Popular Children Research Articles

Teacher and Peer Reports on Preschoolers Sociometric Popularity

ABSTRACTResearch Findings: Traditional peer sociometric nominations, even at early ages, are not replaceable by teachers’ classifications of children’s sociometric popularity. The association between reports from the two sources, although not independent, was weak, with teachers perceiving more children as popular and fewer children as rejected. Teacher and peer classifications were similarly associated with social skills and behavior problems. Sociometric popularity obtained from teachers, but not from peers, was associated with children’s age and verbal competence. Practice or policy: This study investigated the association between preschool children’s sociometric popularity obtained from peer sociometric nominations and from teachers’ classifications. A total of 1535 children (731 girls and 804 boys), aged between 34 and 89.6 months (M = 61.96, SD = 8.91), and 89 teachers participated in the study.

The Works of Lidiia Charskaia in the Eyes of Contemporary Critics

ABSTRACT Relying on a wide range of literary history sources covering the first third of the twentieth century, especially publications in pedagogical and literary periodicals, this article examines the reception Russian critics gave to one of the most popular female Russian children’s writers, Lidiia Charskaia. Attitudes of prerevolutionary and Soviet critics toward Charskaia’s works are compared, and an analysis is offered of the main principles and techniques applied in criticism of children’s literature.

“Rain, Rain, Go Away!” Engaging Rain Pedagogies in Practices With Children: From Water Politics to Environmental Education

Inspired by the popular children’s song “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” this paper explores what it would look like to consider inviting rain to stay in our practices with children. This invitation acts as a provocation for pedagogical practice that has the potential to engage thinking differently about the ways we work with children and youth. Framed from the vantage point of current curricular practices in environmental education, this paper fuses discussions about water (including racialized and gendered politics) with a consideration of the histories of environmental educational practices as they are currently situated within childhood teaching. In pushing ourselves to think about our bodies as watered/weathered, especially in the context of educational practices, we are able to explore new territory that moves us toward a critique of the taken-for-granted ways in which children and nature are continuously conceptualized, and we open up room for dialogue that moves beyond developmental psychology frameworks. Through considering rain and inviting water to stay in our practices with children, it is suggested that these moments provide critical insight into the more-than-human relationship between children and nature that goes far beyond the romanticized understandings that exist today to consider children’s common worlds.

“The House That Jack Built” by Jessie L. Gaynor as an example of an English language operetta for children

“The House That Jack Built” by Jessie L. Gaynor as an example of an English language operetta for children

Are unpopular children more likely to get sick? Longitudinal links between popularity and infectious diseases in early childhood.

Social stress and inflammatory processes are strong regulators of one another. Considerable evidence shows that social threats trigger inflammatory responses that increase infection susceptibility in both humans and animals, while infectious disease triggers inflammation that in turn regulates social behaviours. However, no previous study has examined whether young children’s popularity and their rate of infectious disease are associated. We investigated the longitudinal bidirectional links between children’s popularity status as perceived by peers, and parent reports of a variety of infectious diseases that are common in early childhood (i.e. common cold as well as eye, ear, throat, lung and gastric infections). We used data from the ‘Matter of the First Friendship Study’ (MOFF), a longitudinal prospective multi-informant study, following 579 Norwegian pre-schoolers (292 girls, median age at baseline = six years) with annual assessments over a period of three years. Social network analysis was used to estimate each child’s level of popularity. Cross-lagged autoregressive analyses revealed negative dose–response relations between children’s popularity scores and subsequent infection (b = –0.18, CI = –0.29, –0.06, and b = –0.13, CI = –0.23, –0.03). In conclusion, the results suggest that children who are unpopular in early childhood are at increased risk of contracting infection the following year.

