Study Guide for Chapter 9

Box on school recess (p. 298): Recess has diminished or disappeared in the U.S. elementary
schools bec/ause of the idea that extra time for academics will equal higher
achievement levels. 7% of U.S. schools dont have recess as young as second grade.
Over half of schools that do have recess schedule it only once a day. Research shows
that cognitively demanding tasks over a long period of time should introduce breaks
because it ENHANCES attention and performance at all ages. Eleementary students
were more attentive in the classroom after recess than before it. Disruptive behavior
also decreased for children. Kindergartners and first graders peer engagement also
positively predicted academic achievement even though other factors that could
explain this relationship were controlled. Recess=social skills: cooperation, leadership,
following, aggression under adult supervision not direction.

Rough-and-tumble play: friendly chasing and play fighting that occurs when children
alternate roles while playing and smiling and laughing and it peaks during middle
childhood. Children in many cultures engage in it with peers whom they like.

Dominance hierarchy: a stable ordering of group members that predicts who will win when
conflict arises. Rough and tumble play helps children form this.

Box on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (p. 304): Symptoms of ADHD: 3-7 percent
have this disorder involving inattention, impulsivity, and excessive motor activity
resulting in academic and social problems. Boys are diagnosed about four times as
often as girls. Girls with ADHD are overlooked due to les flagrant symptoms or gender
bias. Cant stay focused on a mental task; impulsive activity; ignore social rules and are
hostile when frustrated Hyperactive. Appeared symptoms before the age of 7 Score 7-
15 points lower on intelligence tests. Executive function deficiencies underlie these
symptoms. A hypothesis ADHD is the direct result of a cluster of executive processing
problems that interfere with ability to guide ones own actions. It runs in families.
Abnormal brain functioning: reduced electrical and blood flow activity; structural
abnormalities in areas involving attention. Brains grow more slowly with a thinner
cerebral cortex. Genes disrupt functioning involved in inhibition and cognitive
processing. Environmental factors: teratogens combining with genotypes. Come from
unhappy marriages, high stressful family. Treating ADHD: stimulant medication-reduce
activity level improving attention for 70% of children who take them. Medications plus
interventions that model and reinforce appropriate academic and social behavior works
the best. Family interventions is important. Lifelong disorder.

Cognitive self-regulation: the process of continuously monitoring progress toward a goal,

checking outcomes, and redirecting unsuccessful efforts. To study this, they look at the
impact of childrens awareness of memory strategies on how well they remember. And
they begin to know and recall memory strategies. When children apply a strategy
consistently, their knowledge of strategies strengthens, resulting in a bidirectional
 association between metacognition and strategy use that enhances self-regulation.
Self regulation predicts academic success. Student who do well know whether their
learning is going well. They encounter obstacles and take steps when addressing them.
Parents and teachers play a vital role in promoting childrens self-regulation. Explain
the effectiveness of the strategies you children should use. Sense of academic self-
efficacy: confidence in their own ability which supports future self-regulation.

Stereotype threat: the fear of being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype that
triggers anxiety that interferes with performance. Among children who were aware of
ethnic stereotypes they performed worse in the test condition. Over middle childhood,
children become increasingly conscious of ethnic stereotypes and those from
stigmatized groups as especially mindful of them.

Dynamic assessment: an innovation that is consistent with Vygotsky zone of proximal

development, an adult introduces purposeful teaching into the testing situations to find
out what the child can attain with social support.

Info on bilingualism on pp. 317-318: Two ways to become bilingual 1. Acquiring both
languages at the same time in early childhood 2. Learning a second language after
mastering the first. 1. Both languages in infancy separate the language systems early
on and attain early language milestones according to a typical timelines. 2. Second
language after speaking the first: take 5-7 years to attain the skills to match with a
native speaker.
Sensitive period for language development: childhood to attain proficiency. A Continuous
age related decrease from childhood to adulthood occurs. Children who are fluent in two
languages outperform others on tests of selective attention, inhibition of irrelevant
information, analytical reasoning, concept formation, cognitive flexibility, advanced in
grammar transferring phonological awareness over langauges. Bilingualism in Canada: 7% of
studnets enrolledin language immersion programs.
U.S.-tend to prefer English only instruction: schools sometimes even have no obligation to
teach minority students in langauges other than English. Both languages in classroom:
minority children are more involved in learning and acquire the second langague more easily
predicting academic achievement.

