Anthony D. Pellegrini’s research while affiliated with University of Minnesota, Duluth and other places

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Publications (140)


The child at school: Interactions with peers and teachers: Second edition
  • Book

January 2016

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1,917 Reads

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120 Citations

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Anthony D. Pellegrini

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What is the nature of children's social life in school?. How do their relationships and interactions with peers, teachers and other school staff influence their development and experience of school? This book, written by leading researchers in educational and developmental psychology, provides answers to these questions by offering an integrated perspective on children's social interactions and relationships with their peers and teachers in school. Peer interactions in school have tended to be underestimated by educationalists, and this book redresses the balance by giving them equal weight to teacher-child interactions. In this second edition, the authors extensively revise the text on the basis of many years of research and teaching experience. They highlight common misconceptions about children, their social lives, and school achievement which have often resulted in ineffective school policy. The book includes a number of important topics, including: The significance of peer-friendships at school The nature and importance of play and break-times Aggression and bullying at school Peer relations and learning at school The classroom environment and teacher-pupil interaction The influence of gender in how children learn at school. Advantages and disadvantages of different methodological approaches for studying children in school settings Policy implications of current research findings. The Child at School will be essential reading for all students of child development and educational psychology. It will also be an invaluable source for both trainee and practicing teachers and teaching assistants, as well as clinical psychologists and policy makers in this area. © 2016 Peter Blatchford, Anthony D. Pellegrini and Ed Baines. All rights reserved.


Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture Between Educational Policy and Scientific Research

August 2014

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1,342 Reads

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26 Citations

In recent decades, the role of recess during the school day has been called into question. This chapter addresses the critical issue of whether recess adds value to education by describing research examining the effects of recess on development and achievement. This topic is of critical importance for educational settings and wellbeing: To ensure the best practices are being utilized, school policies should be based on scientific investigations. Thus, research examining recess and play is described.


Social contexts of learning literate language: The role of varied, familiar, and close peer relationships

July 2013

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61 Reads

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17 Citations

Learning and Individual Differences

A.D Pellegrini

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[...]

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R Gilden

Two prominent theories in evolutionary biology have stressed the role of social contexts in the evolution of primate cognition. One theory holds that cognition evolved in the context of individuals having to keep track of their interactions with a variety of conspecifics. In the other theory, cognition evolved in the contexts of familiar and close social relationships. In this paper, we present two experiments examining the effects of varied, familiar, and close social contacts on preschool children's literate language and story re-reading. We hypothesized, based on developmental evolutionary theory, that closeness, in the form of increased familiarity and friendship, would maximize children's expression of emotional terms, conflict/resolution cycles, collaborative responses, literate language, and story re-readings. In Study 1, children were exposed to one of two conditions. In the more familiar condition, initially unfamiliar children interacted with the same peer across four separate observations. In the less familiar, varied condition, a focal child interacted with a different unfamiliar peer on four separate occasions. Consistent with predictions, children in the more familiar condition increased their use of emotional terms and literate language and story re-reading with time. In Study 2, a familiar group (as defined in Study 1) was compared with children in bestfriend dyads. As predicted, friends outperformed familiar peers initially, but between-group differences decreased across time while children's performance in the familiar group increased across time. Results are discussed in terms of the role of familiarity in the evolution of cooperation and cognition.


Object Use in Childhood: Development and Possible Functions

January 2013

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93 Reads

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19 Citations

Behaviour

The ways in which children use objects is central to many theories of development, yet we lack systematic descriptions of the various ways in which objects are used across childhood. In this paper, I first describe the different forms of object use (i.e., exploration, construction, play, tool use and tool making) for males and females in childhood, then establish time budgets for each type of object use. Second, I make functional inferences about each form of object use and the social contexts in which each is embedded. I suggest that putative functions of object play, specifically, may be related to children's discovery of novel uses for objects, as well as peer group centrality in abundant niches. These dynamics produce a connected social network in which object play and group structure might interact to spread novel ideas.


Socially competent and incompetent aggressors in middle school: The non-linear relationship between bullying and dominance.

