The pirate in the pump: children's views of objects as imaginary friends at the start of school

The main aim of this paper is to use a phenomenological approach (Merleau-Ponty, 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; Merleau-Ponty. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes. Evanston: Northern University Press) to contribute a new theoretical understanding of what imaginary friends mean for children in the context of starting school. The paper addresses the specific area of ‘object-friends’ and draws on examples from an empirical and consultative study of a small sample of five and six-year-old children’s everyday experiences of friendship in school. The paper argues that if practitioners consider embodiment approaches and listen attentively to the knowledge and information that children share about their imaginary friends, this could be used to nurture children’s early learning.     

Critiquing the school community: a qualitative study of children's conceptualizations of their school 1

Schools are traditionally seen as responsible for the educational outcomes of our children. However, schools also play an important role in the development of aspects such as self‐efficacy, participation, competence and self‐determination. As schools are often run as societies rather than communities, they offer little opportunity for these attributes (self‐efficacy, participation, competence and self‐determination) to develop. Forty‐six children aged from nine to 12 years were interviewed to ascertain their conceptualizations of the school community. The children define their school in terms of people, places for activities and interaction, a place for safety, cooperation, influence and functionality. The responses closely align to the adult conceptualizations of sense of community as purported by McMillan and Chavis (1986 McMillan, D.W. and Chavis, D.M. 1986. Sense of community: a definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14: 6–23. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Implications of this research suggest that children can and should have an integral role in designing a curriculum and systems relevant to the school context if we are at all concerned with their psychological wellness.     

Developing children's language learner strategies at primary school

This article discusses the strategy repertoires and strategy development of six English children who learned foreign languages at primary school. My study differs from mainstream research, in that it focuses on young children and on the development of their strategies, draws on sociocultural theory and uses ethnographic methods. My findings show that the six children developed a range of strategies over the course of a calendar year in spite of receiving no direct strategy instruction. The primary classroom encouraged learner autonomy and stimulated children to reflect on their learning which, in turn, enabled them to refine their strategies.     

Safety and security at school: A pedagogical perspective

Education law and policy currently focus on broader physical aspects of safety and security at schools, as well as, for example, on pedagogical insecurity such as is caused by discriminatory teaching, but law and policy have yet to pay attention to the overall and far-reaching pedagogical safety and security of learners.     

Exploring patterns of Latino/a children's school readiness at kindergarten entry and their relations with Grade 2 achievement

This study contributed to the school readiness literature by taking an intrachild perspective that examined the relations between Latino/a children's school readiness profiles and later academic achievement. Teachers rated the school readiness of 781 Latino/a kindergartners during the first month of school using the Kindergarten Student Entrance Profile (KSEP). Latent class analysis (LCA) examined KSEP profiles across social-emotional, physical, and cognitive domains and identified five distinct school readiness classes that described students’ strengths and weaknesses at kindergarten entry. Among the predictors examined, gender was the only significant difference among the top two readiness classes, with girls less likely to be in the lower of these two classes (OR = 0.38). In addition, children in the bottom three readiness classes were significantly less likely than students in the top readiness class to have preschool experience (ORs = 0.02–0.19) and had significantly lower levels of English proficiency (ORs = 0.51–0.72). Class membership was significantly associated with scores on the Grade 2 California Standards Tests and only the top two readiness classes had reading fluency rates near or above a national benchmark at the end of Grade 2. The variation of early achievement found across readiness classes also showed that considering the pattern of a child's social-emotional and cognitive readiness might enhance school readiness assessment. Implications for integrating universal school readiness screeners within a comprehensive multigating assessment model are also discussed.     

幼儿教育的几个误区

实施素质教育是一项伟大的系统工程，素质教育要从幼儿开始也已逐渐成为人们的共识。但从素质教育的角度审视现在的幼儿教育，便会发现诸多误区。本不拟对幼儿教育的现状进行全面分析，仅就三个比较普遍而又常易为人们忽视的方面作一些具体的探讨。     

Family and social risk,and parental investments during the early childhood years as predictors of low-income children's school readiness outcomes

Using data from the National Early Head Start (EHS) Research and Evaluation Project (N = 1851), the current study examined relations among cumulative family and social risk, assessed during infancy and the preschool years, and children's prekindergarten achievement, self-regulatory skills, and problematic social behavior, testing if these associations were mediated through two sets of family processes–responsive parenting practices and the provision of language stimulation and literacy practices. Structural equation modeling results highlight the significance of the timing of children's experience of risk in predicting school readiness competencies. Risk exposure during infancy was observed to be most detrimental for children's school readiness skills and was partially mediated by risk exposure during the preschool years and family processes, assessed during toddlerhood and the preschool years. Moderation analyses revealed no difference in the strength of relationships among the study variables by EHS assignment or by race/ethnicity.     

Perceptions of Inequality: primary school children's discourse on social class

This paper is concerned with the role of education in promoting social justice. It deals specifically with the development of children's understanding of social class, not because this particular form of inequality is considered more important than any other, but because of the inadequacies of extant research. It is argued that unless we know how children think about social class differentiation, we will not be able to engage effectively with their misconceptions. One hundred and sixty‐one children drawn from across the social class spectrum and aged between 6 and 11 were asked various questions and presented with a number of moral dilemmas pertaining to social class inequality. Age‐related trends in their responses are identified and the policy implications discussed.     