Educational self-fulfilling prophecies:

 Educational Self-Fulfilling prophecies: children may adopt teachers positive or negative
views and start to live up to them.
Effect is critical when teachers emphasize competition and publicly compare
children favoring the best students
Teachers expectations: impact on low achieving than high achieving students
Low achievers are more sensitive to self fulfilling prophecies-beneficial if they look
up to them and believe in them, but usually slanted in a negative direction
Stereotype threat: affect children-if you confirm the negative stereotype the child
will respond with anxiety and reduced motivation amplifying a negative self
fulfilling prophecy.

Study Guide for Chapter 10

Factors that contribute to changing self-concept across middle childhood (pp. 330-331):
Social comparisons: judgments of their appearance, abiliites and behavior in relation to those
others.
COGNITIVE development affects the changing structure of self.
Feedback from others-view of self that resembles others attitudes towards the
child: PERSPECTVE TAKING SKILLS
They then form an ideal self that they use to evaluate their real self.
U.S. self concepts: accounts are more person, interests, skills and opinions
Chinese self concepts: relational and social
Self-Esteem: differentiates during this time adjusting to a more realistic level.
Hierarchial system: attach greater importance to certain self evaluations than to
others
Physical appearance: correlates more strongly with overall self worth than any
other self-esteem factor.
Self-esteem declines during the first few years of elementary school
After fourth grade it rises
Influences on self esteem
1. culture: chinese and Japanese score lower on self-esteem
2. gender stereotyped expectations
3. African Americans have higher: warm families and strong ethnic pride.
4. authoritative parents
5. Americans may value this too much: parents over indulge their children to boost their self-
esteem too much.
6. encourage children to reach their goals

Mastery-oriented attributions: crediting their successes to ability: improve through trying

hard and can count on when facing new challenges. Attributed failure to factors that
can be changed or controlled-insufficient effort or a very difficult task.
 Learned helplessness: attribute their failures not their successes to ability when they
succeed they conclude that external factors such as luck as responsible. They believe
that ability is fixed and cannot be improved by trying hard.

Influences on achievement-related attributions (pp. 333-334): Adult communication-learned

helplessness dont have supportive parents thinking their child is capable and must
work harder to succeed. Says that quitting is okay-children develop a fixed view of
ability. 2. Teachers messages: attribute failures to insufficient effort who are caring and
helpful and emphasize learning over grades: mastery oriented students. Overall, girls
more than boys blame poor performance on lack of ability. 3. Cultural values: Asian
parents and teachers are more likely to view effort as a key to success and a moral
responsibility. Asians look at failure as places where corrective feedback is needed.
Americans focus on success because we like self-esteem. **Give feedback to children
so that they attribute their success to both ability and effort and not chance.

Info on peer acceptance (pp. 341-343): refers to likeability: the extent to which a child is
viewed by a group of classmates the same age as a worthy social partner. This is a one
sided perspective: groups view of one individual. Four categories of peer acceptance 1.
Popular children: get positive votes (are well liked) 2. Rejected children: get negative
votes (are disliked); tend to be anxious unhappy, disruptive, and low in self-esteem 3.
Controversial children: who get a large number of positive and negative votes (both
liked and disliked) 4. Neglected children: not mentioned positively or negatively
Determinants of Peer Acceptance 1. Popular Children: popular-prosocial children: academic
and social competence; popular-antisocial children: include tough boys who are athletic but
bad students and relationally aggressive children by enhancing their status through ignoring,
excluding, and spreading rumors about children. 2. Rejected children: rejected aggressive
children: high rates of conflict, physical, and relational aggression, and hyperactive,
inattentive, and impulsive behavior. Not good at perspective taking. Rejected Withdrawn
children: passive and socially awkard. Overwhelemed by social anxiety, hold negative
expectations for treatment by peers and worry about being scorned and attacked. At risk for
peer harassment 3. Controversial: hostile and disruptive have qualities that protect them from
social exclusion and tend to be bullies. Neglected children: well-adjusted. They engage in low
rates of interaction, they dont report feeling lonely or unhappy and they can usually break
away from their pattern of playing alone.
HELP rejected children: coaching, modeling, reinforcing positive social skills.