January 2013

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212 Reads

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1 Citation

British Journal of Educational Psychology

Background. We argue that some aggressors in school are social leaders and dominant in their peer groups while other types of aggressors are neither leaders not socially competent. Aims: To identify high and low bullying and dominance groups, we applied group-based trajectory modeling to a multi-informant, longitudinal dataset from a middle school population. Sample. 141 students (95% European American) from two rural, North American middle schools. Data were gathered for two years (in four waves) in two middle schools in both the 6th (12.8 years) and 7th grades. Method. Aggression, bullying, dominance, social insecurity, peer communication, and sociometric status were assessed across two years with a variety of methods. Results. We confirmed the existence of distinct latent groups: low, moderate, and high bullying; and low, rising, and high dominance. We found a heterogeneous, or non-linear, relation between bullying and dominance. Although many high bullying individuals were also high in dominance, others were low in dominance. Similarly, although many low bullying individuals were low in dominance, others were high in dominance. The high bullying-low dominance individuals were high in reactive aggression and social insecurity and unpopular. At the other end of the spectrum, low bullying-high dominance individuals were high in prosocial behaviours, peer communication skills, and highly popular with peers. Conclusions. The results confirm the heterogeneity of bullying and dominance groups.



Play, Plasticity, and Ontogeny in Childhood
  • Article
  • Full-text available

January 2013

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263 Reads

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11 Citations

This chapter contrasts the authors' epigenetic position with an environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) position, as represented in evolutionary psychology and its intellectual forbearer, sociobiology. In contrast to the EEA/evolutionary psychology position, this chapter stresses the importance of developmental plasticity during early ontogeny and how play, specifically, might affect the course of development, behavior, and possibly evolution. The chapter shows how epigenetic theories highlight the impact of the environment and behavior in the ontogenetic process as part of the organism's dynamic adaptation to ever-changing ecological niches. Play, the chapter argues, is a paradigm example of a behavioral strategy used by juveniles to explore and subsequently acclimate to or change their current niche. The variation in ability to use play as an acclimation strategy is hypothesized to impact evolution, assuming it contains some genetic basis. To this end, the final section of the chapter outlines ways in which play affects both ontogeny and phylogeny.

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The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play

September 2012

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523 Reads

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199 Citations

The role of play in human development has long been the subject of controversy. Despite being championed by many of the foremost scholars of the twentieth century, play has been dogged by underrepresentation and marginalization in literature across the scientific disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play attempts to examine the development of children's play through a rigorous and multidisciplinary approach. This book aims to reset the landscape of developmental science and makes a compelling case for the benefits of play.



“In the Eye of the Beholder”: Sex Bias in Observations and Ratings of Children’s Aggression

August 2011

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65 Reads

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16 Citations

Educational Researcher

The processes by which children are classified as aggressive have important educational and research implications. For example, aggression in childhood reliably predicts dropping out of school and incarceration. The author argues that the sex-role stereotypicality of aggression produces bias in both observers and raters of student behavior. The tendency is to overattribute aggression to boys, relative to girls, resulting in questionable validity of assessments. The author reviews these issues, proffers some explanations (e.g., gender schema theory), and makes policy recommendations (e.g., foregrounding the importance of social competence as an educational outcome).


Citations (83)


... Intrinsic motivation is a key aspect of play, which reflects children's genuine interest and enthusiasm. Furthermore, play serves as a catalyst for learning and encompasses skills that are crucial in adulthood (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002;Pellegrini & Smith, 1998). In the context of pre-school practice, play and learning are intertwined dimensions that stimulate each other (Pramling Samuelsson & Johansson, 2006). ...

Reference:

Looking beneath the surface: associations between varied outdoor surfaces and children’s diverse play behaviours in early childhood education and care institutions
Homo ludens: The importance of play.
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 2002

... A defining characteristic of play is that it should be fun and enjoyable (Meckley 2002) with a positive effect on the players (Moyles 2010). Part of the enjoyment comes from a play that is personally and intrinsically motivated (Pellegrini 1991;Saracho 1991). It is important that children feel physically, emotionally and psychologically safe enough to be able to develop coping strategies such as friendship, co-operation, confidence and self-efficacy, when problems and challenges do occur (Sutton-Smith 2001). ...

