Profiles of social competence among low-income African American preschool children

Relations between children's personal attributes and peer play competence were investigated in a sample of 141 African American preschool children who participated in Head Start. Variable-oriented analyses confirmed that dispositions of temperament, emotion regulation, autonomy, and language were related to children's peer play competence in the classroom. Person-oriented analyses revealed distinctive profiles of personal attributes linked to adaptive preschool social functioning. A small group of resilient children whose profile was characterized by highly adaptable temperament, ability to approach new situations, and above average vocabulary development evidenced the greatest social competence with peers. Children who were disruptive with peers were equally divided between two profiles characterized by inattention and activity, but with differential performance on vocabulary tasks. A profile containing calm, reticent children was the group least likely to engage in disruptive peer play. Inspection of the six profiles revealed the within-group variability for this economically disadvantaged sample and illustrated the differential importance of temperament, regulation, and language constructs. Findings from the profile analyses and relations with peer competence inform the study of resilience in social development for urban African American children who participate in early intervention preschool programs.     

Assessing the play beliefs of African American mothers with preschool children

A rating scale measuring parent beliefs about play was developed and validated with a sample of 224 African American mothers of children attending Head Start. Principal components analyses of the Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) revealed two factors, Play Support and Academic Focus, which capture parent attitudes regarding the developmental significance of play. Maternal ratings of Play Support correlated positively with ratings of children's interactive peer play and were positively associated with parent education. Maternal ratings of Academic Focus were negatively correlated with prosocial peer play ratings and positively correlated with ratings of disruptive and disconnected play in children. Findings support the psychometric utility of the new measure. Future directions involving parent play beliefs in conceptual models of children's social competence during early childhood are discussed.     

教育借鉴的成功实践：从美国教育到日本教育

教育借鉴自古有之，凡教育发达国家又都十分重视教育借鉴，美国和日本便是恰当例子。美国的教育借鉴分为三个重要时期，借鉴的模式从几乎全盘照搬到有鉴别的自觉学习，从而成为美国教育发达的重要因素；日本的教育借鉴主要有两次高潮，为了加快本国教育发展的步伐，积极学习别国先进的教育经验。蔓、日两国的教育借鉴有一定的可比性，且对世界各国的教育借鉴产生了重大影响。     

Educational productivity and differential socialization

This monograph summarizes parallel studies conducted in five countries: the Republic of China, Japan, Greece, Thailand, and the United States. The main focus of the five studies was to determine the causal linkages among socio-economic status (SES) variables, family processes, and school variables on mathematics achievement. This chapter contains information about the two theoretical frameworks used for these studies.     

Identifying and promoting social competence with African American preschool children: Developmental and contextual considerations

School psychologists and teachers are frequently asked to assess the level of social competence of preschool children as one indicator of their academic readiness. However, many assessment instruments available to psychologists working in early childhood settings fail to consider important contexts where children acquire social competencies. This study presents a comprehensive picture of multiple constructs that play a role in understanding African American preschool children's social competence. Domains of temperament, language, self‐regulation, and peer play were assessed within a classroom context for a sample of 139 low‐income African American children attending Head Start. Findings support the importance of considering both children's developmental stage and their gender when evaluating aspects of social competence, particularly temperament and interactive peer play abilities. As a group, younger boys experienced the greatest difficulties with initiating and sustaining play activities with classmates. Language abilities and self‐regulation were significantly greater among older preschool children. Implications for school psychologists conducting preschool assessment, intervention, and outreach to parents and teachers within early childhood settings are discussed. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Caregiver and peer responses to children with language and motor disabilities in inclusive preschool programs

The free-play social behaviors of 24 children with special needs in two discovery-oriented, inclusive preschool programs were compared with their typically-developing classmates who were matched by age and sex. Children who, for various reasons, used little or no productive language spent more time in solitary pursuits, seldom initiated interactions and, when they did, used a different entry strategy than any other group. Children who were incapable of independent locomotion were largely dependent on adults for initiating changes in their activities and for social exchanges. Although they received more adult support than children developing typically, perhaps because of limited sample size, children with disabilities who were capable of independent locomotion and displayed sufficient language to make their needs and intents clear did not differ significantly from the children who were developing typically. Adults’ behavior varied according to child condition and activity. From observing a single, 20-minute videotape of free play, naı̈ve observers agreed with our classifications of over 78% of the children.     