Friendship Characteristics of Rejected Children in Middle Childhood

This study investigated children’s friendship factors such as number of friends, friendship quality, and friends’ characteristics as a function of children’s sociometric status. The concordance between children’s and their friends’perceptions of friendship quality was examined. Subjects were fifth grade students recruited from two public schools. The peer nomination index assessed peer rejection and acceptance. Positive and negative nominations as well as social preference identified children into rejected and popular groups. Children who nominated each other on their list of friends were considered mutual friends. Children reported the quality of their friendships using the friendship quality scale. The results showed that rejected children had fewer mutual friends compared to popular children. Rejected children as well as their friends perceived their friendships less positively. Moreover, rejected children’s perception showed lower correlations with their friends’perceptions than popular children’s perceptions. Furthermore, rejected children were similar with friends in respect to peer rejection level. It was concluded that rejected children’s problems in their peer group and dyadic friendships may mutually influence each other. The findings from this study highlight the need for future research on friendship quality and psychosocial adjustment for rejected children. Keywords: friendship, friendship quality, peer rejection, sociometric status

Children’s socialisation into literate practices through engaging in translation activities in immersion preschool

In this empirical study, we analyse how five-year-old children are socialised into particular interpretive practices indicative of a literate mind. The data come from translation activities where children with their teacher listen to and then talk about how to understand the lyrics to a popular children’s song. The setting is a Finnish–Swedish immersion programme, where Finnish-speaking children are immersed in Swedish. Three such activities were audio recorded. These are analysed according to the principles of Interaction Analysis, that is, how participants sequentially respond to each other’s communicative actions. Theoretically, the study is informed by a sociocultural perspective, highlighting how intramental function, such as reasoning and problem-solving, are contingent on intermental communication. How participating children are introduced to literate distinctions and concepts of interpreting text is therefore premised to be critical to their emerging literate interpretive skills. The results highlight how the children are constantly challenged and supported by the teacher in a zone of proximal development where their abilities to interpret the lyrics discussed are stretched.

Reading Children: Literacy, Property, and the Dilemmas of Childhood in Nineteenth-Century America. Patricia Crain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. 247.

<i>Reading Children: Literacy, Property, and the Dilemmas of Childhood in Nineteenth-Century America</i>. Patricia Crain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. 247.

Cross-dressing in Children’s Adventure Fiction: Does it always challenge Gender Stereotypes?

Gender identity is nowadays widely agreed to be socio-culturally constructed. Children’s books may have a powerful impact on such constructions, particularly in the mid-twentieth century before the supremacy of television and digital media. Much popular children’s fiction of this period has been dismissed as conforming to, rather than challenging, gender stereotypes. Is this in fact too simplistic a picture? Victoria Flanagan (Into the Closet; Reframing Masculinity) has theorised that in children’s adventure fiction females take on male identities to gain agency, often very successfully, while males perform femininity less successfully and generally with comedic effect. This study of six cases of cross-dressing in British children’s fiction does not support this view. Cross-dressing may be primarily a plot device aimed at heightening the mystery and tension; female cross-dressers may be passive and ‘feminine’, while males may in fact outperform females in the ‘opposite’ gender role and on occasion gain an agency through that cross-dressing which was denied them in their male attire. In all the cases explored here, the cross-dresser was a subsidiary character rather than a protagonist, and this may be key to determining how cross-dressing is portrayed.

The impact of pictorial realism in educational science television on U.S. children’s learning and transfer of biological facts

ABSTRACTAlthough children’s science television shows aim to educate young audiences, a recent content analysis found that these shows are mostly animated and often depict science information anthropomorphically. An experiment examined the implications of these depictions for children’s learning and transfer of scientific information. Preschoolers viewed two videos about insect communication from a popular children’s television show that contained either realistic or anthropomorphic visuals of insects. Results indicated that initial learning from the show did not differ between conditions. However, one week later, children who viewed the show with realistic visuals were more likely to transfer what they learned to real insects, whereas children who viewed the show with anthropomorphic visuals were more likely to attribute humanlike characteristics to real insects. Contrary to predictions, these effects were not mediated by children’s attention to the show or their reality judgments of the factual content.

