, family relationships, peer relationships, school context, teacher relationships, and neighborhood quality), and country (gross domestic product and income inequality). Findings indicated that intercepts varied significantly across countries. The majority of variance in children's well-being was attributed to child-level rather than country-level factors. Country-level factors did not strongly predict well-being but marginally improved model fit.     

Contested childhoods across borders and boundaries: Insights from curriculum provisions in Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in the 1920s

Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the 26-county Irish Free State (South) and the 6-county Northern Ireland (North) in the 1920s following the partition of Ireland, through the lens of educational documentation, primarily national primary school curricula. The focus on both jurisdictions is interesting in the context of partition, exploring the sometimes divergent and often convergent ways in which children were conceptualised across borders and boundaries. This article reveals, using Sorin and Galloway’s framework as a conceptual and analytical tool, that conceptualisations of children were broadly similar in the North and South but differed in their focus and enactment in both fledgling states. These disparities are largely attributable to the very different political, social and religious orientations of both jurisdictions and the use of education as a vehicle for nation-building, as well as identity and gender formation. The article also explores alternative conceptualisations of children in education policy in the North and South by presenting case study ‘outliers’ of educational provision. A century since partition, conclusions and implications are noted that resonate with contemporary elements of convergence and divergence on educational policy and the conceptualisation of children across the island of Ireland.     

Cross‐Cultural Differences in Children's Beliefs About the Objectivity of Social Categories

The present study compared 5‐ and 10‐year‐old North American and Israeli children's beliefs about the objectivity of different categories (n = 109). Children saw picture triads composed of two exemplars of the same category (e.g., two women) and an exemplar of a contrasting category (e.g., a man). Children were asked whether it would be acceptable or wrong for people in a different country to consider contrasting exemplars to be the same kind. It was found that children from both countries viewed gender as objectively correct and occupation as flexible. The findings regarding race and ethnicity differed in the two countries, revealing how an essentialist bias interacts with cultural input in directing children's conceptualization of social groups.     

Cattell–Horn–Carroll cognitive ability profiles of poor comprehenders

This study examines cognitive ability profiles of children with specific age-based normative weaknesses in reading comprehension and compares those profiles to the profiles of (a) children with at least average achievement in reading comprehension, reading decoding skills, and mathematics and (b) children with low achievement across the 3 achievement areas. When compared across 9 cognitive ability composite scores derived from Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory and measured by the Woodcock–Johnson III [Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather (2001). Woodcock–Johnson. Itasca, IL: Riverside], groups differed in overall level of performance. When individual abilities were considered, the poor comprehenders scored significantly lower than the average achievement group on all nine composite scores and significantly lower than the normative population on all composite scores except Processing Speed and Long-Term Retrieval. In contrast, the poor comprehenders also scored significantly higher than the low achievement group on all composite scores except for Visual–Spatial Thinking and Phonemic Awareness. Although the poor comprehenders as a group scored lowest on composite scores measuring language- and knowledge-based abilities, review of the profiles of individual poor comprehenders revealed no consistent pattern of performance across cognitive ability composite scores.     

If We Teach Them, They Can Learn: Young Students Views of Nature of Science Aspects to Early Elementary Students During an Informal Science Education Program

There have been substantial reform efforts in science education to improve students’ understandings of science and its processes and provide continual support for students becoming scientifically literate (American Association for the Advancement of Science in Benchmarks for science literacy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993; National Research Council in Mathematics and science education around the world, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1996; National Science Teachers Association in NSTA position statement 2000). Despite previous research, it is still unclear whether young children are actually developmentally ready to conceptualize the ideas that are recommended in the reforms (Akerson V, Volrich M (2006) Journal of Research and Science Teaching, 43, 377–394). The purpose of this study was to explore how explicit-reflective instruction could improve young students’ understanding of NOS. During an informal education setting, the authors taught NOS aspects using explicit-reflective instruction. Overall the students participating in the program improved their understanding of the target aspects of NOS through use of explicit reflective instruction. However, the levels of improvement varied across different aspects. Students improved the most in their understanding of the tentative nature of science and the roles of observation in scientific work, although there was still some confusion regarding the distinction between observation and inference. More work needs to be done exploring these specific topics and the role explicit reflective practice can play in identifying the particular problems students have in distinguishing these constructs.     

