A predicted association between family relations and cognitive development and the emergence of adolescent egocentrism was explored in this study. A sample of seventh grade boys (n=131) and girls (n=120) completed Elkind and Bowen's Imaginary Audience Scale (a measure of egocentrism) and selected items from Heilbrun's Parent-Child Interaction Rating Scale and Schaefer's Parent-Behavior Inventory. A modified version of Lawson's Classroom Test of Formal Operations was used to measure cognitive development. Contrary to a theoretical based hypothesis a negative rather than positive relationship was found between level of formal operational thought egocentrism. For parenting style, perceived rejection/control and emotional support was associated with diminished egocentrism. Mixed results were found for perceived physical effect and egocentrism. Perceived parental withdrawal heightened egocentrism for both sexes. The data provide an alternative model to past cognitive development theory for the development of egocentrism. Parental socialization factors were found to contribute as much variance to the level of egocentrism as did level of formal operational thought.

Adolescence is often seen as a stage where risk taking and experimentation are common. The need to feel a part of one’s peer group, to be valued as an individual and to overcome physical and emotional changes are all part of this developmental stage. This research examines the link between Elkind’s theory of Egocentrism and risk taking in female adolescents. Risk taking and its links to the Personal Fable and the Imaginary Audience were the main focus of the research. This study used a qualitative research design to obtain an in-depth understanding of risk taking among a sample group of ten female adolescents. A focus group from a different school was used to help analyse and discuss the data obtained. The results of this study show that Elkind’s theory of adolescent Egocentrism (both the Personal Fable and the Imaginary Audience) are, indeed, influencing factors in female adolescent risk taking.

The purpose of the present essay is to clarify whether or not there is a core/canon in the subject of sociology and how the formation of this canon in such cases becomes a reality? Furthermore the intention is to elucidate which premises that control the subject selection at different levels of curriculum interpretation – textbook authors and sociology teachers – and how these actors legitimize their respectively selection. The theoretical basis is in large extent inspired by Michel Foucault’s view of discourses which is combined with John I. Goodlad’s concepts formal and operational curriculum. To fulfill the abovementioned purpose and answer the questions of this essay I have interviewed two authors who each individually have written a textbook in sociology and five teachers of sociology.The results indicate that the formal curriculum combined with the discourses of the sociological discipline in the form of educational content and design contributes to form what is considered to be an adequate textbook content in the subject of sociology and this selection then forms the primary basis for the sociology teachers’ operational curriculum.

Nationally and internationally grade retention is still used as a remedial strategy even though the majority of research questions its efficacy. In this qualitative study the adolescent is given a voice to inform important role-players about his experience of grade retention. The findings show that the adolescent is very self-conscious about his new status and fears stereotyping. The adolescent's self-esteem is shattered and he loses confidence in his ability to achieve. He is often the victim of teasing and experiences loneliness when he loses his friends in the process. The adolescent is hypersensitive to remarks by teachers and his parents. When he needs support the most, he experiences only conflict. Feelings of despondency and doubt in the existence of God are the result. Given the importance of psychosocial adjustment on subsequent development, recommendations were made to assist important people in the adolescent's life to support him more effectively. / Social Work / (M.A. Diac (Play Therapy))

Nationally and internationally grade retention is still used as a remedial strategy even though the majority of research questions its efficacy. In this qualitative study the adolescent is given a voice to inform important role-players about his experience of grade retention. The findings show that the adolescent is very self-conscious about his new status and fears stereotyping. The adolescent's self-esteem is shattered and he loses confidence in his ability to achieve. He is often the victim of teasing and experiences loneliness when he loses his friends in the process. The adolescent is hypersensitive to remarks by teachers and his parents. When he needs support the most, he experiences only conflict. Feelings of despondency and doubt in the existence of God are the result. Given the importance of psychosocial adjustment on subsequent development, recommendations were made to assist important people in the adolescent's life to support him more effectively. / Social Work / (M.A. Diac (Play Therapy))

Procuramos fundamentar e explicitar neste trabalho o modo pelo qual o sujeito organiza, pessoal, coletiva e historicamente seu conhecimento astronômico. Toma-se como referencial teórico para essa organização a epistemologia genética de Jean Piaget, em particular sua teoria da abstração reflexionante. Apontam-se, na revisão bibliográfica, aspectos que se consideram relevantes para o conhecimento astronômico, tanto do ponto de vista teórico quanto histórico, seguindo uma direção que estrutura a gênese desse conhecimento específico, desde as estruturas sensório-motoras do sujeito, passando pelo pensamento pré-operatório, o pensamento operatório concreto e o pensamento operatório formal. O caminho seguido, uma vez que não podemos abranger o trabalho de Piaget na sua totalidade, foi o de fundamentar a aquisição do conhecimento no equilíbrio cognitivo, conseguido através de abstrações empíricas e reflexionantes, tendo como modelo, principalmente, o equilíbrio dos sistemas biológicos. Isso é, pretendemos mostrar como o conhecimento astronômico, iniciando pela percepção do céu, mediado pelo processo de equilibração e de abstração reflexionante, evolui por sucessivas tomadas de consciência dos fenômenos celestes e, ao mesmo tempo, das compreensões do próprio sujeito. Apontam-se, finalmente, algumas sugestões pedagógicas para que os fenômenos dos céus, inferenciais na sua totalidade, possam ser compreendidos em diferentes níveis de suas possíveis leituras. / This work has the objective of fundament and explicit in what ways one organizes, personal, collective and historically, its own astronomic knowledge. Jean Piaget’s genetics epistemology is taken as the referential theory, and the reflexionant abstraction theory taken as the central point. Through a checking on the bibliography, different aspects considered relevant for the astronomic knowledge are pointed out, in theory as in history, following a direction that structures the genesis of this specific knowledge, since one’s sensory-motor structures, going through the pre-operational thinking, the concrete operational thinking and the formal operational thinking. The way through which it was done, since we cannot go thorough the complete work of Piaget, fundaments the acquisition of knowledge on the cognitive equilibrium, acquired through empiric and reflexionant abstractions, having as a model, mainly, the biological systems equilibrium. In another way, with the astronomic knowledge, taken from the skies’ perception, mediated by the equilibrium theory and the reflecting abstraction theory, leads to the perception and understanding of the celestial phenomenon. By the end, the conclusions also point out suggestions in a pedagogical level so that the skies phenomenon, inferential in their totality, can be fully comprehended in all different ways of possible reading.