Book Review: 25 Projects for ART Explorers

Reading stories to children may often isolate a story’s purpose into narrow elements. Christina M. Kirker’s 25 Projects for Art Explorers expands storytelling by creating cross-curricular, literature-based art projects utilizing popular children’s literature to encourage art appreciation and creative release.

Obraz roli babci i dziadka we współczesnej literaturze dziecięcej

This article presents the results of a study on the image of seniors as grandparents in children`s books. The research was conducted using a method of searching for secondary sources. The main research problem was how grandparents are presented in a contemporary literature for children? Popular children`s books (including picture books) showing seniors in the role of grandparents were published in Poland in the 21th century. These books also created an purposive research sample as vell. In the introduction the author describes the changes in the realization of the roles of grandparents in a modern family. Next, she presentes the importance of books for children in creating the image of the family as well as the women and men’s role. The main part of the article is to present results of qualitative analysis – 5 models of the image of grandparents which includes: situations which show grandparents, activities performed by them and their relationship with the child. This research shows that the selected children`s books present only a positive image of women and men in the role of grandparents. A common topic is the problem of old people dying. The role of both grandmothers and grandfathers have been show as stereotypical as well as modern, too. The adopted grandmother/grandfather model proved to be particularly popular.

Review: Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape, by Francesca Russello Ammon

Francesca Russello Ammon Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2016, 400 pp., 70 b/w illus. $45 (cloth), ISBN 9780300200683 Narratives regarding the built environment of the post–World War II United States often emphasize the effects of clearance and the repercussions of urban, or suburban, “renewal.” In Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape , Francesca Russello Ammon directs our attention to the act of clearance itself, both in the United States and abroad, focusing on the companies that benefited from demolition, the writers and artists who depicted changes on the land, and the machines that carried out the process. Ammon's protagonist in this story is the bulldozer: a powerful, relentless piece of motorized metal whose blades carved into untrammeled nature and plowed into existing urban landscapes, providing a sense of “progress” in the American imagination while exacting a staggering toll on the environment—and the mind. Friendly, smiling bulldozers may have graced the pages of several popular postwar children's books, but Ammon reminds us that the reality of demolition and clearance was not exactly the stuff of quiet bedtime reading. A wartime image of a menacing army of crawler tractors outfitted with bulldozer blades awaiting shipment to the Pacific battlefront greets the reader on Ammon's dust jacket and in the first chapter. A chilling photograph of young Presbyterian minister Bruce Klunder lying motionless after being crushed by a bulldozer during a 1964 protest against school segregation in Cleveland, Ohio, marks the book's concluding section. With some exceptions, the machines of modern renewal appear here as destructive, divisive, discriminatory, and demonic. They did not always seem so. Ammon tells a story that also underscores the pride Americans felt regarding the nation's engineering know-how and its ability to produce machines that could maneuver deftly through crumbling cities and across inhospitable landscapes, just as they did abroad during the war. She demonstrates …

Популярные детские шутки и загадки, эксплуатирующие имена известных личностей

Популярные детские шутки и загадки, эксплуатирующие имена известных личностей

The current landscape of US children’s television: violent, prosocial, educational, and fantastical content

ABSTRACTThe present study examined currently popular children’s television shows to determine the prevalence of violent, prosocial, educational, and fantastical content (including fantastical events and anthropomorphism). Network, style, and content ratings were collected for 88 shows using a combination of Common Sense Media and laboratory ratings applied to two randomly-selected episodes of each show. Overall, currently popular children’s television shows were most often animated and contained little violent, prosocial, or educational content, but a great deal of fantastical content. Interrelations among variables were also examined. Shows with fantastical events were both more violent and more prosocial than shows without, and shows with anthropomorphism were more prosocial than shows without. The network on which a show aired predicted violent, prosocial, and educational content, but not fantastical content. Children’s television today is not as violent as might be believed, but nor is it particularly prosocial or educational. It is highly fantastical. The implications of the landscape for children’s behavior, learning, and cognition are discussed.