A developmental-genetic analysis of common fears from early adolescence to early adulthood

A 51-item fear survey was administered to more than 2,600 adolescents and adults, including m ore than 400 pairs of like-sex twins, to examine developmental patterns and genetic influences on common fears. Raw data were age-sex standardized and subjected to factor analysis, and preliminary analyses of the factor scores documented both age and genetic effects. Some fears habituate with age; others exhibit sensitization; and, for some fears, intensity is uniform across development. Genetic effects were found for all factors, but the magnitude of such effects varied. Based on these initial analyses, developmental patterns of genetic and environmental influences on self-assessed fears were examined in 354 pairs of like-sex twins, ages 14-34. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to predict a twin's fearfulness from the co-twin's fear, the age and zygosity of the twin pair, and the interactions of these 3 predictors. For all fear factors, co-twin's score and the interaction of co-twin's score with pair zygosity significantly contributed to the prediction of a twin's fearfulness, but the magnitude of both effects varied for different fears. For 2 fear factors, Personal Death and Loved One's Misfortunes, 3-way interactions of co-twin's score, age, and zygosity were observed. The findings suggest significant genetic modulation of developmental patterns in the acquisition and maintenance of some adaptive fears.     

Impact of North Carolina's Early Childhood Programs and Policies on Educational Outcomes in Elementary School

North Carolina's Smart Start and More at Four (MAF) early childhood programs were evaluated through the end of elementary school (age 11) by estimating the impact of state funding allocations to programs in each of 100 counties across 13 consecutive years on outcomes for all children in each county‐year group (n = 1,004,571; 49% female; 61% non‐Latinx White, 30% African American, 4% Latinx, 5% other). Student‐level regression models with county and year fixed effects indicated significant positive impacts of each program on reading and math test scores and reductions in special education and grade retention in each grade. Effect sizes grew or held steady across years. Positive effects held for both high‐ and low‐poverty families, suggesting spillover of effects to nonparticipating peers.     

A cross‐cultural comparison of student social attributions

One hundred sixty American and 397 Korean fourth‐ and fifth‐graders were administered the Student Social Attribution Scale (SSAS), designed to assess students' explanations for social successes and failures. A Korean version of the SSAS was developed for the study. The American and Korean instruments' internal consistency reliability were determined (rs ranged from .56 to .86 for the Korean instrument and .62 to .88 for the American instrument). The means from both the American and Korean SSAS versions on the 8 scales and global scores (e.g., internal, external) were compared. Based on the literature, Korean children should have had higher scores for effort attributions in failure situations than the American children and Americans should have shown higher scores for ability attributions in successful situations. In fact, Korean children did show significantly higher ( p < .005) Failure Effort scores and American children showed significantly higher ( p < .005) Success Ability scores. Findings indicate that Korean children are potentially more willing to accept responsibility for social failure than American students. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A Cross-cultural Study of the Development of Artistic Talent,Creativity and Giftedness

In this study, examining the relationships among age, culture, training in the fine arts, the technical and aesthetic properties of drawings, and realized artistic giftedness, the researchers intermixed the juvenile drawings executed by critically acclaimed artists with artworks executed by contemporary North American and Chinese North American children. When judges from the North American culture and from the Chinese North American culture, blind to this mix, assessed the drawings, assessments made by the representatives of both cultures were more alike than they were different. Only the North American judges' assessments, however, suggest that the art students' life drawings were more technically and aesthetically successful, and more creative, on the average, than the non-art students' drawings. These judges also gave the juvenilia the highest scores in technical skill and the lowest scores in creativity independent of technical skill and aesthetic success. Conclusions and implications stress the role of technical skill in the development of artistic potential.     

