Infant educators’ use of mental-state talk in Australia and China: a cross-cultural comparative study

Author(s):  
Sheila Degotardi ◽  
Feifei Han ◽  
Jiangbo Hu
Nordlyd ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ane Knüppel ◽  
Rikke Steensgaard ◽  
Kristine Jensen de López

Sixteen 4 to 6-year-old Danish children were video-recorded, while interacting spontaneously with their family in their homes. The mental state talk of the children was identified and analysed with respect to three mental domains: desire, feeling and cognition, and was compared to data from a similar study carried out with Canadian families (Jenkins et al., 2003). Our results suggest some cross-cultural differences in children’s mental state talk. First, Danish children produce a larger variation of mental state talk words than Canadian children do, and second, the distribution of mental state talk across the three domains differed for the two language groups. Semantic variation between Danish and English was identified in the study, which may partly explain the findings. Furthermore we present a usage-based approach to the investigation of children’s development of psychological categories in language as well as cross-linguistically.


2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elinor Hardcastle ◽  
Stephanie Pitts ◽  
José Luis Aróstegui

A small-scale comparative study of music education provision in two Spanish and English primary schools was carried out in 2013–14, using questionnaires, interviews and observations. The study investigated the musical experiences of the children in the two schools, their ambitions for their musical futures, and the classroom practices and policy contexts that shaped these encounters with musical learning. Through thematic analysis and comparison of the data from the two schools, we examine music in children’s lives, music in the classroom, and musical ambitions and values, and consider how well the music curriculum serves the children in each setting.


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