Cognitive performance and academic achievement of Japanese, Chinese, and American children

Chinese, Japanese, and American children at grades 1 and 5 were given a battery of 10 cognitive tasks and tests of achievement in reading and mathematics. Samples consisted of 240 children in each grade in each culture. 2 major purposes of the study were to determine possible differences in cognitive abilities of Japanese, Chinese, and American children and to investigate the possible differential relation of scores on cognitive tasks to reading by children of the 3 cultures. Similarity was found among children of the 3 cultures in level, variability, and structure of cognitive abilities. Chinese children surpassed Japanese and American children in reading scores; both Chinese and Japanese children obtained higher scores in mathematics than the American children. Prediction of achievement scores from the cognitive tasks showed few differential effects among children of the 3 cultures. The results suggest that the high achievement of Chinese and Japanese children cannot be attributed to higher intellectual abilities, but must be related to their experiences at home and at school.     

Effects of televised modeling and active participation on rule-governed question production among native American preschool children

Preschool native-American children were randomly assigned to observation of TV modeling only, observation of TV modeling plus active participation, and control conditions to determine if providing an opportunity to perform behaviors displayed by televised models is more effective than observational learning alone in inducing preschool children's rule-governed production of causal questions. Performance of both experimental groups was significantly superior to controls at posttesting, but only the TV plus active participation group surpassed controls at retention testing. The TV modeling plus participation group asked significantly more causal questions than the TV modeling only group on posttest and retention trials. Implications are discussed for social learning theory and research for instructional programming for minority group children who are faced with the requirements of two cultures.     

Contexts of achievement: a study of American, Chinese, and Japanese children

The major purpose of this study was to attempt to understand some of the reasons for the high academic achievement of Chinese and Japanese children compared to American children. The study was conducted with first and fifth graders attending elementary schools in the Minneapolis metropolitan area, Taipei (Taiwan), and Sendai (Japan). 1,440 children (240 first graders and 240 fifth graders in each city) were selected as target subjects in the study. The children were selected from 20 classrooms at each grade in each city and constituted a representative sample of children from these classrooms. In a follow-up study, first graders were studied again when they were in the fifth grade. The children were tested with achievement tests in reading and mathematics constructed specifically for this study, the children and their mothers were interviewed, the children's teachers filled out a questionnaire, and interviews were held with the principals of the schools attended by the children. In the follow-up study, achievement tests were administered, and the children and their mothers were interviewed. Background information about the children's everyday lives revealed much greater attention to academic activities among Chinese and Japanese than among American children. Members of the three cultures differed significantly in terms of parents' interest in their child's academic achievement, involvement of the family in the child's education, standards and expectations of parents concerning their child's academic achievement, and parents' and children's beliefs about the relative influence of effort and ability on academic achievement. Whereas children's academic achievement did not appear to be a central concern of American mothers, Chinese and Japanese mothers viewed this as their child's most important pursuit. Once the child entered elementary school, Chinese and Japanese families mobilized themselves to assist the child and to provide an environment conducive to achievement. American mothers appeared to be less interested in their child's academic achievement than in the child's general cognitive development; they attempted to provide experiences that fostered cognitive growth rather than academic excellence. Chinese and Japanese mothers held higher standards for their children's achievement than American mothers and gave more realistic evaluations of their child's academic, cognitive, and personality characteristics. American mothers overestimated their child's abilities and expressed greater satisfaction with their child's accomplishments than the Chinese and Japanese mothers. In describing bases of children's academic achievement, Chinese and Japanese mothers stressed the importance of hard work to a greater degree than American mothers, and American mothers gave greater emphasis to innate ability than did Chinese and Japanese mothers.     