Open-Skilled Sport,Sport Intensity,Executive Function,and Academic Achievement in Grade School Children

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: The present study examines connections among participation in open- and closed-skilled sports; the metabolic intensity of each sport; and executive function (EF), literacy, and math achievement in a sample of 3rd-grade children. Utilizing data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we categorized 15 youth sports (e.g., soccer, tennis, swimming, running track) as open or closed skilled and assigned them a metabolic intensity value. Results showed that the connection between sport intensity and EF was curvilinear, with a positive association between EF and sport intensity below 25 metabolic equivalents (METs) and a negative association with METs above 25. For math, results differed for the number of open-skilled sports and the intensity of a sport, with higher intensity associated with lower math scores and playing more open-skilled sports associated with higher math scores. Literacy skills were not significantly related to sport participation. Practice or Policy: The preschool years may offer a promising opportunity to encourage participation in both complex and intense physical activity. These findings highlight domain-specific connections among sports and EF and math achievement and offer insight into connections among sport intensity (METs), the type of sports children play, and cognitive development.     

Guided Reading: A Research-Based Response to the Challenges of Early Reading Instruction

The purpose of this article was to illuminate for early childhood teacher practitioners how guided reading, as a research-based approach to reading instruction, could address the challenges of early reading instruction. The early years are the focus for the prevention of reading difficulties and research conducted over the past two decades has produced extensive results demonstrating that children who get off to a poor start in reading rarely catch up (Lentz, 1988; Neuman & Dickinson, 2001; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Torgesen, 1998; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). One particular research-based strategy, guided reading, is an important “best practice” associated with today’s balanced literacy instruction. The National Reading Panel (2000) argued that balanced approaches are preferable when teaching children to read, based on their review of scientific research-based reading instructional practices used by teachers in classrooms across the country. Additionally, guided reading practices as part of a balanced literacy program conforms to the recommendations on literacy as suggested in position statements by the International Reading Association/The National Association for the Education of Young Children (1998), and the National Council of Teachers of English (2002).     

“Girls are not free”—In and out of the South African school

Interviews conducted with township girls in South Africa show enduring experiences of sexual violence both in and out of the school. Fear of boys and men were articulated in relation to boyfriends, male teachers, men in the township neighbourhood and men in the home. While the girls attempted to exercise agency in arresting their fears, these appeared to be too limited in the context of great structural and social inequalities and the pervasiveness of gender norms through which male sexual violence is asserted. The implication for increasing girls’ exercise of agency is raised as a human rights issue.     

“American = English Speaker” Before “American = White”: The Development of Children's Reasoning About Nationality

Adults implicitly judge people from certain social backgrounds as more “American” than others. This study tests the development of children's reasoning about nationality and social categories. Children across cultures (White and Korean American children in the United States, Korean children in South Korea) judged the nationality of individuals varying in race and language. Across cultures, 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 100) categorized English speakers as “American” and Korean speakers as “Korean” regardless of race, suggesting that young children prioritize language over race when thinking about nationality. Nine‐ and 10‐year‐olds (N = 181) attended to language and race and their nationality judgments varied across cultures. These results suggest that associations between nationality and social category membership emerge early in life and are shaped by cultural context.     

Cross-Cultural Analysis of Social Competence and Behavior Problems in Preschoolers

A multi-national study using the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Inventory (SCBE-30) was conducted to investigate preschool children's social and emotional development across cultures. A total of 4,640 children from eight participating countries, including Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States were evaluated by their preschool teachers. The main objective of the study was to validate the SCBE-30 in each country and build a cross-cultural data set for the investigation of universals, as well as cultural differences, in the development of preschool children's social competence and the frequency and type of their behavioral problems. Results provide a clear case for the structural equivalence of the SCBE-30 across all samples, for universals in the structure of early social behavior, and possibly some differences that may be attributed to culture. The pattern of gender differences found in North American samples was found to generalize across cultural contexts as preschool boys were universally reported to be significantly more aggressive and viewed as less socially competent than girls. Age differences were also found in all eight samples reflecting increasing competence in older children, however age trends in the prevalence of behavior problems were culture specific.     

