Children's Ways of Experiencing Peer Interaction

Educational practice in age integrated child groups rests on the assumption that children learn from their peers. The benefits of age integrated teaching is to enhance the value of heterogeneity in child groups. The fact that children are different from each other with different experiences is seen as an asset, which both children and teachers can benefit from. 22 children in a school class with children of mixed age; ranging from 7-9 years, were interviewed about their conceptions of peer interaction. How do children conceive peer collaboration, and what does it mean to children to teach someone something? A phenomenographic research approach is being used to discern the variation in ways of thinking about how children do when they teach someone something, and how they conceive peer collaboration at school. Children are conscious about the fact that they are able to teach their peers, and they can express this in different ways. Children also shift in their roles as “teacher” and “learner”. In some examples it is the “teacher” who plays the active role, in others it is the “learner” who has to be active by imitating the model/teacher.     

Teaching art appreciation in the nursery school -- it's relevance for 3 and 4 year olds

This article, a report on recent research, draws attention to the positive response shown by nursery school children to art appreciation when it was introduced into their curriculum.

It explains how art appreciation was integrated into an intercurriculum approach and “taught” through activities that are a normal part of a nursery school day viz. mime, movement, telling stories, expressing feelings, games and puzzles. The method and content of each session is outlined and findings reported. It is noted how art appreciation allows for reflective and physical participation, cognitive growth, observation, the development of vocabulary, and can lead to children responding to paintings sensitively yet critically -- many four year olds can “spot” stylistic similarities and make cross references between paintings.

As art appreciation is a useful means to learning and children find it an enjoyable activity, it would be beneficial if it was “written-in” to the forthcoming National Curriculum document for art education.     

Bullying: A preliminary investigation of its nature and the effects of social cognition

The nature of peer group bullying among 631 Australian primary school children in years 5, 6 and 7 was surveyed in STUDY ONE to further understand the nature and effects of bullying. Over 6% of the sample reported being bullied 1-2 days/ week and nearly 1/3 of the sample felt unsafe from bullying. For 16% of the children who are bullied the experience lasts six months or more. Approximately one quarter of the students felt that teachers did little to stop bullying while children gave as their reason for not helping a victim “it is none of my business” and “fear”. Bullying affected self perception with 65% feeling worse about themselves after the incident. In STUDY TWO 76 children were individually interviewed regarding their social problem solving capacities. Bullies, victims and “normals” differed in relation to their attribution for control for explanations of aggressive behaviour. Bullies were more “external” than victims or other children. Bullies chose more aggressive second best solutions to aggressive behaviour by other children than victims while victims feared retaliation for aggressive behaviour on their part. The findings were discussed in terms of social cognition.     

Developing a policy for early childhood education: Challenges and constraints

Against a backcloth of patchy and uncoordinated provision for young children, this paper argues for the development of a national policy framework, within which services can be developed at a local level. Using examples from recent legislation and current initiatives in Britain, the paper puts forward a number of specific policy proposals around five main themes: a national policy that integrates or coordinates “care” and “education” at a structural level and within practice; responsibility for the provision of services as being shared by central and local government as well as the private sector and parents; how to ensure quality and equality of opportunity in meeting the needs of young children; how to make services responsive and accessible to parents; and the importance of ongoing training and support for staff.     

Children: Rights, education and equal opportunity

The point of departure in this paper is the concept of RIGHTS. Whereas most countries accept that children have rights as is evidenced in the UNO Declaration of Rights of the Child (1959), such rights are statements, not laws. Statements advocating benefits, care, love, education etc. are goals or beliefs. Few countries have legalised rights; consequently, children may be at risk. In countries where there is discrimination of some degree in respect of race, colour, sex, religion, national or social origin, financial standing in society, level of education and so on, the right to “rights” as stated in the UNO Declaration is further jeopardised. The implications for educational provision from early childhood and onwards in countries where “rights” are not entrenched in statutes or where child advocacy is not forceful enough for all people are examined in this paper. Consequently, the chances for equal opportunity in life are reduced in situations where the child did not receive the benefit of education. Such a child may not perish as he might as a result of being deprived of food, but “the deprivation and injustice, the degradation of an individual and the setting of his vital interests at naught would at least approach in gravity the act of allowing him to die for the want of food” (1981, Wringe). In this paper, the author argues for the Rights of the Child, particularly where discrimination and inequalities exist and where provision for early education has to contend with excessive population growth.     

Feinstein and study design

Dr. Alvan Feinstein saw himself as the father of “clinical epidemiology” in the modern meaning of this term, of this “new intellectual domain of modern medical science.” In this role, he saw himself as drawing from his “clinical sophistication” and from “the rigorous scientific demands” to which “clinicians are accustomed,” while “public health” epidemiologists “often use a more arbitrary set of standards.” His conception of the scope of clinical epidemiology was remarkably Catholic and the same was the case in respect to cause-effect research in it. In the latter, he was firmly committed to the randomized-trial paradigm, including in his teachings on study design in etiologic research. Characteristically original, many of Dr. Feinstein's study-design ideas remain controversial.     

