Dutch children and their ‘God’: the development of the ‘God’ concept among indigenous and immigrant children in the Netherlands

In the 1980s and 1990s in the Netherlands, as a reaction to the growing number of non‐Christian pupils at Christian schools, religious education and religious development became issues for debate. At some schools, it was the exclusiveness of the Christian tradition that dominated, and at others it was the inclusiveness. Another group specialised in inter‐religious dialogue. Our research studied the religious development of pupils from two primary schools. One is the first and only inter‐religious primary school in the Netherlands, the Juliana van Stolberg primary school. The other is a Christian school, the Prinses Margriet primary school that educates pupils exclusively in the Christian tradition. The research questions focussed on the development of the ‘God’ concept of children confronted with stories from different religious traditions. The ‘God’ concept is seen in our research as a concept that develops in an inductive way from the data. This way of conceptualising ‘development’ is coined as the prospective perspective on development. The results of this comparative research led to the tentative conclusion that pupils in our research population who were involved in inter‐religious learning, demonstrate explorative behaviour concerning their own religion and that of others. Their ‘God’ concept shows hybrid characteristics. These pupils are rooted in their own tradition, and at the same time they are ‘on the move’. This offers points of departure for the development of citizens articulating their commitments and turning imminent conflicts into inter‐religious encounters.     

Race,rurality and representation: Black and minority ethnic mothers’ experiences of their children’s education in rural primary schools in England,UK

There is little research that has examined the role of mothers in their children's education in the rural space of the school, particularly in relation to the experiences of Black and minority ethnic (BME) families who are newcomers to the rural space. This article attempts to redress the balance and examine how BME mothers are positioned in rural primary schools in England (UK) which are predominantly White. This article is based on 20 in-depth interviews conducted with mothers who identified themselves as Black or from a minority ethnic background (India, Pakistan or Bangladesh). All of the respondents had moved into the areas in the last 10 years. The findings from this research suggest that mothers are active agents in the education of their children; however, their experiences reveal that within the White space of the school they are positioned as ‘other’ and ‘outsiders’ as they navigate the diasporic space of the White countryside.     

‘Drawing and playing are not the same’: children’s views on their activities in Icelandic preschools

Play is an important part of early childhood education and has been defined from different perspectives and paradigms. However, definitions of play have been studied more from adults’ perspectives than from those of children themselves. This ethnographic research, with children aged three to five years and built on sociological constructs, will explore children’s views on play in two preschool settings in Iceland. Video-stimulated recordings were used to support children’s conversations about their different activities in the settings, to explore which activities they considered play. Most of the children said that they were playing when they took on roles and could decide what to do with the material. When the children were preparing the play or were drawing, they usually said they were not playing. These findings add to the understanding of play from children’s perspectives and are valuable to the research field and for educators working with young children.     

Parental role in shaping immigrant children’s subject choices and career pathway decisions in Australia

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This study draws upon Vygotskian mediation and internalisation constructs to investigate how parental beliefs, values, expectations...     

Rethinking silence in the classroom: Chinese students’ experiences of sharing indigenous knowledge

Recent research has documented silence/reticence among East‐Asian international students, including Chinese students, in Western/English classrooms. Students’ communication competence and cultural differences from the mainstream Euro‐American society have been identified as two primary barriers to participation. Placing emphasis on individual characteristics of Chinese students, however, without considering aspects of the educational context with which those characteristics interact, may over‐simplify and distort the mechanism underlying their silence in the classroom. Based on a qualitative study of Chinese students’ experience of sharing indigenous knowledge in classroom settings of Canadian academic institutions, it is argued that the pursuit of diversity in the classroom may be compromised by classroom interactions, through which, for instance, the dynamics and quality of the knowledge exchange of students from different socio‐cultural backgrounds may be adversely affected. Within this conceptual framework, the concepts ‘silence’, ‘culture difference’ and ‘indigenous knowledge’ are re‐examined; the concepts ‘reciprocal cultural familiarity’ and ‘inclusive knowledge sharing’ are advocated.

… [W]hen I did participate, mostly because I was required to. … Students took turns to present something and that is your topic. You have to say something but even then I didn’t feel that good because it seems … they didn’t feel that interested, … like they couldn’t follow my ideas, follow my perspective. And so it seems difficult to communicate. I think that is not just because of the language, it seems we see the same thing in different ways.