Understanding children's reading activities: Reading motivation,skill and child characteristics as predictors

This study examined the extent to which a range of child characteristics (sex, age, socioeconomic status, reading skill and intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation) predicted engagement (i.e., time spent) in different reading activities (fiction books, factual books, school textbooks, comics, magazines and digital texts). In total, 791 children (aged 8–11 years) participated. There was considerable variation in the factors predicting engagement in different reading activities. Although intrinsic reading motivation was a good predictor of recreational book reading, age was a stronger predictor of engagement with digital texts. Furthermore, specific dimensions of motivation predicted engagement in different reading activities; being motivated to read challenging texts predicted recreational book reading, whereas being motivated to achieve good grades predicted schoolbook reading. On the other hand, social reasons predicted engagement with magazines and comics. Implications for education and the relationship between child characteristics and choice of reading activities are discussed.     

At their children's expense: How parents' gender stereotypes affect their children's reading outcomes

Following expectancy-value theory, we investigated the role parents' reading-related gender stereotypes favoring girls play in explaining students' reading-related competence beliefs, intrinsic task values, and achievement. Drawing on a sample of 1508 students (49% girls, age at T1: 10.89 years) from 60 schools in Germany, we collected data at the beginning of Grade 5 and in the second half of Grade 6 using parent and student questionnaires. Structural equation modeling yielded two main results: First, parents' gender stereotypes favoring girls in reading and their sons' reading-related competence beliefs and intrinsic task values were negatively related. Second, we found indirect effects from parents' gender stereotypes through boys' reading-related intrinsic task values and competence beliefs to boys' reading achievement. Our results provide evidence for the assumption that parents' gender stereotypes are important in the perpetuation of gender differences, as they may affect the development of children's competence beliefs, intrinsic task values, and achievement.     

Dimensions of physical punishment and their associations with children's cognitive performance and school adjustment

This study examined how a range of physical punishment measures, ranging from mild corporal punishment to physical abuse, are associated with cognitive performance, school engagement, and peer isolation over a 3- year span among 658 children initially observed between the ages of 8 and 14. Physical punishment was captured in three groups: mild corporal punishment, harsh corporal punishment, and physical abuse, and both caregiver- and child-reported punishment measures were considered. After accounting for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, only Ninitial exposure to physical abuse was significantly associated with declines in cognitive performance. However, all forms of physical punishment were associated with declines in school engagement, and harsh corporal punishment was associated with increased peer isolation. Our findings were relatively consistent regardless of whether physical punishment was reported by the child or caregiver. Overall, our findings suggest that the prevention of physical abuse may enhance children's cognitive performance, but that alone may not be sufficient to ensure children are engaged and well-adjusted in school.     

Primary school children's use of ICT

This article reports on a study of 267 primary children (Year 2 and 6) in five schools in South and Mid Wales. It examines their use of information and communications technology (ICT) both in school and at home using a combination of interview and questionnaire data. These data reveal that although the vast majority of children are making some use of computers in school, patterns of sustained and varied engagement with ICT are rare; with educational use of computers curtailed by a variety of classroom factors. Moreover, although many children could be considered to be sophisticated and knowledgeable consumers of ICT, their outside-of-school access to technology is varied. The findings raise questions about the nature of ICT use in primary classrooms and the need to ensure meaningful and regular access to technology in school for all children.     

Preschool children's school adjustment: indicators of behaviour problems,gender, and peer victimisation

The relationships among school adjustment, victimisation, and gender were investigated with 284 Turkish children aged between five and six years. Teacher Rating Scale of School Adjustment, The Preschool Behaviour Questionnaire, and Peer Victimisation Scale were used in this study. Analyses indicated that children's behaviour problems and victimisation variables were significant predictors of the school adjustment of children while controlling for gender.     

Migration,remittances, and children's high school attendance: The case of rural China

This paper uses a large nationally representative survey data to examine the impact of China's rural–urban migration on high school attendance of left-behind children by disentangling the effect of remittances from that of migration. The results show that the absence of adult household members has a negative impact on the high school attendance of left-behind children in rural areas, while the remittances can partially compensate for this loss. The effects are especially prominent for girls and those children from poor households since girls are usually disadvantaged in rural China and poor households are more likely to be liquidity-constrained.     

"My family and friends": six- to twelve-year-old children's perceptions of social support

A psychometrically sound instrument is essential for the study of children's subjective impressions about social support. To evaluate such an instrument, 249 children, 6-12 years old, from a population-based sample of black and white families (50% single mothers, 50% two parents) were studied. The newly developed instrument, "My Family and Friends," consists of 12 dialogues, based on Vygotskian principles, and yields information about (a) children's perceptions of the availability of individuals in their networks to provide different types of social support and (b) their satisfaction with the help they receive. Children collaborate in interactive dialogues and manipulate personalized props. Collectively, the data indicate that subjective impressions about social support can be measured in a reliable and valid manner from early childhood through adolescence, and that children understand and care about the quality and the differentiation of support (i.e., emotional, informational, instrumental, and companionship) within their social support networks. Further, children report significant variations in social support when undergoing major family upheaval.