Applied Child Study: A Developmental Approach
  • Citing Book
  • September 1998

... This is not to say that attempts have not been made to synthesise the two. In particular, proponents of evolutionary developmental biology (and its sister discipline of evolutionary developmental psychology [40,41]) have forwarded epigenetic modes of inheritance as an adaptive, intermediary step between evolution and development, such as cellular epigenetic inheritance, socially mediated learning, and for humans, symbol-based information transmission [42][43][44]. These allow adaptive behaviours and phenotypic modifications to be transmitted to offspring without directly altering the genome, thereby supplying new targets for selection. ...

Evolutionary developmental psychology.

... The problem, however, is that it is likely that those children who have behaviour and/ or social difficulties, or who are struggling at school, will be repeatedly prevented from having a break because of the behavioural sanctions. It is also likely that these are the young people that may benefit the most from greater social contact with a range of peers, and physical activity (Carriedo & Cecchini, 2022;Pellegrini & Horvat, 1995) and they are unlikely to become better behaved by being excluded from such contact. Those with repeated experience of missing breaks may find that their relationships with peers suffer. ...

A Developmental Contextualist Critique of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
  • Citing Article
  • January 1995

... Sexual segregation is the behavior in which animals of different sex live in separate groups outside the mating season (Ruckstuhl and Neuhaus 2005a). This behavior is widespread across most of ungulate species that show significant sexual dimorphism in body mass (Ruckstuhl and Neuhaus 2002), but it has also been recorded in a variety of other vertebrate taxa such as fish (Croft et al. 2005), reptiles (Shine and Wall 2005), birds (GonzalezSolis and Croxall 2005), bats (Altringham and Senior 2005), marsupials (MacFarlane and Coulson 2005), seals (Staniland 2005), odontocetes (Michaud 2005), and primates including humans (Pellegrini et al. 2005, Watts 2005). Darwin (1859) articulated the basis of sexual segregation when he stated the importance of sex differences in habitat use in relation to sexual selection. ...

Sexual segregation in humans
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 2006

... Frontiers in Education 03 frontiersin.org well-being (Golinkoff et al., 2006;Nathan and Pellegrini, 2010;Rubin et al., 1983). While early studies centered on the link between play and learning (Fein, 1981), more recent studies include examinations of risk-taking in play as essential for child development (Sandseter, 2007(Sandseter, , 2009). ...

The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play
  • Citing Book
  • September 2012

... Like physical education (PE) and physical and mental health [15][16][17], recess offers distinct advantages [14]. Although additional studies are needed for confirmation, recess seems to have positive effects on various aspects of children's well-being [18]. Below, each of these possible benefits is outlined, along with several relevant studies. ...

Recess in Primary School: The Disjuncture Between Educational Policy and Scientific Research
  • Citing Chapter
  • August 2014

... www.nature.com/scientificreports/ relationships, the intensity in the perception of emotions and biological changes 14 . Researchers have documented how experiencing victimization by peers, in any of its forms, affects negatively youths' physical and mental health [15][16][17] . ...

School bullies, victims, and aggressive victims: Factors relating to group affiliation and victimization in early adolescence.

Journal of Educational Psychology

... This has been particularly true within the contexts of schools (Casey, 2017). Pellegrini and Blatchford (2002) argue that despite being central in children's rights (Art. 31 UNCRC), the importance of recess at school in both the UK and the United States has not been sufficiently made a priority. ...

Time for a break
  • Citing Article
  • February 2002

The Psychologist

... Breaks are often occupied by different activities, such as playing games or listening to music, and the effects of break activities on learning remain to be explored [13]. Mobile games have been shown to develop children's creativity and socialization, as they can be the starting point for many learning situations [14]. Play provides opportunities for the development of cognitive skills throughout a child's development. ...

The Role of Recess in Primary School
  • Citing Article
  • September 2006