Relations between colorblind socialization and children's racial bias: evidence from European American mothers and their preschool children

To examine European American parents’ racial socialization, mothers (n = 84) were videotaped while reading 2 race‐themed books to their 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children and completed surveys concerning their racial attitudes and behaviors. Children completed measures of their racial attitudes and both groups (mothers and preschoolers) predicted the others’ racial attitudes. Results indicated that nearly all mothers adopted “colormute” and “colorblind” approaches to socialization. Furthermore, neither children nor mothers accurately predicted the others’ views. Children’s racial attitudes were unrelated to their mothers’ attitudes but were predicted by their mothers’ cross‐race friendships; those children whose mothers had a higher percentage of non‐European American friends showed lower levels of racial biases than those children whose mothers had a lower percentage of non‐European American friends.     

教育考责制与美国政府教育责任的强化

随着2001年《不让一个孩子掉队》法案的实施,教育考责制在美国再度引起全社会的广泛关注.对教育质量绩效及其责任的重视,显示出美国社会全员的强烈教育主体行动意识和力量.法律赋权和社会考责相辅相成,在认可和强化美国各级政府和学校的教育法律地位和作用、丰富和扩张其教育行政干预权力的同时,也更好地规范和强化了美国各级政府及学校的教育行政责任,促使美国各级政府和学校自律自奋、尽职尽责地使用法赋教育权力,合理配置公共教育资源,努力提升教育品质,扎实地创造并彰显保障公民教育权利、推进教育机会均等的绩效.     

Choice and goal-directed behavior in preschool children

Preschool children (3–4 years old) were trained to perform two actions to gain different outcomes, in the form of video clips from different cartoons, before one of these outcomes was devalued by noncontingent exposure. The effect of outcome devaluation was subsequently assessed in an extinction test by giving children the opportunity to perform both actions in the absence of any outcomes. When the two actions were trained concurrently, performance during the test was modulated by outcome value and children showed a preference for the action trained with the currently valued outcome. By contrast, when each action was trained separately on different trials, test performance was insensitive to outcome devaluation. These effects of the training schedules are interpreted in terms of dual-process theories of action control.     

Reward and ideational fluency in preschool children

This study examined the effects of rewards on the ideational fluency of 75 preschool children. Assigned to a reward or nonreward condition, the children were administered two ideational fluency tasks, Unusual Uses and Pattern Meanings. Analyses revealed a significant main effect for reward on the ideational fluency components of originality, total fluency, and flexibility. In all cases the rewarded subjects scored lower than the nonrewarded group. These findings support the growing body of evidence that rewards are detrimental to creative functioning.     

美国教育改革中的利益集团

利益集团是影响美国教育改革的重要力量,他们通过制定教育行业标准、游说、示威或暴力抗议、政治捐款等方式表达各种不同的意愿,左右教育决策,影响教育改革.利益集团是美国政治体制的产物,也与美国人长期以来形成的集团意识有关.利益集团的作用虽然不可低估,但是也存在其局限性.     

Educational investment and economic productivity: Evidence from Malawi

Tracer study data on the destination and earnings of a sample of nearly 1000 secondary school graduates are used to estimate the returns 10 investment in the Malawi Certificate of Education. Even when adjustment is made for the possibility of unemployment among graduates, the social rate of return is estimated 10 be in the order of 20% and the private rate 50%. These results are used to explain the strong private demand for entry into secondary education and to support the case for further expansion of such schools in Malawi.     

对学前儿童音乐教育的思考

在人们的一生之中,音乐是一门不可或缺的教育。音乐可以陶冶人们的情操,对人们的心情产生影响,同时还可以通过音乐进行情感的交流。音乐教育是幼儿教育中的一个重要组成部分,其能促进幼儿健康成长与发展。本篇论文主要介绍了学前儿童音乐教育的特点,学前儿童音乐教育的作用,以及该如何开展学前儿童音乐教育,以期实现学前儿童音乐教育的正常发展,并在儿童的成长与发展中发挥重要作用,让孩子们健康快乐的成长。