The Developing Learner

This is Unit Three, part three, on the developing learner: peer groups, bullying, play, moral reasoning, and parenting styles. Part two closed on what peers teach. Part three follows children into their peer groups, their play and their moral reasoning, and closes on how parents raise them. Carry one idea through this part: what matters often lies beneath the surface behavior, in the pattern behind a label or the reasoning behind an answer. At the entry on justice, care and gender, the part tests a popular claim against the evidence. By the end you will be able to tell a neglected child from a rejected one. To say what makes aggression bullying. To classify children's social play by Parten's stages. To place moral reasoning at one of Kohlberg's levels. And to state what the evidence shows about gender, justice and care.

Three entries on peer groups: how friends become alike, cliques and crowds, and sociometric status.

Choosing friends, and becoming alike.

EDP 0254 Homophily and Peer Influence

Adolescents choose friends who resemble them, homophily, and then influence one another, so friends grow more alike through both selection and mutual influence, as friends who share an interest in music push each other to practice. Influence can run either way: deviant peer contagion spreads problem behavior, while positive peer support spreads good habits.

Cliques, and crowds.

EDP 0255 Cliques and Crowds

A clique is a small group of friends who interact regularly; a crowd is a reputation-based category whose members may not even know each other, so five close friends are a clique and the athletes are a crowd. Crowds emerge in middle school, peak in early adolescence and fade by the end of high school.

Liked, disliked, or overlooked.

EDP 0256 Sociometric Status

Sociometric status classifies children by how often classmates name them as liked and as disliked, the scheme of Coie, Dodge and Coppotelli. Popular children are liked by many and disliked by few. Rejected children are disliked by many and liked by few, whether aggressive or withdrawn. Controversial children are liked and disliked by many. Neglected children are rarely named either way, and average children fall in between. A quiet student seldom named by anyone is neglected, not rejected. The difference matters, because rejection is the status linked to later problems, and social skills training and joining activities can help rejected children.

Four entries on bullying: what it is, the roles around it, its online form, and its link to suicide.

What makes aggression bullying.

EDP 0257 What Bullying Is

Bullying is unwanted aggression that involves a power imbalance and is repeated, or likely to be repeated; it can be verbal, social or physical, and spreading rumors to exclude a classmate is social bullying. A single fight between equals is not bullying: the imbalance of power and the repetition define it.

More roles than two.

EDP 0258 Roles in Bullying

Bullying involves more roles than two: children who bully, who are bullied, who assist, who reinforce, who stay outside and who defend. Classmates who laugh along reinforce the bullying without joining in. Label the behavior rather than the child: say bullying behavior, not a bully.

Bullying online.

EDP 0259 Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is bullying through phones, computers and social media; it can be persistent, around the clock, permanent once posted and hard for adults to notice, as a hurtful post shared overnight is seen by the whole grade before school starts. Because it happens outside adult view, warning signs are worth knowing.

Bullying and suicide, stated carefully.

EDP 0260 Bullying and Suicide

Bullying and suicide are often linked in media reports, but bullying alone is not the cause of suicide; many factors contribute, and research treats bullying as one risk among several, not a single explanation. Anyone affected can call or text nine eight eight, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and Stop Bullying dot gov offers help with bullying.

Four entries on play: its forms, Vygotsky's view of pretending, Parten's stages, and imaginary companions.

Four forms of play.

EDP 0261 Types of Play

Play is self-chosen, process-focused, imaginative and active, and it takes four main forms: functional, like rolling a ball again and again; constructive, like building a tower; symbolic or pretend, like playing house; and games with rules, like tag. Constructive play is the preschool favorite; games with rules come later.

Pretend play, in Vygotsky's view.

EDP 0262 Vygotsky on Pretend Play

Vygotsky saw pretend play as creating an imaginary situation with roles and rules, where children practice self-regulation and act beyond their everyday level, as a child playing shopkeeper waits her turn and follows the store's rules. In this view pretend play works like scaffolding at the top of the zone of proximal development.

Six kinds of social play.

EDP 0263 Parten's Stages of Social Play

Parten described six kinds of social play in order of social involvement. Three are non-social: unoccupied behavior, wandering without playing; solitary play, alone with one's own toys; and onlooker behavior, watching without joining. Three are social: parallel play, beside others with similar materials but not together; associative play, sharing and talking without a common goal; and cooperative play, organized around a shared goal with roles. Two four-year-olds building separate sandcastles side by side are in parallel play. If children share and talk but pursue separate aims, the play is associative; only coordinating toward one goal is cooperative.

Friends no one else can see.

EDP 0264 Imaginary Companions

Imaginary companions are common in childhood, with estimates varying by definition, and children who have them are typically sociable rather than lonely, like a five-year-old who sets a place at the table for a friend no one else can see. An imaginary companion is not, by itself, a sign that anything is wrong.

Six entries on moral reasoning, from Piaget's two phases to Kohlberg's three levels and how to classify them.

Piaget's two phases of moral thinking.

EDP 0265 Heteronomous and Autonomous Morality

Piaget described heteronomous morality, where rules come from authority and are fixed, and autonomous morality, where rules can change by agreement. A young child judges breaking five cups by accident worse than breaking one on purpose. The shift is from judging by consequences to judging by intentions; young children also believe in immanent justice.

Scoring the reasoning, not the answer.

EDP 0266 Kohlberg's Approach

Kohlberg studied moral reasoning rather than moral behavior, presenting dilemmas and scoring the justification a person gave, not the answer itself. Two students may both say a man should steal a drug to save his wife, for different reasons. The same answer can reflect different stages, so the stage lies in the reasoning.

