Social perspective taking: a benefit of bilingualism in academic writing

The task of writing arguments requires a linguistic and cognitive sophistication that eludes many adults, but students in the US are expected to produce texts that articulate and support a claim—simple written arguments—starting in the fourth grade. Students from language-minority homes likewise must learn to produce such writing, despite their relatively limited experience with the English language, reflected in the availability of smaller mental lexicons and more restricted syntactic constructions. Yet some features of bilingual children’s cognition, such as precocious development of theory of mind and strong metalinguistic awareness, might support the crafting of arguments in writing, where the explicit consideration of multiple points of view can serve to strengthen one’s case for a claim. In this study we examine the incidence of social perspective-taking acts in the argumentative essays of language-minority and English-only students in Grades 4–6 and find that language-minority students match or surpass the English-only students on two critical measures of perspective taking (perspective acknowledgment and perspective articulation). We also explore possible links between students’ use of perspective taking in their argumentative essays and a validated formal measure of the same skill, uncovering different relationships between them in the two language groups. Links to previously attested bilingual advantages and to the development of argumentation are discussed.     

Historical perspective taking: A standardized measure for an aspect of students' historical thinking

Researchers widely agree that learning history should involve more than learning historical facts and should include competencies of historical thinking. Various models of historical thinking view students' competency to take historical perspectives as a standard in history education. In this study we introduce a standardized measure for historical perspective taking (HPT) consisting of a short scenario set in the German Weimar Republic. We assessed students' HPT by using rating scales; our data were obtained in grammar schools from 170 German 10th graders. Latent class analyses identified three types of students with similar profiles of HPT. One was present-oriented and two showed more or less contextualized historical thinking. Students' history grades were connected to their HPT competency. We discuss limitations of the study and argue for further research on measures assessing students' historical thinking.     

Teaching social perspective taking: how educators might learn from the Army

Frequently and accurately discerning others’ thoughts and feelings is associated with multiple valued educational outcomes across an array of settings. Despite its foundational role in social interactions, it is unclear whether individuals can be taught to improve their social perspective taking capacities. This experiment assesses whether a curriculum taught to US Army personnel (N?=?116) improved their social perspective taking prior to deployment. Results showed that participants improved their social perspective taking in three ways: through more accurately detecting biases in others, by generating more initial hypotheses to explain others’ behaviours, and by adapting their hypotheses in the face of new evidence. The curriculum did not affect participants’ perspective taking accuracy on a video measure. We discuss these findings with respect to their implications for other learning environments.     

Egocentrism and automatic perspective taking in children and adults

Children (aged 6-10) and adults (total N = 136) completed a novel visual perspective-taking task that allowed quantitative comparisons across age groups. All age groups found it harder to judge the other person's perspective when it differed from their own. This egocentric interference did not decrease with age, even though, overall, performance improved. In addition, it was more difficult to judge one's own perspective when it differed from that of the other person, suggesting that the other's perspective was processed even though it interfered with self-perspective judgments. In a logically equivalent, nonsocial task, the same degree of interference was not observed. These findings are discussed in relation to recent findings suggesting precocious theory-of-mind abilities in infancy.     

Training self-other distinction facilitates perspective taking in young children

People sometimes commit ‘egocentric errors’, failing to ignore their own perspective when interpreting others' communication. Training imitation-inhibition, when participants perform the opposite action from another person, facilitates subsequent perspective-taking in adults. This study tested whether imitation-inhibition training also facilitates perspective-taking in 3- to 6-year-olds, an age where egocentric perspective may be particularly influential. Children participated in a 10-min imitation-inhibition, imitation, or non-social-inhibition training (white, n = 25 per condition, 33 female, period: 2018–2021), then the communicative-perspective-taking Director task. Training had a significant effect (F(2, 71) = 3.316, p = .042, η² = .085): on critical trials, the imitation-inhibition-group selected the correct object more often than the other groups. Imitation-inhibition training specifically enhanced the perspective-taking process possibly by highlighting the distinction between self and other.     

Increasing interest in social studies: Social perspective taking and self-efficacy in stimulating simulations

This study examined the potential of simulations to bolster interest in middle school social studies classrooms. Using a pre–post-design, we examined 305 middle school students (49% female) who participated in the web-based GlobalEd simulation. In contrast to the motivation declines middle school students usually experience, participants in this simulation became more interested in social studies. We investigated four hypotheses as to why these increases may have occurred. We found no support for the possibility that, (a) students’ interest in a particular issue area or (b) their increased valuing of the subject matter, were related to their increased interest. However, results suggested that, (c) the challenging nature of the activity and (d) students’ increased propensity to engage in social perspective taking may have bolstered their interest in social studies. The discussion explores future research directions and whether implications for classroom teachers are warranted given the correlational nature of the research.     

