Children's Transition Into Full-Time Schooling: Black/White Comparisons

The transition from "home child" to "school child" is an important social milestone and encompasses a life period that has not received as much attention as it may deserve. Poor black children, who are those with the most social interaction disabilities, seem particularly vulnerable in the early part of this transition. A further complication is that "summer learning" helps mainly well-off children, and blacks in the population-at-large are less likely to be well off than whites. Although schools do seem to be making up for the dearth of academic socialization resources in many young children's households, and in this sense are most beneficial for those who need them most, more work is needed on why schools are not filling the bill as well for the neediest blacks as they are for the neediest whites.     

Early Investment in Cognitive Development as a Strategy for Reducing Poverty

This paper reviews the possibilities and limitations of programs aimed at promoting early investment in child development programs and early childhood education as a strategy for reducing poverty. It sets modern theories of intellectual development within a broader Eriksonian conception of the whole child. This highlights the links between the cognitive and the affective. Sternberg's “triadic model of intelligence” serves as the organizing framework for this discussion. Having made this case, the paper examines a series of hypotheses regarding essential components of early intervention and educational programs designed to succeed with poor, high risk, underclass families. The results of this review are sobering, and make it clear that superficial efforts and other business-as-usual approaches will not meet with success. Nonetheless, it is also clear that the social and economic costs of the underclass for the community as a whole as well as for those caught within its cycles of poverty and social pathology can justify expensive interventions and still be cost effective and cost efficient. “Succeeding with those who cost the most saves the most in the long run” becomes a principle to complement the well established principle that “those who have the most, gain the most.”     

Moral Education in Early Childhood: The Limits of Constructivism

Broadly speaking there are two polar views on moral education - traditionalism and progressivism. Traditionalists tend to believe that moral values are eternal and universal. They prioritize such “hard” virtues as discipline, courage, restraint, and obedience, and believe in directive behavioral instruction with meaningful consequences for rule-following and rule-breaking. Progressives, the dominant voice in early childhood education, believe that moral values are variable, dependent on social context. They prioritize such “soft” virtues as unselfishness, caring, generosity, and tolerance, and believe virtues are acquired in a “sociomoral environment” of nurturing adults who stress cooperative interchanges and minimal authority. While most programs, despite their “tilt”, acknowledge the need for a balance, they do not specify criteria for making the pedagogical decisions. Without such explicit criteria, a “strong” version of constructivism may demand more of children than they can deliver given their developmental limitations. Two criteria are suggested for determining when traditional methods may usefully supplement constructivist ones: First, one must decide if the matter at stake is a bottom-line non-negotiable value such that a child's dissension is unacceptable. Second, one must determine if the preschooler, given her cognitive egocentricity, moral realism, and “romancing of reality” can make a rational (decentered) choice. There follows a more detailed discussion of blended approaches (traditional and constructivist) within the overall goal of helping children build a moral identity.     

“If only”: Outdoor and adventurous activities and generalised academic development

This paper reports on research conducted as part of a project, the aim of which was to utilise outdoor and adventurous experiences to help schools address their 'if only' factor — that aspect of learning perceived to be key to raising standards, whether it be the acquisition of knowledge, skills or a change in attitudes to learning. The project involved nine schools and 671 children, all engaged in the “I Can!” project and the follow-up activities that took place at schools. The research was carried out with children, teachers and parents and consisted of a series of focus groups and analysis of children's work. Limitations inherent within the research opportunity prevent the confident attribution of causation. However, the study's findings do offer insight into an under-researched, yet potentially valuable educational experience. The findings suggest that outdoor and adventurous activities can impact upon children's learning in school by addressing their intellectual, affective and social development.     

