In this study of preschoolers’ understandings and enactments of racial and ethnic difference, Park asks, “How do different ideas about diversity play out in the day-to-day interactions and activities of young children?” Park takes a sociocultural perspective, seeking to understand the ways children talk about difference and behave toward others in their preschool.
This chapter discusses variation in the organization of children’s involvement in cultural activities. In particular, we examine three widespread cultural traditions that organize children’s learning and participation in cultural activities: intent community participation, assembly-line instruction, and guided repetition. We argue that investigating the organization of children’s participation in routine activities offers a way to address the dynamic nature of repertoires of cultural practices—the formats of (inter)action with which individuals have experience and may take up, resist, and
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Barbara RogoffLeslie MooreBehnosh NajafiAmy DexterMarciela Correa-ChavezJocelyn Solis
It is an active time in both developmental psychology and art education. In developmental psychology some interesting new theoretical developments suggest a new level of maturity in the field. In art education there are some productive moves afoot that show that the tendency to emphasize spontaneous production in art class to the exclusion of understanding and appreciation is finally over. These are both welcome sets of changes; indeed, both are changes related to larger shifts in the cultural and intellectual climate of the 1980s.
Can reading skills be enhanced by instruction in the visual arts? Arts education researchers have sometimes made this claim and have argued that the visual arts can play a strong role in the teaching of basic skills in the kindergarten and elementary school years. There are two possible mechanisms by which visual arts instruction might enhance reading ability, one cognitive, one motivational. The cognitive mechanism would involve transfer of skill. Perhaps visual arts training strengthens visual perception skills that can be deployed in reading.
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Kristin BurgerEllen WinnerUniversity of Illinois
Progress in understanding cognitive developmental change mechanisms requires methods that yield detailed data about particular changes. The microgenetic method is an approach that can yield such data. It involves (a) observations of individual children throughout the period of the change, (b) a high density of observations relative to the rate of change within that period, and (c) intensive trial-by-trial analyses intended to infer the processes that gave rise to the change. This approach can illuminate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of change, indicate the conditions under which
Boston's Museum of Science (MOS), with Harvard as its university research partner, is extending, disseminating, and further evaluating their NSF-funded (DRL-0714706) Living Laboratory model of informal cognitive science education. In this model, early-childhood researchers have both conducted research in the MOS Discovery Center for young children and interacted with visitors during the museum's operating hours about what their research is finding about child development and cognition. Several methods of interacting with adult visitors were designed and evaluated, including the use of "research toys" as exhibits and interpretation materials. Summative evaluation of the original work indicated positive outcomes on all targeted audiences - adults with young children, museum educators, and researchers. The project is now broadening the implementation of the model by establishing three additional museum Hub Sites, each with university partners - Maryland Science Center (with Johns Hopkins), Madison Children's Museum (with University of Wisconsin, Madison), and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (with Lewis & Clark College). The audiences continue to include researchers (including graduate and undergraduate students); museum educators; and adults with children visiting the museums. Deliverables consist of: (1) establishment of the Living Lab model at the Hub sites and continued improvement of the MOS site, (2) a virtual Hub portal for the four sites and others around the country, (3) tool-kit resources for both museums and scientists, and (4) professional symposia at all sites. Intended outcomes are: (1) improve museum educators' and museum visiting adults' understanding of cognitive/developmental psychology and research and its application to raising their children, (2) improve researchers' ability to communicate with the public and to conduct their research at the museums, and (3) increase interest in, knowledge about, and application of this model throughout the museum community and grow a network of such collaborations.