In this chapter, we argue that deeper insight into the social nature of self-development can be gained by adopting a dual focus on social relationships and meaning making. A key challenge for future scholarship will be to investigate the role of semiotic mediation in self-construction during the early years of life.

The author describes internal working models as unique, individualized conceptualizations of self that are embedded in and influenced by the surrounding sociocultural environment. These models, composed of beliefs, goals, and strategies, provide a framework that defines identity. Distorted, damaged, or self-defeating internal working models fail…

This article presents an emergent conceptual model of childhood adultification and economic disadvantage derived from 5 longitudinal ethnographies of children and adolescents growing up in low-income families. Childhood adultification involves contextual, social, and developmental processes in which youth are prematurely, and often…

This study examined characteristics of human figures representing the self as drawn by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds and the presence of age or gender differences. A total of 150 children who were selected randomly from day care centers drew themselves on paper with crayons. There were equal numbers of boys and girls in each age group. Human figure…

This study investigated the long-term stability of the nine temperament subcategories which underlie the Thomas and Chess temperament clusters. A homogeneous sample of 55 children and parents was recruited (26 remained at the final data collection interval) and parents provided questionnaire responses on their child's temperament at 2, 4, 6, 18,…

Findings of the study resubstantiate earlier results: a) mother's self-concept measures are related to children's self-concept measures, and b) mother's self-concept measures at the beginning of the school year are related to change in children's self-concept measures over the course of the school year as well as to latter's end-of-school-year…

Dialogics as a philosophical principle is, like the dialectics predominant at present in all industrialized countries, based on the duality of life and thought. Dialogics postulates that two thoughts, or two aspirations, or two concepts together make up a whole, simultaneously, each being of equal importance. Play is a dialogic of doing and…

Considered current attitudes toward education and how teachers fit into the picture. (RK)

Studies of child-rearing practices have consistently shown that the degree of physical punishment used by parents is positively correlated with various forms of psychopathology and negatively related to conscience development. One explanation of these findings has to do with modeling; the child learns by example that aggressiveness toward those of…

This book discusses the moral development theories of Piaget and Kohlberg and presents practical applications of these theories for teachers and parents. The author's purpose in writing the book is to present an exposition of the work of these men to the general reading public. Chapter titles are Introduction to Developmental Theories, presenting…

This is a short assessment outline for use by non-clinicians in evaluating the development of young children. It usually requires 20-30 minutes to assess one child. It may be used periodically to evaluate changes, as a year-end summary, or as a means of communicating with others who have contacts with the child. Sections of the assessment deal…

Research to date has provided too few answers for vital educational questions concerning teaching children or letting them learn. A basic problem is that experimentation usually begins by accepting conventional assumptions about schooling, ignoring experiments that would entail disturbing the ordering of current educational priorities.…

This article discusses Erickson's eight stages of man (each describing an emotional tension between two basic types of elements), how they parallel Piaget's model, how Erikson's work can influence educational practice in general and especially how Erickson's theory of identity should affect teacher-student relationships. (JA)