No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Fiction, children's voices and the moral imagination: a case study
Abstract
The importance of stories in educating the moral imagination of the child provides the context for this thesis, which explores children's responses to the moral dimension of fiction. Studies in narrative psychology, literary theory and children's responses to reading also provide the empirical and theoretical background for this qualitative enquiry that compares a number of developing readers' responses to fiction in a school and classroom context. Focusing on the features that distinguish their responses to questions about moral choice and virtue in a range of stories, the thesis explores a mode of response to fiction called moral rehearsal. It identifies a range of strategies children adopt to explore and evaluate the moral world of narrative texts such as the use of moral touchstones, alternative narratives and dramatisation. It presents an original application of philosophical anthropology to the data in order to distinguish between what I call mimetic and diegetic rehearsal in children's responses. This phenomenological interpretation suggests the ways in which narratives contribute to the constitution of consciousness in the child.
Drawing mainly on school-based interview conversations, peer group talk and some children's written work about a range of fiction, this enquiry adopts an interpretive, case study approach to children's moral responses to fiction. It examines the child's perspective to produce an account of moral imagination in developing readers that illuminates a previously unexplored mode of reading - moral rehearsal - relevant to theories about the development of children's reading, literary response and moral sense. It represents a contribution to the literature on children's literary experience, the empirical study of children's reading and children's moral and spiritual formation.
The purpose of this research is to address the issue of rule-breaking behavior and its’ depiction in young adult literature. Children encounter ethical and moral dilemmas throughout their development, and young adult literature has long been a medium used to explore the issue. However, the depiction of rule breakers is not rebellious youth, acting out against society, but rather more heroic figures who adopt an attitude of the ends justifying the means. Rule breaking is a consistent problem reported by teachers, and a lack of discipline among students is seen by students as one of the largest problems facing public schools. The authors first outlines the characteristics of the behavior, relating it to Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, using occurrences in popular YAL novels as reference. Then, implications for educators and their use of young adult literature are detailed.
It is a comprehensive analysis of the book from various perspectives. The theory of Bildungsroman is applied to enunciate how Harry attains the process of maturation in his formative years at Hogwarts. The anthropomorphic features, the blend of magic and realism and the concept of poetic justice- all these aspects are analysed in detail. The book can be an interesting read for those who see Harry Potter as not just a children's book of fantasy
Transcription is an integral process in the qualitative analysis of language data and is widely employed in basic and applied research across a number of disciplines and in professional practice fields. Yet, methodological and theoretical issues associated with the transcription process have received scant attention in the research literature. In this article, the authors present a cross-disciplinary conceptual review of the place of transcription in qualitative inquiry, in which the nature of transcription and the epistemological assumptions on which it rests are considered. The authors conclude that transcription is theory laden; the choices that researchers make about transcription enact the theories they hold and constrain the interpretations they can draw from their data. Because it has implications for the interpretation of research data and for decision making in practice fields, transcription as a process warrants further investigation.
ABSTRACT This paper reports recent findings from a national survey of the reading habits of boys and girls aged 10, 12 and 14. Boys' reading habits are considered in the light of concerns about boys' underachievement in school, and in relation to girls' reading and changing patterns of literacy over time. The authors argue that helping boys develop as critical readers involves taking their voluntary reading seriously and rejecting deficit models. The paper argues that boys need to be encouraged to understand how they have been socially constructed as readers; they need to be engaged in discussion about their reading and the implications of the choices they make. It is only by taking differences seriously that critical and discerning readers will bedeveloped, and critical readers are necessary to undermine current highly gendered reading practices which potentially disadvantage both sexes.
