Despite the recent technical and theoretical advances in the investigation of children's social relations, the inherent complexity of these methods may prevent their easy integration into the classroom. A simple and effective tool can be valuable for teachers who wish to investigate students' social realities in the classroom. Therefore, the…

Presents results of a study of cultural differences in causal attributions and self-serving bias. Reports more self-serving attributional bias among U.S. than Finn students. Suggests that cultural differences in self-serving bias may result from differences in need to protect self-esteem, coping mechanisms, and cultural differences in coping with…

Four hundred and seventy residents of Ridgewood, New Jersey, and 493 residents of Jyvaskyla, Finland, were randomly selected and interviewed about their attitudes concerning nuclear war. In each area, a high proportion of the sample believed that some kind of nuclear incident is likely in the next decade. The vast majority stated that a nuclear…

The four studies presented show how expertise, from the cultural-historical theory of activity, is constructed interactively in everyday problem situations. They also demonstrate that purely situational analyses of discourse are insufficient as attempts to explain expertise. The four studies are presented as individual chapters: (1) Expertise as…

The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the nature of group work through a series of thirteen video taped classroom lessons for fourth grade students. Using a case approach technique, the emphasis was on methodological problems. The study showed that even the investigation of a single mode of instruction such as group work is a highly…

After reviewing various studies of different national attitudes toward concepts of war and peace, the author describes a Finnish research project which used fantasy essays written by fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-grade pupils to identify the pupils' war images and to relate their war and peace attitudes to their behavior. (MF)

An attempt to record what pupils think and feel during the instructional process is the basis of this investigation of pupils' goal-related behavior. Two experiments are described that analyze what fourth grade pupils can tell about their activities during the instructional period when they are aided by an immediate videotape replay. These…

Videotaped group work lessons of an elementary school third grade class provide material for study of the non-verbal aspect of group behavior. A system of activity categories is developed and a typology of pupils' working methods in group study distinguishes types and characteristic forms of activity. The following activity categories are used in…