Governmentality within Children's Technological Play: Findings from a Critical Discourse Analysis

In many countries today, digital technology and instant communication are embedded in children's everyday lives to the extent that their play frequently incorporates smartphones, the Internet and other technologies. In this paper, we explore the recent historical conditions within the New Zealand context that have increased the accessibility of these technologies and imbued them with particular meanings. We suggest that from a Foucauldian perspective, these technologies can be seen as a form of subtle disciplinary power using techniques of governmentality through which children's ways of thinking are shaped to benefit societal requirements of the current historical era.     

Home and school influences on the behavioral and academic outcomes of low-income children of color

Framed within contextual systems model, this study examines how home and school operate together to shape behavioral and academic outcomes for 544 low-income African American (56%) and Latino/a (44%) elementary school-aged children (mean age?=?7.88 years, SD?=?1.46, 50% male). Using data from Welfare, Children, & Families Study: A Three City Study and multiple group path analysis, we found that for children in kindergarten through third grade, the adequacy of the home resources was positively related to applied problem scores (e.g. math literacy) and negatively associated with externalizing behavior. For fourth- to sixth-graders, the adequacy of classroom resources was negatively associated with applied problem scores. For both age groups positive teacher–child relational quality was also a positive predictor of externalizing behavior. Results revealed that barriers to parental involvement in school were a negative predictor of applied problem scores for low-income children in early and later elementary school. Implications for policy and practice aimed at strengthening opportunities for children and families from marginalized communities are discussed.     

Social Skills in Children Adopted From Socially-Emotionally Depriving Institutions

This study assessed social skills in post-institutionalized (PI) children with respect to age at adoption, age at assessment, and gender. Parent ratings of social skills (Social Skills Rating System) and behavior problems (Child Behavior Checklist) were obtained for 214 children and 127 adolescents who were adopted from socially-emotionally depriving Russian institutions. Results showed that children adopted before 18 months of age have better social skills than those adopted after this age; those assessed in childhood demonstrate better social skills than those assessed in adolescence. PI females, especially later-adopted adolescents, have particularly poor social skills. Children with poor social skills tend to have higher rates of behavior problems.     

Fighting words? Joning as conflict talk and identity performance among African American preadolescents

This study examines how preadolescent African American students in Washington, D.C., used a linguistic practice called ‘joning,’ a style of verbal play similar to ritual insults, in peer interactions. Sociolinguists have focused on how children socialize each other into vernacular styles appropriate for peer group use but often assume that they disalign with social and linguistic norms for classroom behavior. Drawing from a nine‐month ethnographic study that the author conducted in an after‐school program, this article analyzes the structure and function of joning as a vernacular style of African American Vernacular English and its uses in constructing classroom identities. Joning often facilitated student learning, but it was perceived as a socially and physically risky linguistic practice because of its uses as conflict talk in the local community. Focusing on preadolescence as a key stage of language socialization, this article shows how minority students modify peer‐learned linguistic practices to pursue academic success on their own terms.     

Investigating the link between migration and civicness in Italy. Which individual and school factors matter?

This paper investigates the link between migration and civicness using data on cognitive skills and civic competences collected from a sample of 2747 eighth-graders in Italy. Contrary to the abundant evidence of migrant/native gaps in educational and occupational attainments in the country, this study finds no migrant-specific gap on civicness development. Children of immigrants achieve lower levels of civic knowledge than natives, but differences disappear once social background and, particularly, cognitive test scores are equalized across groups. Moreover, no differences are found, on average, between natives and children of immigrants with respect to institutional trust. However, at the top tail of the civic knowledge distribution, children of immigrants display less trust than natives. This result, coupled with their greater openness towards immigrants’ rights, suggests that immigrants’ children attach great importance to the inequality in rights concerning the immigrant population in the country and, as a reaction, participate more actively in the community. Insignificant or positive associations between the proportion of immigrants’ children in the classroom and natives’ civicness are found. Finally, fairness in student–teacher interactions is found to improve students’ civicness development, suggesting that, besides citizenship education, also the school climate plays a vital role in enhancing children's civic competences.     

Place attachment among children in a street situation in Pelotas,Brazil

This article explores the processes which affect street children and youths’ relationships with the place called the ‘streets’. The street as a place to live is violent and hostile. However, street dwellers aspire to see the street environment positively. In fact, being able to establish a positive relationship with the street, to become attached to it, is crucial for coping within it. In this research, longitudinal qualitative data concentrating on processes were produced time-geographically with 19 street children and youths in the Brazilian town of Pelotas. The analyses of this research reveal that attachment changes over time instead of remaining static. Examples from the streets demonstrate how the human–environment relationship is shaped by constantly changing encounters of physical, social and mental (f)actors. This article stresses the importance of individual life experiences and goals for the attachment processes and for what positively affects the attachment.     

Examples of practice: an intercultural approach to translate Romanian children’s folklore into Spanish

Due to the great number of Romanian pupils in Spanish public school, the local administration organises extra-curricular Romanian courses in order to preserve the Romanian language and culture. This is a way to contribute to build and consolidate a bicultural and bilingual profile of the young people. Besides, it is also an opportunity to align with plurilingual and pluricultural competence established by The Common European Framework of References for Languages (2002). Based on the premise that “children's literature is an intercultural instrument”, I choose as corpus the Romanian children's folklore represented by games, formula-songs, recital-stories, household words, incantations, riddles and lullabies to translate into Spanish. After the translations, Romanian children had to find similarities and differences between the Romanian and Spanish children's songs, in order to augment the knowledge about both cultures.     

关于幼儿双语教学可行性的探讨

文章主要从幼儿的语言学习能力角度分析幼儿双语教学的可行性,运用乔姆斯基的语言天生说和语言学习临界期的观点,得出儿童学习语言具有成人所不具备的优势,并引用国外学者的研究成果来进一步证实此结论.在此基础上分析了外语学习对幼儿语言、认知及社会性方面发展的促进作用以及在幼儿双语教学中应注意的问题.旨在让读者更加了解幼儿双语教学,并结合本地区在师资等教育资源方面的具体情况来实施双语教学,以促进我国幼儿双语教学的发展.     

农村低龄留守儿童现象分析与思考

针对目前农村中出现的留守儿童低龄化的新现象,笔者通过调查研究对其现状、原因进行分析,认为让留守儿童生活在一个不完整的家庭当中,错过开发智力的最佳时期,落后的传统文化将在他们身上留下烙印,指出低龄留守儿童现象是中国社会从农村社会向城市社会转变的必然产物,是中国社会转型过程中付出的代价。