How Do Young Children Explain Differences in the Classroom? Implications for Achievement, Motivation, and Educational Equity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21786315 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sébastien Goudeau (0000-0001-7293-0977, Université de Poitiers, corresponding author), Andrei Cimpian (0000-0002-3553-6097, New York University) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 533-552 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Perspectives on Psychological Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1745-6916 • E-ISSN: 1745-6924 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1745691620953781 |
| PMID | 33513311 |
| OpenAlex | W3121294648 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 131 |
Classroom settings bring to light many differences between children—differences that children notice and attempt to explain. Here, we advance theory on the psychological processes underlying how children explain the differences they observe in the classroom. Integrating evidence from cognitive, social, cultural, developmental, and educational psychology, we propose that young children tend to explain differences among their peers by appealing to the inherent characteristics of those individuals and, conversely, tend to overlook extrinsic reasons for such differences—that is, reasons having to do with external circumstances and structural factors. We then outline how this inherence bias in children’s explanations affects their motivation and performance in school, exacerbating inequalities in achievement and making these inequalities seem legitimate. We conclude by suggesting several means of counteracting the inherence bias in children’s explanations and its effects on their educational outcomes. Throughout, we highlight new directions for research on the relation between children’s explanations, their motivation and achievement, and the inequalities observed in elementary school and beyond
Academic achievement · Cognition · Developmental psychology · Inequality · Notice · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Psychology · School Choice and Performance · Social Psychology
She succeeded despite lack of ability or resources
Mindsets, contexts, and college enrollment
Les inégalités sociales à l'école,en parler sans démobiliser
Competitive school environments and socioeconomic achievement inequality
Preference for talented naturals over hard workers emerges in childhood and shapes behavior
Competitive and cooperative practices in education
Delivering mindset interventions to teachers as an efficient way to leverage the impact of mindset interventions
Catalysts and buffers
How preschool education perpetuates social inequality
Unequal homework
Who gets to see themselves as talented? Biased self-concepts contribute to first-generation students' disadvantage in talent-focused environments
Why lockdown and distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap
The Inherence Heuristic
The nature and function of self-esteem
A developmental examination of the conceptual structure of animal, artifact, and human social categories across two cultural contexts
Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?
The inherence heuristic
Self-Verification Theory
Socioeconomic Gaps in Early Childhood Experiences
Goal Theory, Motivation, and School Achievement
Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap
STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes
Contingencies of self-worth.
Social class disparities in health and education
Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale
Preschoolers’ Search for Explanatory Information Within Adult–Child Conversation
Observing the unexpected enhances infants’ learning and exploration
A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement
Toward a Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model of Social Behavior
An integrated process model of stereotype threat effects on performance.
Mind-Set Interventions Are a Scalable Treatment for Academic Underachievement
Continuity and change in early school engagement
Mental models of the earth
Extrinsic properties
A Theory of Heuristic and Systematic Information Processing
Recent Trends in Income, Racial, and Ethnic School Readiness Gaps at Kindergarten Entry
An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion.
Classrooms
The Psychology of Self-Affirmation
Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition
Do Children Distinguish Between Resource Inequalities With Individual Versus Structural Origins
Social Class, Culture, and Cognition
The Intuitive Psychologist And His Shortcomings
Stereotype Susceptibility in Children
The Development and Consequences of Stereotype Consciousness in Middle Childhood
The rocky road from acts to dispositions
Implicit Self-Theories in the Academic Domain
Inequality Is a Problem of Inference
Challenge and threat responses during downward and upward social comparisons
Improving the academic performance of college freshmen
Social class, sense of control, and social explanation
Social comparison between young children in achievement situations
Schooling and traditional collaborative social organization of problem solving by Mayan mothers and children
Person versus process praise and criticism
It's ok — Not everyone can be good at math”
The Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect Stands Up to Scrutiny
Social Justice Attitudes and Their Demographic Correlates Among a Nationally Representative Sample of U.S. Adolescents
The correspondence bias
Comparison Behavior in Elementary School Children
Culture and the self
Implicit theories, attributions, and coping
Unseen disadvantage
Improving the performance of college freshmen with attributional techniques
The accumulation of stereotype-based self-fulfilling prophecies
Clarifying the role of social comparison in the big-fish–little-pond effect (BFLPE)
Attending holistically versus analytically
Superstars and me
The focusing effect of self-evaluation threat in coaction and social comparison
Culture and cause
Praise for intelligence can undermine children's motivation and performance
Social class rank, essentialism, and punitive judgment
An early-emerging explanatory heuristic promotes support for the status quo
Choice as an act of meaning
Finding "Meaning" in Psychology
Culture and the development of everyday social explanation
Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement Across an Adolescent Transition
Cultures and Selves
Assessing does not mean threatening
Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation
Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality
Cognitive aspects of young children's experience of economic disadvantage
The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution
Stratified Failure
Concepts and Folk Theories
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |