The words "behaviour" and "resistance" often conjure up fear-invoking images that prevent us from reflecting on what it is that we, as educators, understand behaviour to mean. In this article, we use resistance theory to rethink behaviour as communication by counter-storying one observation of resistance involving children and…

Much of the history of philosophy has deployed the metaphor of sight over and above language of tactility and feeling. The body, the flesh, the hands and feet are seen as impediments to reason's upward journey towards the pure "light" of truth. But it is precisely these tactile points of contact with the world where knowledge and action begins and…

This article had four goals. First, the authors identified a set of general challenges and questions that a life-span theory of development should address. Second, they presented a comprehensive account of their Motivational Theory of Life-Span Development. They integrated the model of optimization in primary and secondary control and the…

An ecological method was used to assess the patterns of goal-directed behaviors of eight children with autism and eight chronological and mental age comparable children with Down syndrome. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative behavior coding indicated that children with autism exhibited shorter and less overlapping goal-directed behaviors,…

A discussion on the rights of children both within the legal structure of society and in the family are discussed. The position is taken that children have the right to be responsible for their own actions, the right to internalize control over their own behavior. It is also contended that under the conditions of freedom, choice, and contingent…

Three experiments explored the conditions under which inductive inferences about people were made by children and adults. Results indicated that children often predicted that people would behave differently in the future than they did in the past. Younger children limited predictions of consistency to non-psychological events. Older children…

This paper examines the selection and influence of friends in schools which differ in the degree of "openness" in the instructional program. Data collected from over 4,000 students in grades 5, 6, 8, and 11 in 1973 and 1974 provide information on student characteristics, school structure and processes, and academic and affective outcomes for…