Recess beckons well before it actually arrives. Its allure can be heard in children's lunchtime conversations as they discuss imaginary roles, plans, alliances and teams, with an obvious appetite for play and its unbounded possibility. For some children, recess provides the most important reasons to come to school. In team sports, games of chase…

"Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" is the authoritative source for accurate and relevant information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the structure, finances, and performance of education systems in the OECD's 34 member countries, as well as a number of non-member G20 nations. Featuring more than 140…

"The Challenge", a publication of the US Department of Education's office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, provides critical information and resources to assist schools in creating safe and healthy environments for young people. Topics of interest in this issue area: (1) Safe Schools: Academic Success Depends on It; (2) Educating the Whole Child;…

Educators of young children know how important children's social and emotional development is, not only in terms of developing empathy, compassion, friendships, confidence and the like, but also as an essential component of cognitive growth. As children gain skills in the social/emotional domain, they build language and problem-solving skills, as…

Over the last 15 years, the role of emotions in children's peer relations has received greater attention. The purpose of the meta-analytic review was to determine the magnitude of the relation between negative emotionality (NE) and positive emotionality (PE) and social status. Based on 54 independent samples, the overall effect size for the…

Two studies compared popular and rejected children's reasoning regarding social interactions involving negative emotions. The first study, with 23 rejected and 23 popular 10- to 11-year-olds, involved hypothetical social scenarios where a classmate "victim" was likely to experience a negative emotion. Although popular and rejected children both…

Interactions between parenting styles and children's negative affect in the prediction of reticent, solitary-active, and rough-and-tumble play behaviours were examined. The present study involved 98 children, their mothers and their preschool teachers. Participants (53 boys and 45 girls) were a mean age of 3.83 years (standard deviation = 0.69).…

When it comes to adolescent sexuality, researchers have focused on topics such as sexuality education, contraceptive methods, the use of condoms, and first intercourse. These studies have provided valuable information on issues that need attention from authorities and that are widely recognized as social problems (unwanted pregnancies, for…

This article reports on the working conditions within Swedish ICT-supported distance-based teacher education. Data collected from teacher trainees are analyzed and discussed in relation to Swedish governmental policies concerning teacher education and distance education and theories emphasizing the importance of social aspects of education. The…

This study examined the association between generativity and psychological well-being for a subsample of 1882 mid- to late-life parents using the MIDUS data set. Guided by Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, we tested a structural model of psychological well-being that also included direct and indirect effects (via generativity) of…

Students with disabilities, whether they are developmental, cognitive, or physical, can find the "unwritten curriculum" of social life at school painfully isolating. Yet these children can be included, and experience the joy of connecting with peers. This article presents some simple techniques teachers can use to foster positive social…

This article presents the findings from a review of ethnographic approaches to child care research. Ethnographic research has enhanced researcher and practitioner understandings of the child care environment by providing entry into the child care center as an important site not only of development and education, but also of social reproduction and…

This study explored teacher and student perspectives of a specific event in an early childhood classroom. The study replicates previous research on the construct of positionings to study social interaction in a prekindergarten integrated classroom. Subjects were one teacher and one 5-year-old student. A 20-minute segment of videotape was observed…

The best childhood predictor of later adult adaptation is the adequacy with which a child gets along with other children. Because social development begins in the early years, it is appropriate that early childhood programs include regular formal and informal assessment of children's acquisition of social competence. This digest presents the…

Today's school children often come from homes that are dramatically different from those of 25 years ago. To help this new generation of students, many schools have developed advisor/advisee programs; tips on how a school can start such a program are covered in this booklet. Its main purpose is to outline the basic features of a successful program…