Externalizing Problems in Two-Year-Olds: Implications for Patterns of Social Behavior and Peers' Responses to Aggression

A sample of 48 two-year-old children selected on the basis of parents' responses to two administrations of the Child Behavior Checklist for two to three-year-olds was observed in peer interactions. Twenty-four of these children displayed symptoms of aggressive/destructive (externalizing) problems that were in the borderline clinical range (labelled “high risk”) and 24 children displayed few such symptoms (“low risk”). The children were observed in matched dyads (one high risk and one low risk child) across four tasks designed to vary in the degree of social participation they would elicit from the children. Across all tasks, children in the high risk group displayed significantly and consistently more aggressive behavior than the children in the low risk group. However, these high risk children did not differ from other children in terms of several indices of social and nonsocial play. In addition, when children were classified as high aggressive versus average versus low aggressive on the basis of laboratory behavior, children who displayed high amounts of aggression during the play sessions did not differ from less aggressive children on these indices of social play. Finally, the responses of non-aggressive dyad partners to aggressive acts indicated that children are responsive, in relatively subtle ways, to aggression. These results are discussed in terms of the implications of early problematic behavior for later indices of maladjustment that include social competence and peer rejection.     

Academic Expectations in Mothers of Preschool Children: A Psychometric Study of the Educational Attitude Scale

This study reports psychometric data on the Educational Attitude Scale, a new instrument designed to tap parental opinions about early academic, artistic, athletic, and social experiences. Mothers of 371 middle class prekindergarten children in 22 different schools completed the 32-item Likert-style survey. Mothers were highly similar in their views about the importance of social experiences, but differed widely in their opinions about early academic instruction for preschoolers. The scale proved to have excellent split-half and test-retest reliability. Correlational analysis and factor analysis supported the general domain structure along which the instrument was designed. Scores on the Educational Attitude Scale were significantly correlated with scores on a Developmental Expectations Card Sort. Highly significant differences were found in parent attitudes on the scale when schools were grouped into those High versus Low in academic emphasis by community reputation and observed classroom practices. Parents had significantly higher academic expectations than their children's teachers, particularly in schools with “Low Academic” emphasis.     

Approaches to Early Intervention on the Navajo Reservation

This article describes a research and early intervention project that involves parents and Head Start teachers who live and work in geographically isolated areas of the Navajo Reservation. Social and environmental characteristics of life in remote areas are considered as “risk factors” that impact upon the child's probable success in school. Two promising lines of intervention are reported comprehensive instruction in child development for Head Start teachers and working with parents as children's “first teachers.” The teacher education approach involves innovative methods that build upon the Native American oral tradition. The approach to parents as “first teachers” involves Navajo parents in a structured reading approach with culturally relevant materials, where children are encouraged to reconstruct story content in a variety of representational media. Preliminary results include a dramatic rise in the number of CDA credentialed teachers and major improvements in teaching skills and satisfaction with teaching.     

Parents' Beliefs About Their Children's Cognitive, Social, and Motor Functioning

This study investigated the accuracy of parents' judgments about their children's cognitive, social, and motor abilities as well as the relationship between accuracy of prediction, and child performance. Subjects were preschool-age children and their mothers. Mothers were significantly less accurate in predicting their child's success or failure on the social items than on the cognitive and motor items. In all domains, overestimations of ability were more common than underestimations, with the greatest incidence of overestimations occurring for social items. The correlation between accurate predictions by the mother and correct response by the child was .79, and the correlation between overestimation and child competence was -.80. These findings support the “match” hypothesis, which posits that mothers who have more knowledge of their children are better able to create optimally challenging environments. Reasons for mothers' poorer ability to predict and greater tendency to overestimate their children's social understanding are discussed.     

A critique of neo-Hahnian outdoor education theory. Part one: Challenges to the concept of “character building”

Within the diverse and sometimes amorphous outdoor education literature, “neo-Hahnian” (NH) approaches to adventure education are exceptional for their persistence, seeming coherence, and wide acceptance. NH approaches assume that adventure experiences “build character”, or, in modern terminology, “develop persons”, “actualise selves”, or have certain therapeutic effects associated with personal traits. In social psychological terms NH thought is “dispositional”, in that it favours explanations of behaviour in terms of consistent personal traits. In this paper I critically review NH OAE in an historical context, and draw on Ross' and Nisbett's (1991) seminal review of dispositional social psychology to argue that OAE programs do not build character, but may provide situations that elicit certain behaviours. For OAE research and theory, belief in the possibility of “character building” must be seen as a source of bias, not as a foundation. The conceptual analysis I develop provides not only a basis for critique, but also offers a way forward for OAE.     

Children's ability to recognize other children's faces.

