I observed a child at the elementary school I was working at for SERVE while he was playing during lunch. I first walked around the playground during recess to get a feel for the school and the students on their breaks. As I sat down on a bench near the playground I noticed there was a lot of segregation between genders throughout the activities. For example, I saw that the girls were more likely to be found playing “house”, hopscotch or playing with other girls whereas the boys gravitated towards the more physical activities such as sports like football, kickball and basketball. Although there were expectations for both groups around the playground jungle gym area with monkey bars, slides and more, that had an equal balance of boys and girls. I chose to focus on a boy, around seven or eight years old, who was socializing with others and engaging in various activities.
The young boy started off his lunch recess on the jungle gym. He had a few other friends (boys and girls) around him and they were all showing off their skills on the monkey bars. Then, one of his friends started to what looked like to be a competition to see who could race across the monkey bars the fastest and the rest of the group seemed to follow along by starting to race. A boy who was not part of the original group walked towards the monkey bars and did not seem to be very happy or even have a friendly approach walking toward the group. When he made it up to the group, it did not look like a friendly conversation, it looked as if he had said something mean or rude to upset the boy I was observing. The newer boy could have teased him in an instrumentally aggressive fashion “to gain peer approval,” or he may have said something relationally aggressive “inte...
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...tion via his aggressive behavior. Additionally, they did not seem to notice the “neglected children” that I saw sitting or playing by themselves for the entire lunch break (Lightfoot et al, 2013, pp. 484-485). Furthermore, the children spent a large portion of time in gender separate groups, although opposite sex interactions did occur throughout games and discussions of rules.
My observation at the elementary school gave me a better understanding of the behavioral and cognitive characteristics that are typical of middle childhood. I saw how highly they value the stability given by rules, and the ways in which they interact among the social structures. I also noticed the seven year old boy have incredible self-control and the way his friends empathized with him afterwards. Finally, I witnessed the behavioral aspect of Piaget’s concrete operational stage in action.
The differences between the two children and the choices they made regarding their play were fairly obvious. Though a number of factors would likely influence the way that children chose to play, the main difference that could be inferred from the two children without looking into their backgrounds, was their sex. Choosing to compare gender is something that seemed to come naturally after referring to the observation as well as from personal preferences and interests. The idea of sex and gender differences is one of importance and the reasoning behind it provided an insight to the way our society supports girls and boys in different manners. A number of differences can be taken when comparing how girls and boys play including the role models they choose to copy, either a male or female, how physical the play is and the other classmates that children choose to play with.
Cognitive development is an important area of development during middle to late childhood. According to Piaget's theory, the ages between 7 and 11 are referred to as the concrete operational stage. The text describes children at this stage
This study explored the gender differences in the play behaviors of young children of immigrant seasonal farm workers from
(2012) examined gender-typed play across social contexts in order to examine if the social context influences a child’s gender-typed activity choice. The varying social contexts they accounted for were if the child was playing with boys, girls, a mixture of the two, or the teacher (Goble et al., 2012). This is important to consider because the frequency at which each type of social context is present will potentially have an impact on the rate of various gender-typed activities (Goble et al., 2012). Research shows that children prefer to play with children of their same gender who engage in the roughly the same amount of gender-typed activities as they do (Martin et al., 2013). This pattern leads to children spending most of their time playing in groups that are sex-segregated (Martin et al., 2013). Due to this, there is the potential that children may engage more often in certain gender-typed activities than if they were playing with someone of the opposite gender (Goble et al. 2012). To determine if this statement is in fact true it is necessary to observe preschool age children and record the type of play they engage in, and who their playmates are; this is precisely what the present research represents and what Goble et al. (2012)
Piaget believed that young children’s cognitive processes are intrinsically different from adults and that when they moved from a position of egocentrism to sociocentrism (during adolescence) that they had reached their potential in cognition.
He developed his own laboratory and spent years recording children’s intellectual growth. Jean wanted to find out how children develop through various stages of thinking. This led to the development of Piaget four important stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor stage (birth to age two), preoperational stage (age two to seven), concrete-operational stage (ages seven to twelve), and formal-operational stage (ages eleven to twelve, and thereafter).
The third stage is the Concrete Operational stage (7-11 years); this is when children are starting to solve problems mentally and develop concepts and are beginning to get better at understanding and following rules. Piaget’s fourth and final stage is the Formal Operational Stage (11 years and over); this stage is where the child is able to think not only as in the terms of the concrete, but also think in the abstract and is now able to think hypothetically. Piaget’s theory is one where children learn in a different manner to that of adults as they do not have the life experiences and interactions that adults have and use to interpret information. Children learn about their world by watching, listening and doing. Piaget’s constructivist theory has had a major impact on current theories and practices of education. Piaget has helped to create a view where the focus is on the idea of developmentally appropriate education. This denotes to an education with environments, materials and curriculum that are coherent with a student’s cognitive and physical abilities along with their social and emotional
Cherry, K. (n.d.). Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development. . Retrieved May 16, 2014, from http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/a/keyconcepts.htm
Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development demonstrates a child’s cognitive ability through a series of observational studies of simple tests. According to Piaget, a child’s mental structure, which is genetically inherited and evolved, is the basis for all other learning and knowledge. Piaget’s
Jean Piaget is a Switzerland psychologist and biologist who understand children’s intellectual development. Piaget is the first to study cognitive development. He developed the four stages of cognitive development: the sensori-motor stage, preoperational stage, the concrete operational and the formal operational stage. Piaget curiosity was how children cogitate and developed. As they get mature and have the experience, children’s will get knowledgeable. He suggested that children develop schemas so they can present the world. Children’s extend their schemas through the operation of accommodation and assimilation.
“The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget's ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.” (McLeod 2009). Piaget purposed that we move through stages of cognitive development. He noticed that children showed different characteristics throughout their childhood development. The four stages of development are The Sensorimotor stage, The Preoperational Stage, The Concrete operational stage and The Formal operational stage.
Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development suggests that children have four different stages of mental development. The main concept of Jean Piaget’s theory is that he believes in children being scientists by experimenting with things and making observations with their senses. This approach emphasizes how children’s ability to make sense of their immediate everyday surroundings. Piaget also proposed that children be perceived to four stages based on maturation and experiences.
Piaget’s Cognitive theory represents concepts that children learn from interactions within the world around them. He believed that children think and reason at different stages in their development. His stages of cognitive development outline the importance of the process rather the final product. The main concept of this theory reflects the view th...
The Critique of Piaget's Theories Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) was a constructivist theorist. He saw children as constructing their own world, playing an active part in their own development. Piaget’s insight opened up a new window into the inner working of the mind and as a result he carried out some remarkable studies on children that had a powerful influence on theories of child thought. This essay is going to explain the main features and principles of the Piagetian theory and then provide criticism against this theory. Cognitive development refers to way in which a person’s style of thinking changes with age.
The commonplace unpleasant and tumble play of preschoolers shapes a platform to help prosocial confident play. What recognizes perky battling from forceful conduct is the absence of plan to hurt or scare. Amid the preschool years, kids tend to fall back on instrumental and physical articulation of animosity, for example, grabbing toys and pushing a mate. Antagonistic animosity that is displayed as forceful conduct coordinated to others, for example, verbally abusing, condemning and scorning, comes substantially later, at around 7 years old (Coie and Dodge,