论教育的时间内涵——时间不可逆的教育意义

在简单性思维里,时间客观存在,反映在一定的因果联系中,没有方向,是可逆的;复杂性科学的兴起,指出时间具有方向性,是不可逆的。时间不可逆表明了“从存在到演化”的转变,说明发展有着多种可能性,指向了开放、可能、生成和创造。时间不可逆之于教育会引发一系列的思想变革:一是时间成为人的发展的结构性内涵;二是强调教育的生成性和非连续性;三是注重人的发展和教育过程中的遭遇、唤醒等。     

制定课程实验目标的方法论思考

课程实验目标的制定要受到教育目的，课程发展规律，学生身心发展特点，课程实验研究的水平，学校的性质，任务以及课程实验类型等多方面因素的制约，因此，制定课程实验目标是要注意处理好这几方面的关系。     

Our Public and Private Selves: Fostering dialogism and student perspective taking

This article considers a site of practice that fosters dialogic consciousness, which I suggest is necessary to teaching social justice and diversity of thought in all sites of practice, including schools. Consciousness of one's own perspective taking and the dialogism necessary to foster voice development are grounded in a growing awareness of our own multiple perspectives or understandings of the world and ourselves. This multiplicity is grounded in how we see the world and how we think the world sees us. Such multiplicity is dynamic in that what we know about ourselves and what we think others know about us are woven through a constant interaction of public and private selves. It is in this interaction that teachers can begin to explore voice and perspective taking with students. In this article, I present how teenagers in a community‐based theater ensemble used movement and writing to define their private and public selves, and conclude with possibilities for classroom practice.     

On the duty of not taking offence

Abstract:

In the context of the well‐known fact that the higher stages of Kohlberg's sequence are less well‐established than the lower, an exploratory investigation was carried out in a New Zealand teachers’ college into the development of principled thinking in young adults and its association with various real‐life experiences. It was found that there was no significant increase in principled thinking over time, and that there were no significant correlations between principled thinking and such experiences as marriage, living away from home; vacation work, and church activity.     

浅谈儿童英语中的词汇教学方法

儿童学语言,不管是母语还是外语,词汇都是最基本的单位,没有一定的词汇量,根本不能有效地传达意义。教师在教儿童英语的过程中,需要掌握多种实用的英语词汇教学方法。只有可操作性强并富有趣味性的教学方法才能帮助儿童在一定时间内掌握基本的词汇,为将来学习打下良好的基础。儿童所学词汇一般包括基本的名词、动词、形容词、介词、副词及非常简易的短句等,好的教学方法能够帮助儿童在快乐的体验中学会大量词汇。     

重审教学主客体——以方法论为视角

教学主客体问题的探讨长期达不成共识的主要原因在于研究者在方法论运用上存在偏差。应该紧紧把握住教学的实践本质,用实践的观点对教学主客体问题进行分析。“师生共同体”是教学活动的主体,“学生的素质结构及发展水平”是教学活动的客体。     

可持续发展评价的方法论之比较

可持续发展作为一项社会实践活动,必须接受方法论的指导。基于认识论的可持续发展评价仅仅把评价看成是一种纯粹的反映活动,而不是一种实践活动,这往往会限制可持续发展评价的研究视域。从实践本体论出发进行可持续发展评价,不仅避免了在认识论范围内研究评价的局限,而且还丰富了评价活动的现实意义,使可持续发展评价更具有合理性和全面性。     

教师的情绪:福柯式的视角

新自由主义(neoliberalism)强调借由自我治理和自我规训的主体建构,相应地,于教师而言,理智以及技术或技能被奉为对教学和职业发展至关重要的,而情绪则需要处于调节和控制之下。因此,教师的情绪日益被边缘化、工具化和能力化,这带来许多潜在的危害或困境。基于福柯的关怀自我(the care of theself)的伦理学,情绪作为教师自我转化的场域,在教师深入的自我反思中扮演着某种催化剂的角色,进而推促教师实践和发展伦理自我。     

从文化学角度试析“龙”何以有“禁忌”之意

“龙”在《汉语大字典》、《汉语大词典》中一共有22个义项，我们在出土的睡虎地秦简《日书》中发现，“龙”还有一种特别的用法，意为“禁忌”。龙具有这一用法的原因，一方面是因为龙是神圣的，人们崇拜龙，从而产生禁忌心理；另一方面是因为“龙”的原型是蛇，人们对蛇的惧怕在龙身上延续着，因而产生禁忌心理。     

试析个人品德建设的方法论问题

个人品德建设的方法论即作为认识和完善公民品德、实现特定道德价值目标的普遍性方法,主要包括认识方法论和实践方法论.前者是对我国现阶段公民品德的总体状况的认识、评判和理论反思.后者就是将公民品德建设的方法论知识与个人的生活实践相结合,转化为具体的手段、技巧和途径,发挥方法论所特有的调节、引导和控制功能的过程.作为一种特殊的价值评判活动和人文创造实践,它需要从相关知识中剥离出创新所必需的材料,同时也离不开对公民品德实践和认识进步之特殊规律的把握.其创新过程主要有完善和发展已有方法以及提出新方法等.     

On the Prerequisites of Moral Education: a Wittgensteinean perspective

In this paper I distinguish between education and its prerequisites and try to defend the ontological and epistemological priority of the latter. This distinction parallels Wittgenstein's distinctions between knowledge and its river-bed, justification and its grounds, explaining and showing, learning and acquisition. With respect to moral thinking and education, I argue that the fundamental moral principles occupy a position akin to that of the river-bed propositions; that these principles are embedded in ordinary human activities and forms of life and, therefore, ought to be taught by example and by practice and not by abstract moral thinking or contrived moral dilemmas, as some rationalist moral theorists sugges‡