Examines role that constructivist teachers play in fostering moral development in young children. Traces development of perspective taking, autonomy, and self- regulation, and examines effects of different teaching and parenting practices on children's character development. Provides suggestions for teachers to promote optimal moral development by…

Examines whether students engage in biased assimilation during in-class debates. Finds that biased assimilation only occurs when the student is arguing for her or his existing position on an issue. Concludes that, in order to eliminate biased assimilation, teachers should encourage students to debate the opposite position of their preconceived…

This study examined demographic and individual difference variables that predicted level of Brazilian adolescents' prosocial moral judgment and self-reported prosocial behavior; it also tested mediating or moderating relations among predictors. Findings generally were consistent with contention that tendency to take others' perspectives and to…

Social perspective taking (SPT) is thought to be important in its own right and is often associated with other important skills, such as interpersonal conflict resolution. Previous research on SPT, however, has conceptualized it as a unidimensional construct leaving scholars with an insufficient understanding of this aptitude and how it relates to…

Over the last four decades, research in environmental education (EE) has offered valuable theoretical insights spanning a number of pedagogical and philosophical arenas. EE literature offers expansive accounts of projects looking at a multiplicity of factors involved in bringing EE to the forefront of educational endeavour. Within all this…

The relationship between empathy and forgiveness is explored through the painful experience of divorce and relationship loss. Authors propose a literary exercise, the Novel Approach, to help clients discover the power of empathy and find resolution to past pains. Included is a case study used to describe the Novel Approach and to highlight its…

This paper discusses ways in which examiners position themselves in relation to doctoral students' knowledge. The epistemological thesis of Habermas is utilized and its well-established connections with the world of formal learning re-stated. Against this conceptual framework, the examiner reports are appraised with a view to identifying the ways…

This study examines the ability of students to develop empathy for peoples of the past and to avoid the belief that people in the past were no different than today. The paper reports the results of a year-long qualitative investigation of fourth and fifth graders' attempts to understand the values, attitudes, and beliefs of people in the past. The…

Studies on child language acquisition suggest that Japanese children begin to use a variety of linguistic signs very early. However, even if young Japanese children learned the social pragmatic functions and interactional dimensions of such linguistic means and communicative devices, they might not have acquired the subtleties of those devices…

This paper, written for counselors and educators, describes a course in guided autobiography (a self-narrative which is structured around important life themes such as family, work, health, love and death) and its role in developmental psychology. A description of the course which is structured around three components, lectures, writing…

Investigated the general relationship between children's performance on social and physical measures of cognitive functioning, possible sex differences in performance on the two types of tasks, and the relationship between boys' and girls' performances on these tasks and age and IQ. (SDH)

Five articles and two columns reprinted from 1984 and 1985 issues of "The Computing Teacher" address various ethical and legal issues involved in computer use. In "A Question of Ethics," Larry S. Hannah and Charles B. Matus suggest guidelines for dilemma discussion in the classroom to address social and moral issues and to help…

Many educators assume that close links between schooling and everyday experience are necessary for students to be motivated and to learn. That assumption should be reconsidered. To promote equality of opportunity and to develop scientific understanding, schools should help students break with everyday experience. Cognitive researchers recognize…

Two studies are presented which investigate the influence of various toy structures on the frequency of individual fantasy play forms in 3- to 6-year-old children. In the first study, the effects of high-realistic/high-complexity and low-realistic/low-complexity toy structures were compared. There were significant main effects for the factor toy…

A study was designed to identify and clarify relationships between naturally observed, task-measured, and elicited instances of kindergarten children's role-taking, prosocial behavior and sharing behavior. An additional goal of the study was to illuminate possible relationships between prosocial behavior and children's temperamental…