In today’s world, children have unprecedented access to media and technology. As most parents will attest, young children are quite drawn to, adept at, and perhaps even addicted to the TV/videos, mobile/cell phones, and iPads and other tablets available to them in their homes and from the adults around them. This week, over two posts, I … Continue reading
Filed under Early Childhood Development …
Effects of television on young children’s learning and development
In today’s world, children have unprecedented access to media and technology. As most parents will attest, young children are drawn to, adept at, and perhaps even addicted to the TV/videos, mobile/cell phones, and iPads and other tablets available to them in their homes and from the adults around them. This week, over two posts, I am … Continue reading
Learning about learning: What affects children’s learning in Sindh, Pakistan?
Recently, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) released a publication summarizing and reflecting upon major research studies carried out alongside AKF’s education initiatives in ten countries (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, and Portugal). For each study, the publication provides a brief introduction to the programme, an overview of the study design, and a summary of … Continue reading
Supporting multiple languages in early childhood
In Canada, as in several parts of the world, many children grow up in multiple linguistic contexts. They often live, learn, and interact in different languages at home, at school, and in other contexts. A number of research studies have demonstrated that it is beneficial for children to grow up bilingual from their earliest years (see … Continue reading
Differences in mindsets, persistence, and the ability to cope: Effects on child outcomes
When I was growing up, it was very rare for a school grade to be ‘good enough’ for my parents. I still laughingly reminisce about how when I would come home with a 98%, my dad would ask, “What happened to the remaining 2%?” Of course this anecdote might be a bit extreme, and to … Continue reading
Educational and other effects of giving children tablets for learning: Critical questions on the One Laptop Per Child approach
Recent news articles have been discussing the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project being implemented in various parts of the Majority World. Here’s an article at Mashable, and another at Dvice. Basically, the OLPC programme recently gave tablets to Grade-1-aged children in two remote Ethiopian villages. OLPC has given tablets to children before. What was different … Continue reading
Is racism learned during childhood?
Research has shown that children begin to recognize different races very early on, in the first few months of life, and that they are better able to differentiate faces from the race with which they are most familiar (e.g., Kelly et al., 2007). There’s also research showing that, in adulthood, racist perspectives can be seen … Continue reading
Effects of an early childhood intervention on classroom quality and child outcomes in Pakistan
Earlier I posted about the ‘Investing in Mothers and Children’ international symposium held about ten days ago to mark the official launch of the inter-disciplinary Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development at the University of Toronto. I was fortunate to be able to present some of my research work from Pakistan at the poster session held at … Continue reading
The importance of the first 2,000 days of life for health, learning, and society
Children’s earliest experiences – in “the first 2,000 days of life” – play a critical role in establishing their developmental trajectories in health, learning, and society. This was the key message of the international symposium, ‘Investing in Mothers and Children’ (a Connaught Global Challenge International Symposium), held September 27-29, 2012, to mark the official launch of the … Continue reading
Early childhood education: Questioning play and child-centred approaches
Despite increasing awareness that culture and context shape our understandings and practices, there are still concepts in the early childhood discourse that we take for granted and don’t question as core tenets or principles. For example, we don’t generally interrogate or critique the idea that children learn through play, or the larger notion of ‘child-centered’ … Continue reading