Several studies are reviewed that examine differences in moral schema development using techniques intermediate between measuring implicit knowledge (such as with the De ning Issues Test) and explicit knowledge (such as with the Moral Judgment Interview). Findings include signi cant differences in the comprehension of moral narratives based on age/education and on level of expertise. Also, intended moral themes in stories are not understood by younger children. It is safe to say that most research in moral development has focused on moral judgement (i.e. the reasoning used to advocate a certain action choice in a moral dilemma). In this tradition, researchers recognise that people conceptualise moral problems differently, based on developmental age and education (e.g. Kohlberg, 1984; Rest, 1986). As individuals develop in moral judgement, transformations occur in how they construe their obligations to others. According to a moral constructivist theory, these transformations can be viewed as changing moral sche-mas (conceptual understandings) about how it is possible to organise co-operation (Rest et al., 1999, 2000). Conceptual understandings are transformed as individuals extract meaning from experience and construct models of the world. As meaning-making matures and moral judgement complexity increases, an individual's consid-erations expand, and he or she is able to consider the welfare of more and more "others" when conceptualising ideal forms of co-operation (e.g. at the lowest schema, one is primarily concerned for self whereas in the most developed type of schema, one includes concern for strangers.) Constructivist theory suggests that understandings change as individuals, through experience, construct new views of and responses to the world. Constructivist theory generally, and moral constructivist theory speci cally, assumes that an individual processes or interprets experience based on previous experience or knowledge. Cognitive Schema Theory (CST) suggests that when an individual is presented with information, a schema or knowledge structure is activated to interpret the information. This idea is predomi-nant in reading research.
The assumption of traditional character educators that children build moral literacy from reading or hearing moral stories is challenged based on research findings. First, research in text comprehension indicates that readers do not understand texts the same way due to differences in reading skill and background knowledge. Second, moral comprehension research indicates that moral arguments are understood differently based on differences in moral schema development. Third, moral texts (e.g., that contain embedded moral reasoning) are understood and distorted differently by readers with different moral schemas. Fourth, children do not extract moral story themes as intended by the writer.
There has been much debate about the underachievement of boys in the United Kingdom (UK), fuelled by continuing evidence that shows girls achieving better than boys in most exams, and boys continuing to dominate special needs education and school exclusions. Various theories have emerged, with boys’ poor performance being attributed to a changing economic infrastructure, to the results of poor parenting or to innate biological differences where, for example, they are perceived as being less able than girls to learn language. In this paper, I contribute to the debate by reporting a selection of the findings from a research project in a cluster of schools, where students from Year 1 (ages 5-6) to Year 11 (ages 15-16) and their teachers were interviewed about their perceptions and attitudes to learning and gender, and were observed in the classroom. While I provide much comment about raising standards and improving classroom practice for all students, I specifically focus on underachieving boys and on literacy. Data on the perceptions of children in Years 4 and 5 (ages 8-10) are presented here. Findings relating to the Early Years children and their teachers are reported in Wood (2001) and data on patterns of interaction and response in Years 1- 8 in Myhill (2002).
Contemporary approaches to moral development and moral education emphasize propositional thinking and verbal discussion of abstract moral dilemmas. In contrast, this article proposes that narratives (stories) are a central factor in a person's moral development. Support for this position comes from recent theoretical contributions of Bruner, Sarbin, Spence, Tulving, and others, who have emphasized narrative thought as a major form of cognition that is qualitatively different from abstract propositional or scientific thinking. In addition, over the last 10 to 20 years psychologists investigating and conceptualizing moral development have come to emphasize such processes as empathy (Hoffman), caring and commitment (Gilligan), interpersonal interaction (Haan), personal character and personality (Coles; Hogan; Staub; Rushton). It is proposed that narratives and narrative thinking are especially involved in how these processes lead to moral development and therefore that narrative should be rehabilitated as a valuable part of moral education.
The overall goal of Catholic education is to help students achieve a trans-formation in Christ. Integral to this transformation is development of the nattiral moral virtues and spiritual/supernatural virtties. Schools need to implement a comprehensive character-building program which focuses on twelve components, such as caring classroom commttnities, prayer, and moral discipline.