Materials mastery and symbolic development in construction play: Stages of development

Billy, age 2, picks up a crayon and scribbles across the paper and onto the table. At age 2-1/2, his marks stay on the paper, his scribbling is controlled, lines, circles and diagonals fill the paper. By age 3, Billy chooses a red crayola, draws a circle, fills it in, and places lines outward from his circle. “A sun” he exclaims! At age 4 or 5, Billy says, “I'm going to draw an airplane,” and he does.

Susan, age 2, picks up two wooden blocks, bangs them together, then stacks one on top of the other. At 2-1/2, she carefully stacks many blocks knocks them down and laughs, only to build outward or upward again. After much practice with blocks, at 3, she balances one rectangle across two others. “A bridge,” she exclaims! At 4-1/2, Susan builds houses, cages for the toy animals at school, and parking lots.     

Rethinking “Harmonious Parenting” Using a Three-factor Discipline Model

Diana Baumrind's typology of parenting is based on a two-factor model of “control” and “warmth”. Her recommended discipline style, labeled “authoritative parenting”, was constructed by taking high scores on these two factors. A problem with authoritative parenting is that it does not allow for flexible and differentiated responses to discipline situations. It is argued that a simpler, and more adequate, approach would be to switch to a model of discipline with a third factor, labeled “tolerance”. Parents of the most socially competent children are adept at knowing when they have a problem and when they do not. An example of the latter would be when a child expresses negative affect while complying fully with a request. Baumrind's notion of authoritative parenting was a useful “dialectic”, demonstrating that control and warmth are independent and equally necessary behaviors, but it did not go far enough. Baumrind's category of harmonious parenting (high warmth, moderate control, high tolerance), which she sees as an anomaly, should be substituted for authoritative parenting as the preferred discipline pattern.     

Resilience and Young People Leaving Care

How do we promote the resilience of young people leaving care? This article explores this question by bringing together research findings on the resilience of young people from disadvantaged family backgrounds with research studies on young people leaving care. These findings are applied to young people during their journey to adulthood: their lives in care, their transitions from care, and their lives after care. It is suggested that three main groups of young people can be identified from leaving care research studies: young people “moving on”, “survivors” and “victims”. It is argued that promoting the resilience of young people leaving care will require more comprehensive services across their life course. This will include, first, better quality care, providing more stability, holistic preparation, a positive sense of identity and assistance with education; second, opportunities for more gradual transitions from care, less accelerated and compressed, and more akin to normative transitions; and third, the provision of better quality and more extended support.     

The Contextuality of Children's Communication Difficulties in Specialist Practice: A Sociological Account

This paper reports findings from fieldwork in situations that brought young children and child welfare practitioners together with the aim of diagnosing and treating children's communication difficulties. The findings suggest that communication difficulties tend to be treated as a property of the individual child rather than as an emergent, contextual property of interaction. The attention will be steered from clinical definitions of “impairment” and “disability” to dynamics of social interaction, where understandings of “good” and “normal” communication play a central role. The findings have implications for current recommendations for good practice, which derive from needs-led, rights-led and skills-led approaches.     

What makes all-day provision satisfactory for three and four year olds?

This paper reports on the findings of an investigation of the experiences of three and four year olds who had all-day provision, either in one preschool education and care setting or from a combination of providers. Here the data gathered about the children's experience and perspectives is reported. The evidence from the children suggests that if all-day provision is to give them satisfaction, then activities that match their individual preferences are essential. The tension between allowing children to make their own choices and pressures to ensure a “balanced curriculum” is identified. Behavioural indicators and the children's responses suggested that all-day provision was a predominantly positive experience in all settings. Adults were important to children but their need for adult attention fluctuated during the day. The social context and peer culture that children could create among themselves made a significant contribution to satisfaction with all-day provision but this required a supportive environment to flourish.     

-appraising nursery water play

Recent research on water play in nurseries provides a focus for re-examining this traditional nursery provision. Using “dynamic structures” of space, time and task activities as a framework, I examine research evidence in the context of the nursery traditions and my own practice and thereby identify factors which can support quality play and learning.     

“Omics” research,monetization of intellectual property and fragmentation of knowledge: can clinical epidemiology strengthen integrative research?

An analysis of the contributions of “omics technologies” to human health and clinical care needs to address the relationships between internal issues (e.g., methodological shortcomings in “omics” research and clinical biology) and external influences. Among the latter, monetization of intellectual property (IP) appears to be a powerful force favoring methodological limitations and an excessive reductionism and fragmentation of biological knowledge. Following economic successes in other industries (semiconductors, software, and “dot-coms”), monetization of IP tries to market small fragments of big research “puzzles”; the strategy seems partly responsible for the biotech industry having underperformed methodological, clinical, and economic expectations. Hence, internal, purely scientific reasons can hardly explain failures in the application of long-proven principles of clinical epidemiology to the discovery and validation of diagnostic and prognostic tests. Nevertheless, this paper also sketches methodological proposals that may help integrate microbiological, clinical, and environmental evidence. Clinical and epidemiological reasoning, knowledge, and methods need to be applied on a much wider scale than until now by “omics” studies that aim at making inferences relevant for human beings. Rather than adopting the values and norms of “science business,” “omics research” could apply a diversity of clinicoepidemiological models favoring integrative research.     