Time Spent Gaming and Social Competence in Children: Reciprocal Effects Across Childhood.

Electronic games are popular and many children spend much time on this activity. Here we investigate whether the quantity of time children spend on gaming is related to their social development, making this the first study to examine this relationship in children. We examine prospective relations between time spent gaming and social competence in a community sample of Norwegian 6year olds (n=873) followed up at ages 8, 10, and 12, controlling for socioeconomic status, body mass index, and time spent gaming together with friends. Results revealed that greater social competence at both 8 and 10years predicted less gaming 2years later and that more age-10 gaming predicted less social competence at age 12 but only among girls.

Popular practices in child care: mothers’ perceptions

Objective: to describe the perception of mothers about the use of popular child care practices in the home. Methods: qualitative research, performed with ten mothers of children up to two years old. Data were collected through interviews in a primary health care unit, which were recorded and submitted to content analysis. Results: three categories emerged from the analysis of the discourse: 1) Family roles in child care; 2) Popular practices as a family culture in child care; and 3) The belief in healing spells as a resource in popular practice. Conclusion: the use of popular practices remains strong in the social and cultural context of families, and is especially influenced by grandmothers. Thus, there is a need for instrumentation of the health team for the good use of these practices in favor of the promotion of child health and recognition of nursing in its professional practice.Descript

Fidget spinners: most popular children's toys,same dangers as in the past...

Introduction: Fidget spinners are small rotating toys with a central disc and three tips. They are currently one of the most popular children’s toys.Case report: The case of a seven-year-old child admitted to the Emergency Department of the local hospital due to epigastric pain following ingestion of a fidget spinner component is described. Due to presence of a foreign body in the digestive tract, an upper digestive endoscopy (EDA) was performed, and the foreign body identified in the distal esophagus was removed without complications.Discussion/Conclusion: Although these are adequately sized toys, fidget spinners can easily be dismantled by children, allowing easy access to its components. Some units have LED lights with lithium batteries and esophageal ulcers have been described only a few hours after their ingestion. With this report, the authors aim to advise Pediatricians to actively alert parents to the potential risks of a seemingly innocent toy, based on a real case.

Musique à la Mode: Francis Poulenc’s Histoire de Babar and the Rebirth of “Lifestyle Modernism”

ABSTRACTFrancis Poulenc’s Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (1940–45) is among his most charming and least studied works. Based on the popular children’s book by Jean de Brunhoff, the work was composed on the eve of World War II for solo piano and narrator, and later orchestrated by Jean Françaix in 1961. It is a potent example of Lynn Garafola’s concept of “lifestyle modernism,” an “art of the sophisticated commonplace” first associated with Satie’s Sports et divertissements (1914) and Parade (1917), a style that most scholars have declared defunct post-Parade. Instead, Babar can be viewed as a reflection of the continuation and expansion of the trend through its glorification of the leisure activities of the French upper class. The music combines Les Six-era frivolity with previously unrecognized allusions to music by Chopin, Satie, and Stravinsky, reflecting the composer’s longstanding approach to quotation and allusion.

Comparing Complex Syntax Across Popular Children's Television Shows

Studies indicate that certain television shows, such as Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, can positively impact a child’s thinking and social skills (Mares and Pan, 2015; Rasmussen, 2016). This study considers syntactic content of popular children’s television shows to make predictions of their underlying linguistic value. Therefore, the research questions are: Does Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood have more complex syntactic utterances than Paw Patrol? Does the number of mental state verbs used correlate with complex syntax? Results indicate that Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood consistently uses more complex syntax and mental state verbs than Paw Patrol, and that mental state verb use does significantly correlate with complex syntax. Implications for child language learning are discussed.