Facial recognition ability was studied with 288 children from 4 grades--first, second, third, and sixth--who also varied by sex race, and school type, the last being segregated or integrated. Children judged whether each of 40 pictures of children's faces had been present in a set of 20 pictures viewed earlier. Facial recognition ability increased significantly with each grade but leveled off between ages 8 and 11. Blacks' performance is significantly better than whites', and blacks are better at recognizing faces of whites than whites are at recognizing blacks. Children from an integrated school show smaller differences recognizing black or white faces than children from segregated schools, but the effect appears only for children of the integrated school who also live in mixed-race neighborhoods.     

Outdoor education: Research topic or universal value? Part one

This paper sets out to discover if the history of outdoor education, within the UK and more particularly Scotland, provides its modern exponents with a legacy of prescribed conservatism or alternatively a form of education which embraces, or is capable of embracing, diversity of theory and practice. It begins in the post World War II period entitled “out of the ashes” and charts the history decade by decade.

Secondary sources are used and include statutory instruments as well as the body of literature that relates to outdoor education. The paper has succeeded in adding to the literature through uncovering rarely used sources. Secondary sources have been supplemented by primary data in the form of interviews. The interviews were used to provide detail and fill gaps where secondary sources were lacking.

The time between the post-war period until the end of the 1960s charts the growth of outdoor education provision. This growth is characterised by diversity where common themes such as “fitness for war”, “character building” “social education” “recuperative holiday for socially disadvantaged young people” and “progressive education” emerge as competing and contrasting claims. Consequently it can be stated that outdoor education defies definition in terms of being a fixed entity of common consent, homogeneous over time and space.     

The Social Construction of Parent Involvement in Head Start

In the field of early childhood education, dominant discourse is premised on assumptions and values that privilege uniformity, generality, and even the “essential” nature of children and programs that should then be judged according to common criteria. In this article, we focus not on common factors that vary but on particular social practices that have very different meanings for people in two social settings (Taylor, 1979). Specifically, we describe how parent involvement- and parents themselves-were socially constructed within Head Start programs located in different communities, and we suggest how these social practices made particular forms of involvement possible and even necessary. We argue that discourses do not merely represent; they constitute, and different discourses construct both subjects and social relations in particular ways. Finally, we suggest how alternative ways of structuring knowledge and social practice in early childhood might become “communal tools” for exploring yet to be realized possibilities.     

Kindergarten Educational Policies: Separating Myth From Reality

The critical question facing school districts today is, “What policies should we pursue to improve both the quality and accessibility of early educational programs for all children?” Toward the goal of maximizing the academic growth and development of all children, this article (1) profiles kindergarten policies and practices currently implemented in district schools, (2) reviews and analyzes the research supporting the major policy alternatives for six common kindergarten and school entry age issues that all school districts must address, and (3) identifies the optimum policy option alternative for each issue based on these analyses. Collectively, the policy alternatives recommended provide a model for early childhood education for schools and districts. These policies define a more developmentally appropriate kindergarten curriculum which should optimize the early learning and future achievement levels of all children.     

Local special education administrators’ understanding of inclusive education in China

China's inclusive education initiative began in mid-1980s under the name of “Learning in Regular Classrooms”. The purpose of this research is to examine how Chinese Local Special Education Administrators understand the ideology of inclusive education and LRC model by using a qualitative investigation. The results indicate that the Chinese inclusion is driven by pragmatic needs to enroll more children with disabilities who were denied education into schools, and LRC has been practiced in a different social and cultural context from inclusive education initiative in the West. The authors conclude that China should make generalised changes in the whole education system and society to bring greater opportunities to those with disabilities.     

School Readiness: Are There Social Prerequisites?

The position advocated within this article is that the construct of “school readiness” has a social component, and that attempts to evaluate children's interpersonal readiness for kindergarten should be judged in relation to their likely success at mastering specific social school entry tasks. Social school entry tasks, which most likely stem from diverse sociocultural sources, are conceptualized here as interpersonal challenges that children confront as they enter formal schooling—challenges that are inherent within kindergarten classrooms and predictive of children's future school adjustment. A related contention is that attempts to enhance children's readiness for kindergarten should be guided by research on the prerequisites of social task mastery—that is, evidence gathered during the preschool years that forecasts children's later success at social school entry tasks. Evidence bearing on these premises is reviewed as a means of considering the validity and heuristic utility of these propositions for future research on school readiness.     