This article interrogates transcription work in the context of qualitative research. Although it is common practice in academe for someone other than the researcher to transcribe tapes recorded for purposes of data collection, the author argues the importance of researchers taking seriously the ways in which the person transcribing tapes influences research data. She suggests that the transcriber's interpretive/analytical/theoretical lens shapes the final texts constructed and as a result has the potential to influence the researcher's analysis of data. Specifically, the article explores the experiences of Ken, a person hired to transcribe audiotapes of focus group interviews conducted for a larger research study. The numerous challenges Ken faced during the work are addressed. His use of voice recognition software to simplify the task is discussed as well as the educational potential transcription work holds for graduate students.
Group interviews have several advantages over individual interviews. In particular they help to reveal consensus views, may generate richer responses by allowing participants to challenge one another's views, may be used to verify research ideas or data gained through other methods and may enhance the reliability of children's responses. There are, however, difficulties in carrying out group interviews and they require skilful and sensitive guidance by the interviewer. There have been few reports of their use with primary‐aged children but the work reported here suggests that they are a viable and useful technique with that age group.
This article reports the results of an evaluation of a popular literature-based character education programme. The sample consisted of 965 first to sixth graders at two geographically remote school districts in the United States. A quasi-experimental research design was utilised. It was found that the curriculum had a positive effect on cognitive outcomes, but more mixed results were found on affective and behavioural outcomes. Regression analyses on selected classroom dimensions found that an emphasis on matters of character throughout the curriculum contributed greatly to achieving character outcomes. Finally, the important role of theory in the development and improvement of character education programmes is discussed. The lack of an explicit theoretical perspective for this and other character education curricula was noted, and the implications for interpreting research and building effective programmes was discussed.
Getting the main idea is generally considered to be the most essential of reading "skills." However, although something is known about readers' use of explicit main idea statements, little is known about how readers construct main ideas that are not stated explicitly in the text. In this study, main idea construction processes are examined by analyzing the verbal reports of expert readers who have read difficult text. Several main idea construction strategies are described, along with strategies for assigning importance to text elements and for managing cognitive resources. Many of these strategies seem to be very amenable to instructional application. The verbal reports also highlight the importance of affective components in models of reading processes.
The stories in Margaret Whitt's collection have work to do: a revolution diverse and profound in its effects and fraught with emotional complexity is taking place or had taken place. The stories gathered here convey the experiences of men and women caught up in that turmoil. We are taken beyond a superficial understanding of the civil rights era and into identifications with individuals experiencing those travails.
To her credit Whitt includes a range of responses. Eudora Welty's stunning "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" that appeared in the New Yorker in 1963 soon after Medgar Evers's assassination, the event on which the story is based. The voice is the killer's. His dialect is perfect as he recounts the murder and unwittingly reveals the roots of his rage: "I done it for my own pure–D satisfaction," he tells us. "Anyways, I seen him fall. I was evermore the one."
At the opposite pole appears John Updike's "Marching through Boston," also in the New Yorker (1966) and told through the persona of a callow, middle-aged, upper-middle-class Bostonian. A Harvard graduate, he is quite sure that he has scoured out [End Page x] his West Virginia upbringing. He condescends to his socially concerned wife when he agrees to attend a Boston protest march. Superior to all he beholds, he mocks the earnest speakers: "I don't mind them sounding like demagogues; what I mind is the god-awful boring phony imitation of a revival meeting. 'Thass right, yossuh.'" He comically diminishes all that he sees. But, as in the Welty story, this Updike character unwittingly mocks himself. We regard him with irony; he is the fool. In these two stories, nearly opposite responses to civil rights are placed before us.
James Baldwin's chilling "Going to Meet the Man" (1965) is included. It is a fictionalized account of the lynching of Emmett Till as witnessed by a white child who as an adult continues to suffer from what he saw. The final story, Alice Walker's autobiographical "To My Young Husband" (2000), is a moving reflection on the failure of a marriage between a white and an African American that had been forged in the civil rights era.
To aid readers who might know little or nothing of the civil rights movement, Whitt footnotes events and figures. But she overdoes it. A mention of Jefferson Davis High School brings us a footnote on Davis. The same treatment is given to Walter Cronkite, Mary Tyler Moore, Robert E. Lee, and the lyrics of "Dixie," among many other instances. In addition, the work of the collection would have been clearer if a representative story of the era before civil rights had been included.
