Social leadership skills in young children

“Not the Same Kind of Leaders”: Four Young Children's Unique Ways of Influencing Others

“…The four leaders in this study demonstrated several common leadership characteristics, which have been documented in the literature: advanced social and cognitive capabilities, verbal language proficiency, dramatic skills, creativity, imagination, independence, and being the oldest in the group (Feldhusen & Pleiss, 1994;French, 1984;Fu, 1979;Fu et al ., 1982;Hensel, 1991;Kemple, 1991;Parten, 1933;Perez et al ., 1982) . Beyond these commonalities, however, the results of this study also revealed how young leaders exhibited different strengths, unique leadership characteristics, and distinct ways of enacting leadership in the classroom .…”

“…Some researchers have approached early childhood leadership as part of or in relation to other social topics, such as peer acceptance, popularity, aggression, competence, and adjustment, rather than studying it as a specific phenomenon (e .g ., Corsaro, 1981;Fukada, Fukada, & Hicks, 1997;Kemple, 1991Kemple, , 1992McClellan & Katz, 2001;Nath & Seriven, 1981;Roopnarine & Honig, 1985;Vandell & Hembree, 1994) . Some studies identify particular leadership characteristics in young children, resulting in limited definitions of early childhood leadership that focus on individual traits, such as social and cognitive capabilities (Feldhusen & Pleiss, 1994;Fu, 1979), verbal language proficiency (Fu, Canaday, & Fu, 1982;Kemple, 1991;Perez, Chassin, Ellington, & Smith, 1982), dramatic skills (Feldhusen & Pleiss, 1994), imagination (Hensel, 1991), independence (Parten, 1933;Perez et al ., 1982), sensitivity to others' emotions and needs (Hensel, 1991;Kemple, 1991), sense of structure (Perez et al ., 1982), and age (French, 1984) . There have been a few attempts to develop instruments that measure young children's leadership (e .g ., Fu, 1977;Fukada, Fukada, & Hicks, 1994), but these focus on young children's individual behaviors without considering the context within which leadership behavior unfolds .…”

Active and Democratic Citizenship Education and its Challenges in Social Studies Classrooms

“…In order to improve leadership skills of students, the ones with leadership potential should be identified (Hensel, 1991). Gifted students' leadership potential cannot be recognized or they can be misguided if they are not supplied with proper leadership training (Karnes & Riley, 1996).…”

Gifted African‐American children in rural schools:Searching for the answers1

“…F inally, each student participates in a peer nomination interview which consists of several questions. The interview comes from work done by Hensel (1991) on identifying social leadership skills in young children. The questions allow for student input in the identification process, and although the information from this instrument has been limited by the egocentric nature of very young children, it has added a dimension to the identification that merits further investigation.…”