James D. Laney

Child and Adolescent Knowledge and Attitudes about Older Adults across Time and States.

The original Palmores Facts on Aging Quiz was modified and presented to 954 elementary, middle, and high school students (grades 3, 6, 9, 12) in West Virginia and Texas. Three separate experiments were summarized involving the Child Adolescent Facts on Aging Quiz (CAFAQ). Similar student responses on number of correct items and bias were noted in 1983 and 1998. Adolescents showed positive bias, but elementary school children showed negative bias toward older adults. Female adolescents tended to show more positive bias than male adolescents. With regard to ethnicity, White adolescents answered more correct items than Hispanic adolescent students. Hispanic adolescents tended to show more negative bias than White or Black adolescent students. No relationship between weekly contact with an older adult and accuracy or bias was observed.

Experiential Versus Experience-Based Learning and Instruction

Abstract This study tested claims about the superiority of experience-based over experiential approaches to teaching economic concepts. Students were randomly assigned to three groups–experience-dictation, experience-debriefing, and debriefing-only. At pretest and posttest, students were interviewed to probe their understanding of 10 basic economic concepts and to determine their proclivity to use the concept of cost-benefit analysis in a personal decision-making situation. Planned comparisons revealed the following statistically significant differences on the understanding-of-economic-concepts posttest: (a) the combined means of the experience-debriefing and debriefing-only groups were higher than the mean of the experience-dictation group and (b) the mean of the experience-debriefing group was higher than the mean of the debriefing-only group. No significant differences were found between groups on the use-of-cost benefit analysis measure. Overall, the findings support the superiority of experience-base...

This Land Was Made for You and Me: Teaching for Economic Justice in Upper Elementary and Middle School Grades

ABSTRACT Teaching for economic justice can be challenging for upper elementary and middle school teachers. Many teachers may feel uncomfortable with the subject matter and thus avoid addressing sensitive social issues related to economic/financial inequities. This article describes how selected songs and works of visual art, expressions of social protest and social commentary from past and present, can be used appropriately as starting points for introducing the concept of economic justice. By using principles and strategies of Discipline-Based Arts Education (DBAE) and employing works of art as organizing centers for instruction, potentially sensitive social issues are simultaneously personalized and depersonalized. Music and art provide a relatively safe and comfortable means for teachers to promote student awareness and sensitivity towards economic injustices. Two sample lesson plans, the first for upper elementary students and the second for middle school students, are provided and discussed.

Experience- and Concept-Label-Type Effects on First-Graders' Learning, Retention of Economic Concepts.

AbstractThe problem of this study was to determine the effect of experience-type teaching (real life vs. vicarious) and concept-label-type teaching (invented vs. conventional) on first graders’ understanding of opportunity cost and recall of the concept label that they were taught. I used 2x2 (Experience Type x Concept Label Type) factorial design with immediate and delayed posttests. Data analysis revealed a significant main effect for experience type with respect to students’ conceptual understanding at delayed posttest. Results favored real-life experience groups over vicarious experience groups, regardless of the type of concept label that they were taught. Among students exposed to the same experience type (real life or vicarious), the teaching/learning of an invented concept label appeared to promote long-term understanding of the concept better than the teaching/learning of the conventional concept label. In addition, the teaching/learning of an invented concept label better aided the long-term rec...

A Critically Compassionate Approach to Financial Literacy

A Critically Compassionate Approach to Financial Literacy offers a unique approach to conceptualizing financial literacy. Differentiating between notions of financial worth and personal self-worth, the authors present a description of financial literacy tenets founded in principles of self-awareness and cooperative community that are rooted in principles of compassion. Basing their work on principles of psychological and archeological research that associates personal wellness with self-security based on principles of trust, the authors posit that personal fulfillment occurs independently of accumulated financial resources.

Can Economic Concepts Be Learned and Remembered: A Comparison of Elementary Students

AbstractThis study compared the learning and retention of the scarcity and opportunity cost concepts by students in Grades 1, 3, and 6. All students experienced concept lessons and completed immediate and delayed posttests on their understanding of the concepts. Data from posttests and planned comparisons indicated that both concepts were learned and retained at a high level of mastery by third- and sixth-grade students. First-grade students initially learned both concepts at a high level of mastery, although retention was more problematic for them, especially with respect to opportunity cost. All students experienced more difficulty generating original stories and pictures related to opportunity cost as opposed to scarcity; generating capacity increased with grade level. A majority of students in Grades 3 and 6 remembered the scarcity label, whereas they forgot the opportunity cost label. A majority of first-grade students forgot both labels, but scarcity was remembered better than opportunity cost. Resu...

Credit and Debt

Reflect on the five groups of 20 individuals that received different amounts of income described at the outset of Chapter 2. They control different sums of money from each other, which provide them with different amounts of access to various resources. The amounts of wealth that people experience may shape their outlooks on life and their reasoning about life contexts.

Dimensions of Citizenship through the Lens of The Hunger Games: Fiction and the Visual and Performing Arts as Springboards for Citizenship Education

The authors take an interdisciplinary approach to frame current conceptions of citizenship and practices of citizenship education. Using the popular young adult novel The Hunger Games (Collins 2008) as a basis for learning, they discuss theories of teaching and learning about citizenship through multiliteracies and art to explore the challenges associated with teaching citizenship as a complex, multidimensioned construct. They also describe the benefits of drawing on literature, visual art, and dramatic art to prompt learning about difficult social concepts. Finally, they provide a hypothetical example of a social studies miniunit involving popular literature (The Hunger Games), visual art, and dramatic art. Elements of the unit have been employed in their work with preservice teachers.

Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series: Art as Narrative History

Because art is a reflection of cultural heritage, a natural affinity exists between art and social studies. In Jacob Lawrences The Migration Series, art serves as narrative history, with visual images telling the story of the Great Migration, a movement of African American people from the South to the North around World War I. Social studies and the arts can be effectively integrated using principles of discipline-based arts education and comprehensive arts education. In this article, the author provides (1) background information on the historical period, artist, and art, (2) objectives, (3) sample guided discussion questions and extension activities, and (4) sample assessment ideas. He also outlines a complete sample lesson, synthesizing the principles and ideas into a meaningful whole in which social studies studies enhances teaching and learning in the arts and vice versa.

The Nature of Financial Literacy

One may interpret financial literacy as the ability to understand and apply the processes and tools associated with personal finances. It may be construed in one of two manners, thin and thick. From a thin (conventional) perspective, one interprets financial literacy as how one acquires, manages, and accumulates money for personal use. Understood in this vein, financial literacy involves a focus on money as a tool for accomplishing one’s own life goals.