Wolfgang Edelstein

A Longitudinal Study of the Relation between Representations of Attachment in Childhood and Cognitive Functioning in Childhood and Adolescence.

Eighty-five Icelandic children (41 girls and 44 boys) participated in a study on the relations among attachment representations, self-confidence, and cognitive functioning in childhood and adolescence. Attachment representations and self-confidence were assessed at age 7 on the basis of childrens responses to a separation story and observations made by independent observers. Cognitive functioning was measured at ages 7, 9, 12, 15, and 17 years based on a battery of Piagetian tasks assessing concrete and formal reasoning. Children with a secure attachment representation were favored in their cognitive performance in childhood and adolescence. Children with an insecure-disorganized attachment representation were particularly disadvantaged on deductive reasoning tasks. Self-confidence played a significant but varying role in mediating the effects of attachment representations on cognitive functioning

The relation of childhood personality types to adolescent behavior and development : A longitudinal study of Icelandic children

The relation of childhood personality types, or configurations of personality traits, to adolescent development was examined. Three personality types were identified in an inverse factor analysis of California Child Q-Sort data on 128 Icelandic 7-year-olds: resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled. Growth curve analyses demonstrated that in comparison to children of the other 2 types, children of the resilient personality type had higher levels of academic achievement and lower levels of concentration problems throughout adolescence; resilient children also developed sophisticated friendship reasoning and an internal locus of control more quickly. Children of the overcontrolled type were found to be more prone to social withdrawal and low levels of self-esteem during adolescence than children of the other 2 types. In contrast to the other 2 types, children classified as undercontrolled showed an increase in aggressive behavior in adolescence. Implications of the findings for research on personality development are discussed.

Reasoning about responsibilities and obligations in close relationships : A comparison across two cultures

The study compares sociomoral reasoning of children and adolescents in Iceland, longitudinally assessed at ages 7, 9, 12, and 15 years (N = 97), and in China, cross-sectionally assessed at corresponding ages (N = 350). Participants reasoned about choices, motives, and moral justifications of a protagonist in a sociomoral dilemma. The dilemma allows persons to focus on different concerns (e.g., promise keeping or close friendship vs. self-interest or altruism toward a 3rd person). Overall, Icelandic participants referred more often to self-interest and contractual concerns, whereas Chinese participants focused on altruistic and relationship concerns. However, some cultural differences remained stable over time, whereas others decreased. In adolescence, close friendship became an equally important value in both cultures. The results indicate a complex interaction of culture and development in sociomoral reasoning.

Childhood personality influences on social-cognitive development: A longitudinal study

The relation of childhood personality to the development of friendship understanding and moral judgment in adolescence was considered in a longitudinal study. Personality at age 7, assessed with the California Child Q-Set, was characterized in terms of ego-resiliency and ego-control. IQ and social class were also measured. Friendship understanding was assessed when the participants were ages 7, 9, 12, 15, and 19, and moral judgment was elicited when the participants were 12, 15, and 19. Ego-resiliency was found to predict social-cognitive development in adolescence, even after the effects of IQ and childhood measures of social-cognitive development were controlled for. Analyses indicate that the effects of ego-resiliency on social-cognitive development are largely unmediated by the ability to focus attention or by social participation.

Reasoning about moral obligations and interpersonal responsibilities in different cultural contexts

The focus of our research is the development of the understanding of moral obligations and interpersonal responsibilities in a cross-cultural context. Friendship and parent‐child relations were selected as two types of relationships which are especially important in the process of development and socialization in which the meaning of obligations and responsibilities is learned. The socio-cultural contexts of a Western culture (Iceland) and an Asian culture (mainland China) represent two different cultural settings for development and socialization of the understanding of obligations and responsibilities in relationships. A developmental framework in which persons from both cultures are compared at different ages seems particularly well suited to pursue the question whether similarities or differences between persons from the two cultures occur and whether they are stable or vary in the time period from childhood to adolescence. In the following we shall first discuss theoretical aspects of this research and then outline some of the questions guiding the empirical research.

Regulatory Structures of the Self and ‘Postformal’ Stages in Adulthood

This paper outlines a theoretical approach to the problem of adult development beyond Piagetian formal operations and Kohlberg’s principled moral reasoning. Regulatory structures of the self are viewed as a higher order structure d’ensemble enabling the subject to operate adequately on reality. Higher order functioning is characterized by acceptance of contradiction and principled relativism simultaneously with the imperatives of truth in propositional contexts, truthfulness in interactions, and consistency in the self’s operations. Inability to function at both principled and contextually adequate levels produces defensive distortions of reality and thus regression below competence.