Investigating the Validity of the Australian Early Development Index

This article aims to contribute to the ongoing evaluation of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) by investigating its construct and concurrent validity with a subsample of 642 children aged 4 to 5 years drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Construct validity was examined by considering the theoretical consistency of the network of correlations between the AEDI subconstructs and the independently reported multimethod measures of early learning skills and development collected contemporaneously by the LSAC. Concurrent validity was examined by assessing the extent to which children who were “developmentally vulnerable” on the AEDI domains corresponded with the LSAC outcome indices classification of children as “developmentally at risk.” Moderate to large correlations were observed between each of the AEDI domains and subconstructs when compared to analogous teacher-rated LSAC measures, with lower levels of association observed for parent-rated LSAC measures. Concurrent validity was explored; however, with no criterion measure with which to assess the AEDI, findings are inconclusive prior to predictive validity assessment. Future waves of the LSAC will collect information on the children's abilities at school and developmental outcomes, enabling further interpretation of these concurrent and construct validity findings by triangulation and predictive validity analyses.     

Effects of School Organizational Structure on Interracial Friendships in Middle Schools

Abstract

This study examined the effect of school organizational structure on interracial friendships among middle school students. Students evaluated a white friend and a black friend on a modified semantic differential scale and reported the number of their other-race friends. Responses of students in two team-structured schools were contrasted to those of students in three traditionally structured schools. Multivariate analysis revealed that the organization of a school affects number of other-race friends and that whites with even "some" black friends are more positive in their perceptions of blacks than are those who report having "almost no" black friends. Variations in the nature and extent of contact between white and black students in schools does affect the racial attitudes of whites. Black students rated white and black friends the same regardless of the organizational structure of the school.     

Temperament and Language Skills as Predictors of Teacher-Child Relationship Quality in Preschool

Current educational policy emphasizes “school readiness” of young children with a premium placed on preschool interventions that facilitate academic and social readiness for children who have had limited learning experiences prior to kindergarten (Rouse, Brooks-Gunn, & McLanahan, 2005). The teacher-child relationship is viewed as a critical mechanism for the effectiveness of interventions (Girolametto, Weitzman, & Greenberg, 2003; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2003). The purpose of this study was to determine how children's temperament and language skills predict teacher-child relationship quality. The sample consisted of 99 at-risk preschool students. Three findings emerged: (a) bolder children with lower language complexity were more likely to have higher levels of conflict in their relationships with teachers, (b) shyer children with greater language complexity were more likely to have dependent relationships with their teachers, and (c) teacher effects accounted for more of the variance in conflictual and dependent teacher-child relationships compared to children's behavioral inhibition and language complexity. This study shows that teacher-child relationships are multirelational. Individual differences in temperament and language skills affect teacher-child interactions, and ultimately, contribute to the effectiveness of classroom interventions. Such information helps to unpack the complexities of classroom quality by increasing awareness among practitioners of factors contributing to positive teacher-child relationships.     

Social-Emotional Competence as Support for School Readiness: What Is It and How Do We Assess It?

The overall issue of assessment during early childhood, and its relation to school readiness and other decisions, is currently widely debated. Expanding early childhood education and child care enrollments, better scientific knowledge about early childhood development, and decisions about public spending, necessitate careful consideration of which assessment tools to use, as well as why and when to use them. More specifically, the disconnection between the importance of social and emotional domains of development, and their status within educational programming and assessment, has long been lamented. The last several years have, however, witnessed a blossoming of attention to these areas during early childhood, as crucial for both concurrent and later well-being and mental health, as well as learning and academic success. Teachers view children's “readiness to learn” and “teachability” as marked by positive emotional expressiveness, enthusiasm, and ability to regulate emotions and behaviors. Based on these assertions, I suggest a battery of preschool social-emotional outcome measures, tapping several constructs central to emotional and social competence theory, specifically emotional expression, emotion regulation, emotion knowledge, social problem solving, and positive and negative social behavior.