(Chinese student in this study)     

Parents’ beliefs about young children’s play and nature experiences in Danish and US contexts

Two studies were conducted in the US and Denmark to examine parents’ beliefs about the importance of play and nature experiences for early childhood development. Thirty parents in the US and 19 parents in Denmark completed semi-structured interviews with quantitative and qualitative elements. Although families in both contexts highly valued outdoor and nature experiences, parents in the Danish context provided a stronger rationale for taking children outdoors regardless of environmental conditions and affording them opportunities to explore freely and take risks. Parents in the US focused mainly on individual developmental benefits of play, whereas parents in Denmark also acknowledged the importance of spending time in nature for society and the environment. The findings provide evidence that sociocultural values and expectations influence parental beliefs and practices regarding outdoor and nature play, and have implications for young children’s play opportunities within and across cultural contexts.     

An ecological exploration of young children’s digital play: framing children’s social experiences with technologies in early childhood

Abstract

This article outlines an ecological framework for describing children’s social experiences during digital play. It presents evidence from a study that explored how 3- to 5-year-old children negotiated their social experiences as they used technologies in preschool. Utilising a systematic and iterative cycle of data collection and analysis, children’s interactions with 24 technological resources were examined over a nine-month period and across three phases. Findings reveal that children played in clusters, exhibiting a multitude of social behaviours and interactions and varied degrees of social participation, and assumed various social status roles and technological positions. These behaviours formed part of a Digital Play System, which in turn was influenced by the Preschool System, which comprises children and practitioners as active agents, technological affordances, and the cultural systems, routines and practices of the early childhood setting. Ultimately, children’s social experiences during digital play cannot be determined by any single element of the ecological system.     

It’s special and it’s specific: understanding the early childhood education experiences and expectations of young Indigenous Australian children and their parents

Whilst early childhood education is regarded as important for young Indigenous Australians and it has been a feature of policy since the 1960s, it does not receive the same attention as compulsory schooling for Indigenous Australian students. A serious lack of large-scale research contributes to the devaluing of early childhood education for young Indigenous Australians by some stakeholders such as governments, academics and research, but not for the main stakeholders, namely young Indigenous Australian children and their parents. This paper aims to address this by drawing on large-scale qualitative and quantitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. First, it will analyse data pertaining to the experiences of Indigenous Australian children to uncover what they believe to be special about their early childhood education. Second, it will analyse data pertaining to the specific choices made by their parents regarding their early childhood education. The paper concludes by discussing the role of research in strengthening areas within Indigenous Australian early childhood education and identifying areas where it is valued to the same level as compulsory schooling.     

The institutional shaping of children’s educational experiences in secure custody: A case study of a secure children’s home in England

Secure Children’s Homes accommodate some of the most vulnerable children in society and yet they have evaded sustained academic attention. Consequently, little is known about children’s education in this type of setting. Through the lens of institutional ethnography, this paper explores how experiences of education inside one Secure Children’s Home in England are shaped by the institution. This approach makes visible that while the small-scale of the setting is of value, the mix of children accommodated for qualitatively different reasons is problematic for both the delivery of education and the children’s engagement in learning.     

Tiering in the GCSE: A children’s rights perspective

This article presents findings on students’ views and experiences of tiering in Northern Ireland and Wales from a children’s rights perspective. It considers the extent to which tiering fulfils the rights to education, best interests, non-discrimination, and participation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It emphasises that while the majority of students were supportive of tiering, their responses highlighted a range of negative effects of tiering on students taking foundation tier. Students described the impact of being placed in the foundation tier on their self-esteem and relationship with their peers, indicating that being allocated to foundation tier can have a labelling effect. Students who were taking foundation papers, or a mixture of foundation and higher-tier papers, were more likely than those taking higher-tier papers to report that they wanted to change tier and to raise issues overall regarding tiering. Furthermore, students who were faced with these difficult choices often had a poor understanding of several aspects of tiers. The article argues that alternative forms of differentiation should be considered, and presents students’ perspectives on some of these. It argues that we must ensure that young people have a good understanding of tiering and that their views and experiences of tiering are taken into account when considering further reforms to GCSEs.     

