Examining the dimensionality of oral discourse language skills in early childhood is crucial in informing theories of language and literacy development. This study examined the factor structure of linguistic and discourse features in oral text production for second graders. A total of 330 English-speaking second graders (M[subscript age] = 7.33,…

Examining the dimensionality of oral discourse language skills in early childhood is crucial in informing theories of language and literacy development. This study examined the factor structure of linguistic and discourse features in oral text production for second graders. A total of 330 English-speaking second graders (M[subscript age]= 7.33,…

This article discusses classroom conditions that support the co-creation of dialogic space--where our different ideas and perspectives are in conversation with others such that we might take in what other people are saying and be open to it affecting our thinking. Drawing on ethnographic case study data, we provide context to illustrate ways this…

Using Border Pedagogy (Giroux, H. 2005. "Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education." New York, NY: Routledge.) as a guiding lens, this study examines the third-grade Korean American students' responses to multicultural children's literature that illustrates different kinds of borders (i.e. racial, religious,…

Diverse children's literature can support understandings of our world as culturally, linguistically, and socially rich. It can cultivate empathy and understanding, and open a dialogic space of possibilities. In this article, we examine how "purposefully selected" children's literature prepares needed conditions for dialogic space:…

This article explores the potential for engaging 7 and 8-year-old school pupils in performative literature interpretation through process drama. Inspired by new materialism and affect theory, we focus on how literature interpretations come into being in dramatic fiction, and on how these becoming interpretations merge with the classroom. The study…

Research Findings: In order to investigate the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on preschooler's social-emotional learning skills, the present pre-post test pilot study assessed prosocial behavior, self-regulation and perspective taking in 21 preschool children, randomly assigned either to the experimental or the control group. Children…

In multicultural education, empathy has been regarded as an essential teacher disposition that enables teachers to better understand culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students through perspective-taking. However, less is known about the mechanism that underlies how empathy fosters teachers' competence in supporting CLD students, i.e.,…

Relatively few studies have directly examined children's memory of object-based spatial structure of room-sized environments. The current study investigated how children remember the spatial structure of a room, and the role of pictorial working memory (WM) and different testing perspectives in this process. In Experiment 1, 80 children aged 5 to…

As diversity grows in schools, educators must consider how to create environments where students develop respect and empathy toward others. Integrating high quality multicultural literature provides meaningful experiences for students to investigate society and acknowledge and interrogate their own beliefs and biases. While many teachers…

The authors illustrate how using design thinking allows learners to empathize with the perspectives of others, engage in collaborative problem-solving, practice communicating effectively, and respond to struggle or failure throughout the process.

Research Findings: This study explored the developmental pattern, latent profiles of young children's sympathy development, and the associated family factors. Altogether 1408 Shanghai parents completed the Children's Sympathy Assessment Scale-Parents (CSAS-P). The descriptive results indicated an age-related increase in sympathy and a significant…

This article furthers pedagogical knowledge on educating children about their human rights, specifically in school contexts, with the aim of elucidating the features and the collateral learning of educative situations through which children are supported to grow as rights-holders. The data, obtained from fieldwork in three Year 1 classes in…

Performance on a range of spatial and mathematics tasks was measured in a sample of 1592 students in kindergarten, third grade, and sixth grade. In a previously published analysis of these data, performance was analyzed by grade only. In the present analyses, we examined whether the relations between spatial skill and mathematics skill differed…

A core element of systems thinking is perspective taking. Perspectives help people distinguish between salient and irrelevant information, take particular types of actions, and make sense of the world. In this article, we consider what systems thinking and perspective taking means for designers in education. First, we present a framework,…