Consumer characteristics, food related attitudes and consumption of meat and meat products

Consumer respondents (203) in the metro-Atlanta statistical area answered a detailed questionnaire pertaining to their attitudes and perceptions of different food groups and food uses. Factor analyses resulted in five food attitude, two food item and three food-use appropriateness factors. The food attitude factors were “Like to Cook”, “Organizational”, “Adventurous”, “Convenience driven” and “Nutrition conscious but casual meal planner”. Food item factors were “Main dish” and “Snack”, Food-use appropriateness factors were “Social”, “Satiety” and “Casual”. A significant correlation between nutrition knowledge and nutrition concern, but not food attitude scores, was found. The “Organizational” factor correlated with the most numbers of variables and “Like to Cook” the least. Results of the respondents in this study indicate that consumers in this sample are leading mobile, dynamic and service oriented lifestyles.     

Clinimetrics vs. psychometrics: an unnecessary distinction

The term “clinimetrics” was introduced by Feinstein to describe an approach to scale development that ostensibly is different from the more traditional “psychometrics.” I argue that, for a number of reasons, it is time for this term to retire from the scene. I show that the clinimetric approach is neither new nor unique, but is rather a subset of psychometrics. Further, because the majority of new developments in scale construction (e.g., new variations of the intraclass correlation, item response theory, structural equation modeling, and cognitive theories) are reported in the psychometric literature, use of the term “clinimetric,” especially among people not exposed to traditional test theory, cuts them off from a rich source of information.     

Education and young people in care

The Oxford Dictionary defines Education as the, “systematic instruction, development of character and mental powers”. To “Educate” is referred to as, “to train or to instruct intellectually”. Teachers and Tutors use education to pass on their own acquired knowledge, knowledge which will either be interesting or useful for those entering into the workplace. This article will look at the issues surrounding a young person in care and their education, it will also examine why other sections of society also tend to neglect their schooling. “Good practice” will also be highlighted and recommendations put forward for both discussion and implementation in the workplace.     

IMeonate-mother interaction: tactile contacts in the days following birth

The analysis of tactile contacts in the days following birth was conducted on the basis of observations of maternal behaviour in a natural situation #opduring the exchanges associated with the feeding of the new baby#cp.

This behaviour recorded by video, among 42 mothers — full term baby couples and 19 mothers — premature baby couples, allowed us to describe the “pattern manipulatoire des meres apres la naissance”. Different categories of contacts were distinguished according to the parts of the baby's body involved #oplimbs, face, trunk, clothing#cp and the apparent intention (so-called “utilitarian” contacts and contacts “not absolutely necessary for feeding”). No significant difference was found in the frequency of these contacts as a result of the order of birth, the term or age of the baby. On the other hand, a greater frequency of tactile contacts was shown with baby girls than with baby boys.

These data allow, within the framework of a wider study of the first corporal interactions, questioning of the significance to accord to this quite specific pattern.     

The effects of developmental placement on young children's cognitive and social-emotional development

The relationship between developmental placement as a result of preschool and kindergarten developmental testing and children's later cognitive achievement and social-emotional growth was examined. Two hundred twenty-three children were coded as Traditional, Overplaced, or “Buy a Year” depending on their scores on the Gesell Screening Test and the subsequent school placement. Their performancs on the full Gesell Developmental Test, 3rd grade New York State PEP Tests in reading and math, the Otis Lennon Mental Ability Test, and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) were compared. Those children who scored as immature on the Gesell Screening Test and who were retained a year according to the Gesell Developmental Placement Program, had the lowest scores on all measures even though they were almost a year older than the other two groups of children at the time of the PEP and SAT testing. In addition, referrals for special services and counselling were examined and there were no significant differences between the number of children referred from each Gesell status group in many areas, although more BAY children were referred to adaptive motor or resource programs. Other school related factors are also examined. Implications of this study on developmental placement are discussed.     

Teaching interactions of black and Cuban teenage mothers and their infants

Possible factors related to maternal teaching styles are socioeconomic status, ethnic group membership, maternal age, maternal locus of control, and the mother's “hidden agenda” or goals for her child. In this study, 32 lower income, Black and Cuban, teenage and adult mothers and their 12 month old infants participated in a simple task teaching their infant how to operate a “Jack-in-the-box”. The mothers were also interviewed on questionnaires designed to tap locus of control, “hidden agendas”, and demographic characteristics. The results showed that Cuban mothers demonstrated the task to their infant with verbalization significantly more often than the Black mothers. The groups did not differ on maternal “hidden agendas”. Adult mothers showed a more internal locus of control than teenage mothers. Infants of Black, teenage mothers vocalized significantly less often than infants of the other groups. Results of this study provide additional support for existing literature in which maternal age and cultural differences were reported for the amount of maternal verbalization during early teaching interactions.