The Relationship of Self-Understanding in Childhood to Social Class, Community Type, and Teacher-Rated Intellectual and Social Competence

The relationship of childrens self-understanding to social class, community type (modem vs. traditional), and ratings made by teachers was investigated in Iceland. Subjects were seventy-three 12-year-olds in Reykjavik, distributed evenly across six social classes, and twenty-one 12-year-olds primarily from families in the lowest two social classes residing in two traditional rural communities. In clinical-developmental interviews, the children were asked to describe themselves. Responses were assigned to one of four content categories: physical (appearance and possessions), active (abilities and activities), social (social personality and relationships), or psychological (thoughts and feelings). Classroom teachers also rated children on scales of intellectual and social competence. As predicted, the results indicate that children in the higher social classes offered more psychological descriptors than those in the lower social classes. Children rated as intellectually and socially competent by their teachers described themselves more often in social terms. There was little evidence for an independent effect of community type on configurations of content in self-understanding.

Bildungsvererbung und Gesundheit in einer sich modernisierenden Gesellschaft

In diesem Aufsatz wird der Einflus psychischer Gesundheit auf die intergenerationale Transmission von Bildung untersucht. Dazu wird auf eine DreiGenerationen-Studie in Island zuruckgegriffen. Diese Studie verbindet zwei — bisher in der Bildungs- und Gesundheitsforschung getrennt analysierte — Aspekte der Bildungsvererbung: die soziale Selektion von Bildung und die Rolle psycho-sozialer Merkmale der Person in diesem Prozes. Die Zusammenhange von Herkunftsschicht und Gesundheit der Kinder und von Herkunftsschicht und Bildungschancen der Kinder wurden mit der Studie bereits nachgewiesen (Bjornsson 1974; Bjornsson/Edelstein/Kreppner 1977; Thorlindson 1988). Im Gegensatz zu fruheren Auswertungen werden wir aber die multivariaten Beziehungen zwischen der Gesundheit der Kinder und mehreren Merkmalen der Herkunftsfamilie analysieren und auserdem der offenen Frage des Einflusses der Gesundheit auf den Bildungserfolg nachgehen. Vor allem wollen wir wissen, ob schichtspezifische Unterschiede in der psychischen Gesundheit bei der Erklarung der unterschiedlichen Bildungschancen von Kindern aus verschiedenen Herkunftsschichten eine Rolle spielen. Dies ist aus mehreren Grunden relevant. Die Bildungsforschung zeigt, das nur ein Teil der Varianz des Bildungserfolgs aufgeklart werden kann, selbst wenn viele Merkmale der Herkunftsfamilien, der Kinder und der Schulumgebung berucksichtigt werden. Wichtiger noch erscheint, das individuelle und familiare Merkmale auch mir einen Teil des Zusammenhangs von Herkunftsschicht und Bildung der Kinder erklaren.

The rise and fall of the Social Science Curriculum Project in Iceland, 1974‐1984: Reflections on reason and power in educational progress

AUTHOR Edelstein, Wolfgang TITLE The Rise and Fall of the Social Science Curriculum Project in Iceland, 1974-84: Reflections on Reason and Power in Educational Progress. INSTITUTION Max-Planck-Institut fuer Bildungsforschung, Berlin (West Germany). PUB DATE Jun 85 NOTE 61p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (69th, Chicago, IL, March 31-April 4, 1985). PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive (141) -Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

From substages to moral types and beyond : An analysis of core criteria for morally autonomous judgements

Based on Kohlberg’s typological distinction between heteronomous versus autonomous moral types (Type A vs. B), the study proposes a refined strategy for the assessment of autonomous morality that aims at overcoming methodological ‘aws of Kohlberg’s typological approach. Theoretically, two conceptually crucial criteria of autonomous morality were distinguished: (1) prescriptiveness; and (2) universality of moral reasoning. Empirically, measures of prescriptiveness and universality of moral reasoning were examined to determine whether or not they yield important empirical findings that were associated with the concept of moral types. In a study of 348 German adolescents from grades 9 and 12, both prescriptive and universalised moral reasoning were assessed by two standard probe questions of the Moral Judgment Interview. Both aspects of moral reasoning predicted readiness to take moral responsibility in the context of sociopolitical action. In addition, both measures were moderately correlated with moral stage, largely independent of SES, and unrelated to gender. There was significant longitudinal change towards prescriptive and universalised moral reasoning over a three-year interval. The findings demonstrate that the construct validity of Kohlberg’s approach to the assessment of autonomous morality can be significantly improved by using measures of the prescriptiveness and universality of moral reasoning.