The preconventional level.

EDP 0267 Preconventional Morality

At Kohlberg's preconventional level, right is defined by consequences to oneself: stage one avoids punishment, as in I won't cheat because I'd get caught, and stage two pursues self-interest through fair exchange, as in I'll help you if you help me. It looks outward to rewards and punishments rather than shared rules.

The conventional level.

EDP 0268 Conventional Morality

At the conventional level, right is defined by others' expectations: stage three seeks approval and good relationships, as in good students don't cheat, and stage four upholds law and order, as in if everyone broke the rules, society would fall apart. It looks to the group and its rules rather than personal consequences.

The postconventional level.

EDP 0269 Postconventional Morality

At the postconventional level, right is defined by principles: stage five treats laws as social contracts that can be changed, so an unjust rule should be changed through fair procedures, and stage six follows universal ethical principles. Few people reach stage six, and the levels describe reasoning, not how well people behave.

Classifying moral reasoning.

EDP 0270 Classifying Moral Reasoning

To place moral reasoning at one of Kohlberg's levels, set the decision aside and examine the justification. Avoiding punishment or getting something in return is preconventional. Being seen as good, keeping relationships, or upholding the law and social order is conventional. Rights, revisable social contracts, or universal principles such as justice are postconventional. Asked why not to copy homework, a student who says the teacher trusts us and I don't want to let her down reasons from approval and relationships: stage three. Don't cheat can rest on fear, loyalty or fairness, three different levels, so keep asking why.

Six entries beyond Kohlberg: other domains of rules, an ethic of care, the evidence on gender, and the classroom.

Moral rules, conventions, and personal choices.

EDP 0271 Turiel's Domains

Turiel's social domain theory holds that even young children distinguish moral rules about harm and fairness from conventional rules and from personal choices: hitting a classmate is wrong everywhere, while calling a teacher by first name depends on the school. A personal domain, such as choosing one's friends, lies outside both.

An ethic of care.

EDP 0272 Gilligan's Ethic of Care

Gilligan proposed a morality of care, centered on relationships and responsibility, as an alternative to Kohlberg's morality of justice, centered on rights and rules: care asks who will be hurt and how to help, justice what is fair by rule. She described three positions: survival, care for others alone, and integrated care for self and others.

The payoff: justice, care, and the evidence on gender.

EDP 0273 Justice, Care and the Evidence on Gender

Here a popular claim meets the evidence. Gilligan argued that Kohlberg's morality of justice left out a morality of care. The claim often attached to her critique is that women score at lower Kohlberg stages than men, and that women reason from care while men reason from justice. The evidence does not bear that out. Walker's review found little difference between the sexes in Kohlberg scores. Jaffee and Hyde's meta-analysis found only small differences in orientation, a slight lean toward care among females and toward justice among males, and concluded that the findings do not strongly support the idea that care belongs to women and justice to men. When a teacher decides whether to give a student extra time after a family crisis, either kind of reasoning can come from any student, of any gender. Teach Gilligan's point, that care is a real orientation Kohlberg's scoring could miss, without turning a contested claim into a stereotype.

Discussing moral dilemmas in class.

EDP 0274 Discussing Moral Dilemmas

A classroom approach drawn from Kohlberg's theory has students discuss moral dilemmas, such as whether a character should break a promise to protect a friend, and Blatt and Kohlberg's experiment tested the effect of such discussion on children's moral judgment. The discussion aims at the quality of reasoning, not one right answer.

Character education.

EDP 0275 Character Education

Character education integrates ethical understanding, care and action, aiming for moral responses that become intuitive and emotional as well as reasoned, through class meetings, cross-grade buddies, conflict resolution and service learning. Schoolwide programs build a caring community with democratic meetings and conflict resolution rather than relying on reward and punishment.

Justice and care in everyday decisions.

EDP 0276 Justice and Care in the Classroom

Justice and care pull differently in everyday classroom decisions: justice favors treating everyone the same, and care favors giving each student what they need, as in equal reading time for all, or more time for the students who need it. Each rests on a moral orientation, so the choice between them is itself a moral decision.

One entry closes the part: Diana Baumrind's four parenting styles, built from two dimensions, warmth and control.

Four parenting styles, from two dimensions.

EDP 0277 Baumrind's Parenting Styles

Baumrind described parenting along two dimensions: how demanding a parent is, or control, and how responsive, or warmth. Authoritative parents are high on both, holding high but reasonable expectations, communicating well and reasoning rather than coercing. Authoritarian parents are high in control and low in warmth; permissive parents are warm but low in control; uninvolved parents are low in both. A parent who explains a curfew, hears the teenager out and then holds the line is authoritative. Authoritative upbringing was sufficient for competence but not necessary, and unit eleven crosses the same two dimensions for teachers.

Look at what you can now do. You can tell a neglected child, overlooked by most classmates, from a rejected one, actively disliked, the status linked to later problems. You can say what makes aggression bullying: a power imbalance and repetition, not a single fight between equals. You can classify social play by Parten's stages, from unoccupied and solitary through parallel and associative to cooperative. You can place moral reasoning at one of Kohlberg's levels by examining the justification, not the decision. And you can state what the evidence shows about gender and moral orientation: small differences, with care and justice in both sexes. Last, Baumrind's four parenting styles come from crossing warmth with control, the frame unit eleven carries into the classroom. Unit Four turns to learning from the behavioral perspective.