Gender identity and behavior (p. 344): 3rd to 6th grade: identify masculine and feminine traits:
identification with these DECLINE. Girls are more androgynous than boys: they try
other things such as sports and cooking, and crafts. MIXTURE OF COGNITIVE AND
SOCIAL FORCES. Society rates masculine occupations as having higher status than
feminine occupations. Novel job is higher in status too. Messages from adults are huge
as well: parents are less tolerant when boys cross gender lines than girls. Gender
identity includes 1. Gender typicality: degree to which the child feels similar to others of
 the same gender. Gender contentedness: the degree to which the child feels
comfortable with his or her gender assignment which also promotes happiness. 3. Felt
pressure to conform to gender roles: degree to which the child feels parents and peers
disapprove of his or her gender related traits. Pressure reduces the likelihood that
children will explore options related to their interests and talents. Children who feel
strong gender typed pressure are often distressed. Children who feel rejection because
of their gender atypical traits SUFFER.

Info on divorce (pp. 346-349)

-divorce rates have been declining because of a rise in age at first
marriage.
We hve the highest divorce rate in the world
45% of American marriages end in divorce and of U.S. children live
in single parent households
immediate consequences
1. Family Conflict
2. sharp drop in income
3. high maternal stress, depression, anxiety leads to a disorganized
family structure.

4. children fear that they cause their parents to divorce

younger children: undesirable peer activities, becoming unfriendly,
older children: willing to take on extra family chores and tasks
5. Childrens temperament and sex: magnifies the problems or
temperamentally difficult children: easy children are less often targets
of parental anger and cope beter.
Girls: internalize reactions: crying, self-criticism, withdrawl
Both sexes: demanding, attention getting behavior
Boys: harder adjustment problems-dont receive as much emotional
support from people
problems-dont receive as much emotional support from people
Long term consequences
1. leads to scoring lower in academics, self-esteem, social
competence, and emotional and behavioral prblems.
2. overriding factor in positive adjustment following divorce is effective
parenting: authoritative parenting
the more paternal contact and the warmer the father child
relationship the less children react with defiance and aggression.

 Divorce mediation: series of meetings between divorcing adults and a
trained professional aimed at reducing family conflict including legal
battles.
Joint custody: parents equal say in important decisions
Child support

Info on blended families (pp. 349-350): or reconstituted: about 60% of divorced parents
remarry within a few years. Others cohabit. Parent, stepparent and children form this
new structure. MOTHER STEPFATHER FAMLIIES: most common, boys adjust quickly
and relationship between mother on is good. Stepfathers who marry are more involved
in parenting. Girls struggle and react with sulky resistant behavior. Older children:
display more irresponsible, acting out behavior than their peers not in stepfamilies.
Father stepmother families: children react negatively to remarriage: children living with
fathers often start out with more problems. Biological mother cant handle the difficult
child: father and new partner are faced with a youngster who has behavior problems.
Girls-loyalty conflict between mom and stepmom.
Support for blended families: parenting education & counseling

Info on maternal employment and dual-earner families (pp. 350-351)When mothers enjoy their
work and remain committed to parenting, children show favorable adjustment: higher self
esteem, more positive family and peer relations, less gender stereotyped beliefs and better
grades in school. Maternal employment: father can take control: greater child care
responsibilities. Heavy demand of job=greater risk of ineffective parenting. Self-care children:
regularly look after themselves for some period of time after school.