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:…

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…

This work focused on increasing Year 3 students' use of critical thinking and taking the "second-person perspective" (2ndPP) when interpreting and resolving life issues. Previous research indicated the Personal Viewpoints Pedagogy (PVP) elicited social thinking that exhibited strong perspective-taking and precursors to critical thinking…

The present study builds upon established best practices in narrative comprehension instruction by redesigning a story map, to retain the benefits of text structure instruction, while also facilitating students to reach deeper levels of character-based comprehension. Framed in reader response theory, dual coding theory, and developmental theories…

We examined the Direct and Indirect Effects model of Writing (DIEW), using longitudinal data from Korean-speaking beginning writers. DIEW posits hierarchical structural relations among component skills (e.g., transcription skills, higher order cognitive skills, oral language, motivation/affect, background knowledge) where lower level skills are…

This article describes how elementary-aged children engaged in a world cultures unit showed positive development related to intercultural competence as exhibited through connected global education aims. Twenty-five third graders participated in the integrated social studies and literacy curriculum for 11 weeks. Prior to the intervention, students…

We examined the Direct and Indirect Effects model of Writing (DIEW), using longitudinal data from Korean-speaking beginning writers. DIEW posits hierarchical structural relations among component skills (e.g., transcription skills, higher order cognitive skills, oral language, motivation/affect, background knowledge) where lower level skills are…

This study utilized an action research design with qualitative methods to explore the transformative potential of a multicultural literature curriculum within a general education setting. Providing young students with opportunities to develop perspective taking and empathetic responses to others who are different, offers the critical potential for…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a pilot study conducted in a graduate action research class that sought to investigate the impact of multicultural literature experiences on third-grade students' ability to make empathetic connections in their writing and discussions about literature. Conducted as participant action research, five…

Few Spanish language tools are available for assessing important social-emotional learning (SEL) skills. The present study presents evidence of the psychometric properties of a Spanish-language version of SELweb (SELweb-S), a web-based system for assessing children's ability to recognize others' emotions and perspectives, solve social problems,…

Children practice their spatial skills when playing with spatial toys, such as construction materials, board games, and puzzles. Sex and SES differences are observed in the engagement in such spatial play activities at home, which relate to individual differences in spatial performance. The current study investigated the effects of explicitly…

This article presents results from two studies that included ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples totaling 4,462 children in kindergarten through third grade. Each study examined the psychometric properties of a web-based, self-administered battery of assessments of social-emotional comprehension called "SELweb." Assessment…

The ability to understand and effectively interact with others is a critical determinant of academic, social, and life success (DiPerna & Elliott, 2002). An area in particular need of scalable, feasible, usable, and scientifically sound assessment tools is social-emotional comprehension, which includes mental processes enlisted to encode,…