Showing puberty: overcoming the taboo in children’s television

This article examines how non-fiction children’s television programmes portray bodily changes and sexuality at puberty. Engaging with the body and the sexuality of children in the broadcast media raises cultural and social challenges. Public concern about social morality and the ‘sexualisation of children’, sexual objectification and pornography, together with the construction of childhood as a naïve pre-sexual stage of life, have silenced children’s television when it comes to the subject of children’s sexuality. However, a few programmes have offered an alternative to this taboo. Based on a study of 30 non-fiction programmes submitted between 1964 and 2016 to Prix Jeunesse international festival for children’s media, this paper describes and analyses how these programmes present unique, thought-provoking and innovative ways of engaging with the culturally controversial issue of the body and sexuality on children’s television.     

New immigrant parents’ experiences in a parent education programme

The immigrant population in Hong Kong is steadily increasing every year. This immigrant population largely comprises families, most of whom have pre-school and school-age children. However, limited information is known on the practices that immigrant parents adopt when they become involved in their children’s schooling. In the present study, the researcher implemented a Quality Education Fund project called ‘Building a caring community: Family support and empowerment.’ The project aimed to promote parent education and to build a caring community by implementing a group parent education program (GPEP) for low-income and new immigrant parents. The parent leaders conducted an outreach parent education program in which the low-income, new immigrant parents (target parents) had their children enrolled in two kindergartens. The parent leaders imparted parenting knowledge, shared positive parenting strategies, and exchanged their own experiences with target parents. The present research aims to study how new immigrant parents evaluate their experiences and the effectiveness of the GPEP. Results suggest that providing opportunities for mutual support and emotional healing correlates with improved parenting attitudes and practices.     

Measuring children and young people’s wellbeing in the school context

Although being rooted in the work of ancient Greek philosophers, contemporary research on wellbeing is a relatively new phenomenon. As a term in the literature, wellbeing is often used interchangeably with others, such as happiness, flourishing, enjoying a good life and life satisfaction. Furthermore, the wellbeing of school-aged children is only beginning to be explored with increasing recognition that research conducted on adults cannot be uncritically applied to children and young people. This paper aims to address some of the complexities in conceptualising, and hence assessing, children and young people’s wellbeing by drawing on a recently completed study examining the role of creative initiatives in fostering wellbeing. The new instrument that was developed to capture children and young people’s perceptions of their wellbeing in school is outlined. Data are presented from a survey of 5170 students from 20 primary and 20 secondary schools across England that identify four dimensions of wellbeing. Differences in self-reported wellbeing relating to age, gender and type of school attended (Creative Partnerships versus other schools) are explored. The implications of these findings, particularly differences related to type of school attended, given the focus of this special issue, are considered.     

Erratum to: Maternal parenting styles,homework help,and children’s literacy development in language minority and Finnish-speaking families

The aim of this study was to examine the role of mothers’ (language minority mothers, LM, n = 49, and Finnish-speaking mothers, MP, n = 368) parenting styles and maternal help with their children’s homework in the children’s (mean age 11.43 years) literacy skills at fourth grade in Finland. In addition, the moderating effect of a child’s gender on this relationship was investigated. The results showed that the LM mothers used psychological control more than MP mothers. Furthermore, the more LM mothers used warmth and psychological styles of parenting, the more they helped their daughters, not sons, with homework. MP mothers’ parenting styles did not relate to their children’s reading and spelling skills. LM maternal behavioral control parenting styles were positively related, and psychological control was negatively related to children’s reading skills through help with homework. Maternal help negatively related to children’s reading skills in both groups. This research provides also new information to teachers and educators who work in multicultural teams. Because our findings could be applied in the educational settings of multilingual students, they are likely to be of great interest to the visionary scientists, researchers, teachers, and trainees.

     

Nation building and war narratives for children: war and militarism in Hebrew 1940s and 1950s children’s literature

This paper examines militarisation in child culture in Israel’s transition from a pre-state society engaged in the nation-building process to statehood. The paper studies children’s culture and the literary corpus for children created in the 1940s and 1950s in Jewish Palestine, before and after Israel’s establishment. It investigates the main stages in the rapid development of the militaristic narrative for children – from the beginning of World War II in 1939, through the War of Independence in 1948, and during the first decade of statehood. By examining the nature of the national-military children’s story, I demonstrate the extent to which militarisation in Israeli children’s culture was dictated from above. I also argue that society’s rapid change following the founding of the Israeli state in 1948 brought about a dramatic shift in the attitude of state institutions, and especially the education system, towards the militaristic narrative addressed towards children that was vigorously promoted prior to 1948.     

