Barbara Tizard

A Comparison of The Effects of Adoption, Restoration to the Natural Mother, and Continued Institutionalization on the Cognitive Development of Four-Year-Old Children.

TIZARD, BARBARA, and REEs, JUDITH. A Comparison of the Effects of Adoption, Restoration to the Natural Mother, and Continued Institutionalization on the Cognitive Development of FourYear-Old Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 92-99. 65 children aged 41 years who had spent their first 2-4 years in institutions were tested, and an assessment was made of their behavior in the test situation. 24 of the children had been adopted and 15 restored to their natural mothers at a mean age of 3 years; the remaining 26 were still in institutions. The mean WIPPSI IQs of all groups were at least average; the adopted children had significantly higher IQs, were initially more friendly, and were less restless and distractible than the other children. The findings are discussed in relation to the concept of institutional deprivation.

Black identity and transracial adoption

Much of the opposition to transracial adoption depends on unvalidated assumptions about the identity of black and mixed race children living with their own families. We know little, however, about the ways in which these families help their children to cope with racism. Research moreover suggests that young black children often have a negative view of their racial identity. On the other hand, research also shows that black adolescents tend to have high self-esteem. Self-esteem and racial identity may derive from different contexts and relationships, and a negative attitude to ones race may not necessarily be associated with low self-esteem. Further, the concept of a ‘positive black identity’ requires critical analysis, since each of its three constituent terms is problematic. Social identities are complex phenomena, and the ways in which people perceive and think about themselves often fail to correspond to prescribed pigeonholes. This is evident, for example, in the growing number of children of mixed parentage who see themselves as having a separate identity, distinct from both black or white groups. Transracially adopted children are likely to have a different identity from that of children growing up in a black family, but we argue that there are not yet well-grounded reasons for believing that the practice is damaging to children.

Thinking through class: The place of social class in the lives of young Londoners

Current debates about the utility of the concept of social class for social analysis have been helpful in illuminating the shortcomings of traditional theories and traditional methods of assessment of social class. Yet, social class continues to have an important impact on life chances and worldviews. This article uses data from an interview study of 248 young Londoners (young women and men; black, white and of `mixed-parentage) to examine the place of social class in young peoples lives. The young peoples accounts indicated that they did not necessarily use occupational groupings in defining social class and that the majority considered themselves to be middle class. Nonetheless, social class was important to the ways in which they thought about themselves. They differentiated themselves from others on the basis of differences in lifestyle, housing, money, speech, dress and behaviour. Some disliked and/or feared people they considered to be from other social classes.

Educational Achievement in the Infant School: The Influence of Ethnic Origin, Gender and Home on Entry Skills.

Summary Existing research evidence on the educational achievement of children from different ethnic groups begins when children are at junior school at seven years of age. These results are difficult to interpret without knowledge about educational achievement at the earliest stages of schooling. In this paper results are reported on the literacy and numeracy skills of a sample of black and white UK children just prior to entry into 33 ILEA infant schools. There were few differences in childrens test scores attributable to ethnic origin, indicating that in this sample later ethnic differences–should they occur ‐cannot be explained by skills on entry. Girls had higher test scores than boys, but variation in test scores was more attributable to parental teaching of literacy and numeracy at home and mothers’ educational achievement. These results are from the first stage of an ESRC‐funded longitudinal study of childrens progress in infant school in relation to ethnic origin, gender, the influence of parent...

A comparison of the views of parents and reception teachers

Parents and teachers have different perspectives on starting school. This adaptation of a paper presented to the British Psychological Societys London Conference, 1983 describes research funded by the ESRC as part of its grant to the Thomas Coram Research Unit. The study was carried out in Inner London Education Authority schools, and the authors would like to thank the staff and pupils of these schools, the childrens parents, and members of the ILEA Research and Statistics Department for their cooperation.