“How do I remember when I got my dog?” The structure and development of children’s metamemory

Kreutzer et al.’s (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 40(1):1–60, 1975) metamemory interview has been widely used in children’s metamemory literature, yet the psychometric properties of the measure have yet to be reported, and the format and language of some subtests may pose problems for young children. Researchers often combine subtests with other tests purported to measure metamemory, yet there is little empirical data regarding how these subtests relate. It has been proposed that metamemory is comprised of distinct procedural and declarative components, but this has not been empirically tested in young children. Therefore, the two studies reported here aimed to adapt Kreutzer et al.’s interview to increase its developmental appropriateness, to examine the relationship between the interview subtests, to add subtests that purport to test procedural metamemory, and then to examine the factor structure of the resulting scores and investigate how metamemory changes with age across the elementary school years. The results suggest that the adapted versions of the subtests are generally less contaminated by language ability, especially for the younger children. Factor analysis indicated the presence of two declarative metamemory factors and one procedural metamemory factor. Both declarative factors followed a similar developmental trajectory, increasing steadily from early to late elementary school age, whereas procedural metamemory increased significantly between Grades 1 and 3 only.     

Using a Teacher Rating Scale of Language and Literacy Skills with Preschool Children of English-Speaking,Spanish-Speaking,and Bilingual Backgrounds

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between a teacher report measure, the Teacher Rating of Oral Language and Literacy (TROLL; Dickinson et al. in Teacher rating of oral language and literacy (TROLL): a research-based tool. Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2001) and a direct behavioral measure of language development, the Preschool Language Scale-4 (PLS-4; Zimmerman et al. in Preschool Language Scale-4. The Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, 2002), among English-speaking (n = 210), Spanish-speaking (n = 34), and English/Spanish bilingual (n = 109) typically-developing preschool children. Three hundred and fifty-three preschool children who attended early childhood education programs in an urban area of the Southwestern United States participated. Preschool teachers completed the TROLL, and the PLS-4 was individually administered to the children at preschool centers. The TROLL and PLS-4 were significantly correlated for English-speaking children, but with small effect sizes noted. For Spanish-speaking children, the TROLL and the expressive subscale of the PLS-4 were not significant, and for bilingual children the TROLL and PLS-4 were not significant. English-speaking children scored higher on the TROLL than the Spanish-speaking and bilingual children. Finally, a higher proportion of Spanish-speaking and bilingual children received a TROLL score at or below the 10th percentile. Results suggest that the TROLL did not adequately capture typically developing children’s linguistic and literacy development in a uniform manner across language groups. Caution is recommended when relying upon a single instrument to describe the emergent literacy and language skills of preschool children from Spanish-speaking and bilingual backgrounds.     

Phonemic and graphemic consistency: Effects on decoding for German and American children

Speed, accuracy, and types of errors in decoding lists of words and pseudo words and performance in two phonemic awareness tasks were assessed for German and American children in the first and second grades. German children were significantly better than American children only in pseudo word decoding measures across grades. Between group analyses showed that American children committed more vowel and word substitution errors in both decoding accuracy tasks than German children. Word substitution errors were more likely in word decoding than in pseudo word decoding for children in both languages. Within group analyses indicate that variance in decoding errors and speed accounted for by word substitution versus nonword and vowel versus consonant errors differed dependent on grade and whether real or pseudo words were read. Results suggest successful reading in English depends upon more complex grapheme to phoneme correspondence rules than does reading in German.