Procuramos fundamentar e explicitar neste trabalho o modo pelo qual o sujeito organiza, pessoal, coletiva e historicamente seu conhecimento astronômico. Toma-se como referencial teórico para essa organização a epistemologia genética de Jean Piaget, em particular sua teoria da abstração reflexionante. Apontam-se, na revisão bibliográfica, aspectos que se consideram relevantes para o conhecimento astronômico, tanto do ponto de vista teórico quanto histórico, seguindo uma direção que estrutura a gênese desse conhecimento específico, desde as estruturas sensório-motoras do sujeito, passando pelo pensamento pré-operatório, o pensamento operatório concreto e o pensamento operatório formal. O caminho seguido, uma vez que não podemos abranger o trabalho de Piaget na sua totalidade, foi o de fundamentar a aquisição do conhecimento no equilíbrio cognitivo, conseguido através de abstrações empíricas e reflexionantes, tendo como modelo, principalmente, o equilíbrio dos sistemas biológicos. Isso é, pretendemos mostrar como o conhecimento astronômico, iniciando pela percepção do céu, mediado pelo processo de equilibração e de abstração reflexionante, evolui por sucessivas tomadas de consciência dos fenômenos celestes e, ao mesmo tempo, das compreensões do próprio sujeito. Apontam-se, finalmente, algumas sugestões pedagógicas para que os fenômenos dos céus, inferenciais na sua totalidade, possam ser compreendidos em diferentes níveis de suas possíveis leituras. / This work has the objective of fundament and explicit in what ways one organizes, personal, collective and historically, its own astronomic knowledge. Jean Piaget’s genetics epistemology is taken as the referential theory, and the reflexionant abstraction theory taken as the central point. Through a checking on the bibliography, different aspects considered relevant for the astronomic knowledge are pointed out, in theory as in history, following a direction that structures the genesis of this specific knowledge, since one’s sensory-motor structures, going through the pre-operational thinking, the concrete operational thinking and the formal operational thinking. The way through which it was done, since we cannot go thorough the complete work of Piaget, fundaments the acquisition of knowledge on the cognitive equilibrium, acquired through empiric and reflexionant abstractions, having as a model, mainly, the biological systems equilibrium. In another way, with the astronomic knowledge, taken from the skies’ perception, mediated by the equilibrium theory and the reflecting abstraction theory, leads to the perception and understanding of the celestial phenomenon. By the end, the conclusions also point out suggestions in a pedagogical level so that the skies phenomenon, inferential in their totality, can be fully comprehended in all different ways of possible reading.

Procuramos fundamentar e explicitar neste trabalho o modo pelo qual o sujeito organiza, pessoal, coletiva e historicamente seu conhecimento astronômico. Toma-se como referencial teórico para essa organização a epistemologia genética de Jean Piaget, em particular sua teoria da abstração reflexionante. Apontam-se, na revisão bibliográfica, aspectos que se consideram relevantes para o conhecimento astronômico, tanto do ponto de vista teórico quanto histórico, seguindo uma direção que estrutura a gênese desse conhecimento específico, desde as estruturas sensório-motoras do sujeito, passando pelo pensamento pré-operatório, o pensamento operatório concreto e o pensamento operatório formal. O caminho seguido, uma vez que não podemos abranger o trabalho de Piaget na sua totalidade, foi o de fundamentar a aquisição do conhecimento no equilíbrio cognitivo, conseguido através de abstrações empíricas e reflexionantes, tendo como modelo, principalmente, o equilíbrio dos sistemas biológicos. Isso é, pretendemos mostrar como o conhecimento astronômico, iniciando pela percepção do céu, mediado pelo processo de equilibração e de abstração reflexionante, evolui por sucessivas tomadas de consciência dos fenômenos celestes e, ao mesmo tempo, das compreensões do próprio sujeito. Apontam-se, finalmente, algumas sugestões pedagógicas para que os fenômenos dos céus, inferenciais na sua totalidade, possam ser compreendidos em diferentes níveis de suas possíveis leituras. / This work has the objective of fundament and explicit in what ways one organizes, personal, collective and historically, its own astronomic knowledge. Jean Piaget’s genetics epistemology is taken as the referential theory, and the reflexionant abstraction theory taken as the central point. Through a checking on the bibliography, different aspects considered relevant for the astronomic knowledge are pointed out, in theory as in history, following a direction that structures the genesis of this specific knowledge, since one’s sensory-motor structures, going through the pre-operational thinking, the concrete operational thinking and the formal operational thinking. The way through which it was done, since we cannot go thorough the complete work of Piaget, fundaments the acquisition of knowledge on the cognitive equilibrium, acquired through empiric and reflexionant abstractions, having as a model, mainly, the biological systems equilibrium. In another way, with the astronomic knowledge, taken from the skies’ perception, mediated by the equilibrium theory and the reflecting abstraction theory, leads to the perception and understanding of the celestial phenomenon. By the end, the conclusions also point out suggestions in a pedagogical level so that the skies phenomenon, inferential in their totality, can be fully comprehended in all different ways of possible reading.