Language difference and identity in multicultural classrooms: the views of ‘immigrant‐background’ children in French and English primary schools

This article examines the views of ‘immigrant‐background’ children on their own linguistic and cultural ‘differences’ within the different educational contexts of primary classrooms in France and England. With the increase in and changing composition of immigration in Europe, the integration of populations from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds has become a central issue for European societies. Whilst most studies in France and England tend to focus on immigrant children in secondary schools, this study looks at immigrant children at primary level, in an attempt to ‘hear their voices’ and explore their perceptions and experiences, in a comparative perspective. Findings based on focus group interviews and participant observation in an English and French classroom, suggest that despite contrasting models of integration, the way ‘immigrant‐background’ children mediate ‘difference’ as part of their identities as pupils present similarities between the two countries. There remain, however, strong differences between the two national classrooms, which could be attributed to the different contexts and approaches to multicultural differences in France and England.     

Taking and teaching the test are not the same: a case study of first-year teachers’ experiences in high-stakes contexts

Background: Policymakers’ use of high-stakes exams to improve students’ academic achievement affects teachers and their tenure in the field at all levels of schooling. Novice teachers now being inducted into the field have been educated almost exclusively in these high-stakes learning environments. Yet, how their familiarity with these contexts combined with their experiences in their own classrooms affect novices’ induction into the field of teaching has not been fully examined. Aim: This article presents findings from an investigation into the experiences of two first-year teachers who were educated and trained to be teachers in the same high-stakes education system in which they taught. It examines how these first-year teachers viewed policymakers’ reforms affecting their teaching and tenure in the field. Methods: This qualitative case study centers on the experiences of two first-year teachers working in the same high-stakes standards-based accountability teaching context in which they were educated – the case. This study provides insight into the issue of how novices’ familiarity with high-stakes reform combined with their experiences in their own classrooms impacts their conceptions of their teaching and their tenure in the field. Outcomes: The findings from this case study reveal how policymakers’ high-stakes reforms impacted the development of these novice teachers in significant ways. Not only did they have to learn how to teach as they taught, but they also had to ensure they were teaching all of their students to pass the high-stakes exams. Their varied experiences also demonstrate how these high-stakes exams can ‘test’ beginning teachers out of the classroom. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that first-year teachers’ familiarity with policymakers’ high-stakes reforms is not enough to prepare them for the expectation that they immediately improve students’ academic achievement on high-stakes exams. Such findings not only challenge what it means to be a educator in these contexts, but they also shed light on how larger political and economic forces impact the teaching and tenure of novices. To support new teachers, teacher educators and mentors should rethink the education and induction processes while helping novices understand as well as prepare for the role context plays in their teaching and development as professionals.     

Satisfaction with adult children’s achievements is associated with depression and loneliness in later-life: the mediating roles of children’s support and gratitude

We examined the mediating roles of gratitude and children support in the relationship between satisfaction with adult children’s achievements, and depression/loneliness in a sample of 465 community elders of Ekiti State, Nigeria. The sample includes 294 women and 171 men with mean age 74.18 (SD = 9.42) selected by means of multistage sampling method. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results suggested that satisfaction with adult children’s achievements was negatively associated with depression and loneliness. However, these relationships were found to be successively mediated by children’s support and gratitude. Specifically, gratitude fully mediated the relationship between satisfaction with adult children’s achievements and loneliness while children’s support was a partial mediator. Also, gratitude partially mediated the relationship between satisfaction with adult children’s achievements and depression while children’s support did not. The fit indices for the mediation model achieved the acceptable cuff-off for model fitness, CFI = .95, RMSEA = .042, 90% CI = (.033, .05, SRMR = .05, with 46% and 28% variance in depression and loneliness, respectively. In the management of geriatric depression and loneliness, mental health professionals may assess satisfaction with adult children’s achievements and utilize gratitude interventions for a happy and successful aging.