Carolyn Pope Edwards

Young Children’s Concepts of Social Relations: Social Functions and Social Objects

As a consequence of the growing interest in social development, there has been a recent increase in concern for considering the social network of young children, both from the perspective of what children and infants actually do as well as what they believe. Although most emphasis has been placed on the mother-child relationship, it has recently become clear that even during infancy, children enthusiastically interact with a variety of people in their environments. Moreover, children’s initiations and responses to the different people—for example, to mothers, fathers, strange adults, or brothers or sisters, and younger, older and same-age peers_become patterned early in life (see, for example, Lewis, Young, Brooks, & Michalson, 1975). Clearly, almost all young children form lasting relationships with people besides their primary caretakers and make distinctions between people, which has the consequence of allowing them to vary their behavior toward a wide array of people, both those who are familiar as well as those who are strangers. Unfortunately, not much is known about the overall organization of these social relationships of young children. There are at least two different ways of understanding that organization. The first way is from a systems perspective, that is, analyzing the structure and operation of the networks in which the children are involved.

The development of an understanding of balance and the effect of training via stop-action video☆

Childrens rule-governed, scientific reasoning in relation to the physical principles involved in balance has been studied by many, for example, Inhelder and Piaget (1958), Karmiloff-Smith and Inhelder (1974), as well as Siegler (1978). Although Siegler criticized the Genevan research on both methodological and conceptual grounds, his work can be criticized for being narrow in scope thus making his data a result of his task and design, rather than a true representation of the rules children employ naturally as they develop an understanding of balance. The work described herein is an attempt to integrate the methodologies of the Piagetian School and Siegler by making use of current video technology to naturalistically assess childrens rule-governed behaviors but to also empirically validate them. The first part of this study (N=128, ages 4-9 years) used video to microanalytically assess the strategies children used as they attempted to balance a set of symmetrical, asymmetrical, and weighted blocks on a fulcrum. After validating on ordinal progression of strategies, the study used stop-action video feedback, in a predict-consequence paradigm, to focus reflection on (a) the action of the block, (b) the placement of the block, and (c) the episode in general. A two-way interaction between entering level and type of video feedback was significant. The results are interpreted in terms of Piagets theory of equilibration suggesting that reflection and cognitive conflict can improve understanding if the child assimilates the feedback to the confirmation or refutation of an initial assimilatory scheme regarding balance.

THE EFFECTS OF DAY CARE PARTICIPATION ON PARENT-INFANT INTERACTION AT HOME

This study assessed how parents who placed their children in a model infant and toddler center were, over time, influenced by three salient features of the center: its child-centered focus, its social orientation, and its support for men in nurturing roles.