The collection is organized by historical topics: sit-ins, marches and demonstrations, and acts of violence. A typical story is Anthony Grooms's "Negro Progress" (1994), which concerns the Birmingham demonstrations. A young man, middle class and African American, will soon be married. He has excellent business prospects (contingent on his staying out of the demonstrations), but he feels compelled to join the Birmingham struggle. Further complicating his situation are his dreams of escaping to Paris. The story embodies a comprehensive view of the choices faced by African Americans in that era. On the other side of the racial divide is Joanne Leedom-Ackerman's "The Beginning of Violence" (1985) set during the violent sit-ins in Nashville. The principal character is an earnest Vanderbilt University coed who is a student journalist. Pursuing a story, she befriends an African-American student at Shaw University who participates in the sit-ins. What she publishes in the student paper has the unintended consequences of betraying her friend and doing serious harm to her family. The character says, "Because I didn't heed dark, unexplored places in myself, I fell inside one of them and perhaps took another with me."
Whitt's anthology is timely. It reacquaints us with the struggle of the civil rights movement just as the U.S. Supreme Court diminishes some of its hard-won achievements.
The latest edition of Algonquin's southern short stories has different aims. The editor this year...
Current approaches to oral assessment of English in English secondary schools tend to concentrate more on ‘confidence’ and ‘participation’ than on the quality of children's thinking. This undermines the rich possibilities in classroom talk for cognitive development. Behavioural assessment approaches deny the essentially cognitive character of spoken English. This paper compares two brief representative extracts from a larger data‐set of students engaged in small group debate on the subject of abortion. One group of students are hindered in their discussion by an inability to conceptualize abstractly. It is suggested that a formative assessment approach based on a model of cognitive progression such as Vygotsky's could enable all students to develop as speakers by encouraging their teachers to focus more explicitly on the development of the quality of thinking. A sociocognitive framework for conceptual progression could guide teachers in their interpretation of peer debate in order to develop the quality of students' understanding and argument. Building on the work of Newman, Griffin and Cole, and Torrance and Pryor, further research should be conducted into the ways in which formative teacher–student and student–student assessment dialogue might enhance students' ability to think through talk.
The narrative approach to the study of moral development is based on central theoretical assumptions about self that are described in this article. Careful attention to narrative yields an approach in which language plays a much larger role in structuring moral life, generating moral experience, and shaping a far more social kind of self than assumed by the cognitive-developmental approach. The narrative approach entails a move away from a paradigm of cognitive representations and internally held principles, in which the self is regarded as a disembodied, transcendental, epistemic subject, toward a paradigm of social construction and intersubjectively possible forms of discourse, in which selves are assumed to be embodied, relational, and thus fundamentally dialogical.
This paper will first explore briefly how the case study fell out of favour as a legitimate research tool, and how case study researchers responded to the critique that case study research lacked internal and external validity. Some case study advocates attempted to meet this critique by using the case to compare different theoretical predictions, dividing the case into subcases, or treating the case as an experiment. A more effective response distinguishes between ‘extensive’ and ‘intensive’ research designs, and critiques the extensive model. The paper then provides a clarification of purpose and a revived emphasis on theory, history, and intervention to develop the case study method. This paper will begin to construct a comprehensive case study methodology independent of the old critiques, and will show the crucial place which case studies must occupy in our craft.
Whether computer assisted data collection methods should be used for survey data collection is no longer an issue. Most professional research organizations, commercial, government and academic, are adopting these new methods with enthusiasm. Computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) is most prevalent, and computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) is rapidly gaining in popularity. Also, new forms of electronic reporting of data using computers, telephones and voice recognition technology are emerging. This paper begins with a taxonomy of current computer assisted data collection methods. It then reviews conceptual and theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on such topics as: (1) respondents and interviewer acceptance of new techniques, (2) effect of computer assisted interviewing on data quality, (3) consequences for survey costs and (4) centralized vs. decentralized deployment of CATI.