Epistemologies in the Text of Children's Books: Native- and non-Native-authored books

Dehghani, Morteza; Bang, Megan; Medin, Douglas L.; Marin, Ananda; Leddon, Erin M.; Waxman, Sandra R.

doi:10.1080/09500693.2013.823675

Cited by 26 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…For urban children, the domain of living things is organized largely around exotic animals, ones with which they have little or no direct experience. This highlights the crucial role of children's books and films as sources of input, especially for children raised in urban environments (Dehghani et al, 2013;Bang et al, data not shown;Waxman et al, data not shown).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Naming the Living Things: Linguistic, Experiential and Cultural Factors in Wichí and Spanish Speaking Children

et al. 2014

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This work focuses on the underlying conceptual structure of children's category of liv ing things from a cross-cultural, cross-linguistic perspective. School-aged children (n = 129) from three Argentinean communities (rural Wichi-speaking, rural Spanish speaking, urban Spanish-speaking) were asked to generate the names of living things. Analyses were focused on the typicality, semantic organization, and hierarchical level of the names mentioned. We identified convergences among the names generated by children in all three communities, as well as key differences: the typicality, habitats and hierarchical level of the categories mentioned varied as a function of children's language and their direct experience with the natural world. These findings provide evidence concerning the role of language, culture and experience in shaping children's folkbiological concepts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Naming the Living Things: Linguistic, Experiential and Cultural Factors in Wichí and Spanish Speaking Children

et al. 2014

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“…We know that by 5 years of age, children are especially sensitive to cultural discourse about biological phenomena (Waxman et al, 2007). In urban communities, where direct contact with non-human animals is relatively limited (Rogoff et al, 2003) and where images of non-human animals in children’s books, discourse, and media often take an anthropocentric cast (Marriott, 2002; Pentimonti et al, 2011; Dehghani et al, 2013), young children encounter considerable support (intended or not) for an anthropocentric perspective. The results of the current experiment reveal their sensitivity to these anthropocentric portrayals in their reasoning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans (really) are animals: picture-book reading influences 5-year-old urban childrenâ€™s construal of the relation between humans and non-human animals

et al. 2014

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What is the relation between humans and non-human animals? From a biological perspective, we view humans as one species among many, but in the fables and films we create for children, we often offer an anthropocentric perspective, imbuing non-human animals with human-like characteristics. What are the consequences of these distinctly different perspectives on children’s reasoning about the natural world? Some have argued that children universally begin with an anthropocentric perspective and that acquiring a biological perspective requires a basic conceptual change (cf. Carey, 1985). But recent work reveals that this anthropocentric perspective, evidenced in urban 5-year-olds, is not evident in 3-year-olds (Herrmann etal., 2010). This indicates that the anthropocentric perspective is not an obligatory first step in children’s reasoning about biological phenomena. In the current paper, we introduced a priming manipulation to assess whether 5-year-olds’ reasoning about a novel biological property is influenced by the perspectives they encounter in children’s books. Just before participating in a reasoning task, each child read a book about bears with an experimenter. What varied was whether bears were depicted from an anthropomorphic (Berenstain Bears) or biological perspective (Animal Encyclopedia). The priming had a dramatic effect. Children reading the Berenstain Bears showed the standard anthropocentric reasoning pattern, but those reading the Animal Encyclopedia adopted a biological pattern. This offers evidence that urban 5-year-olds can adopt either a biological or a human-centered stance, depending upon the context. Thus, children’s books and other media are double-edged swords. Media may (inadvertently) support human-centered reasoning in young children, but may also be instrumental in redirecting children’s attention to a biological model.

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“…Storybooks are an important learning tool early in development; infants as young as 15 months old can learn words and generalize information from storybooks . Storybooks both reflect and reinforce cultural beliefs about nature and animals , and can serve as a source of information about entities with which children have little opportunity to interact directly. However, much of children's media depicts animals in human‐specific manners.…”

Section: Learning About Animals From Anthropomorphic Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

(Un)Real Animals: Anthropomorphism and Early Learning About Animals

Geerdts

2015

Child Dev Perspectives

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Children are frequently exposed to anthropomorphic depictions of animals. The impact of anthropomorphism on children's development of factual and biological knowledge about real animals has consequences for how we engage children in early learning about the natural world. In this article, I discuss recent cross‐cultural and experimental studies on children's exposure to differing representations of animals, and studies that highlight the role that experiences with and about animals play in the development of biological reasoning and factual learning. Continued research that considers the conditions in which anthropomorphism may support early learning can explain discrepancies in previous research and help advance the ways we address the place of anthropomorphism in early educational experiences.

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Epistemologies in the Text of Children's Books: Native- and non-Native-authored books

Cited by 26 publications

References 43 publications

Naming the Living Things: Linguistic, Experiential and Cultural Factors in Wichí and Spanish Speaking Children

Naming the Living Things: Linguistic, Experiential and Cultural Factors in Wichí and Spanish Speaking Children

Humans (really) are animals: picture-book reading influences 5-year-old urban childrenâ€™s construal of the relation between humans and non-human animals

(Un)Real Animals: Anthropomorphism and Early Learning About Animals

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