In these politically charged times of early literacy initiatives, position statements, and education reform, talk about play and literacy learning seems rather awkward, if not even a bit silly. As the realities of early literacy education set in, teachers, legislators, and parents grow ever more critical of what young children are doing as…

A cross-sectional study examined age differences in children's conceptions of early U.S. history. Students in grades 2, 3, 6, and 8 (n=281) were asked to respond to a question about how the United States became a country. Their essays show significant changes with age. Older students were more likely to include errors of historical fact in their…

Ethical development was investigated in a cross-cultural context by examining both the cognitive structure of ethical reasoning and the content of perceived moral norms in black Carib boys of British Honduras in the framework of stage theory. (Author/JM)

Synpractic and social language, differentation, categorization, and constructive alternativism can be encouraged through instruction in creative dramatics. (CH)

Reports the results of a study that indicate that junior and senior high school science students are penalized (by receiving lower grades) for not being able to think at the formal operational level. Outlines some methods that may be used to facilitate growth in cognitive development of students. (JR)

Tests the hypothesis that teachers can learn about and use a psychological curriculum without extensive prior study of psychology, and that students will show gain in depth of self-perception and higher levels of psychological maturity. (Author/RP)

After attending a rural compensatory preschool for 5 half days a week over 1 year, Australian aboriginal and white disadvantaged children, 5 to 6 years of age, showed substantial gains on tests of vocabulary, auditory association, grammtic closure, and operational thinking, and were later assessed in a followup study. (Author/MC)

An overview and analysis of the use of learning hierarchies in instruction and research, examines some current research on learning hierarchies, and considers the implications of this research for instructional psychology and for theories of cognitive development. (Author)

Preschool children in a free-play situation experienced one of two training sequences: saying then doing, or doing then saying. The effect of training on the development of a correspondence between children's verbal and nonverbal behaviors was examined. The say-do sequence produced higher levels of correspondence. (ST)

Ten- and 11-year-old boys and girls were taught to solve Inhelder and Piaget's pendulum problem and the results of the experiment replicated their expectation that unaided 10- and 11-year-olds do not often solve the pendulum problem. (Editor/RK)

Author suggests that variations in the functioning of imagination result in variations in mental aptitudes and expressions and expressions, and these variations serve as a guide, according to which the scope of an individual mind may be recognized. (Author/RK)

A four choice discrimination problem was used to examine imitative behavior in children matched in mental age but differing in chronological age. The finding that older children imitated less than younger children is discussed in terms of socialization. (DP)

Discusses the cognitive consequences of education, and reviews evidence which supports the hypothesis that differences in the social organization of education promote differences in the organization of learning and thinking skills in the individual. Proposes that new accommodations are needed between school-based learning and learning experiences…