Demonstrating consensus in argumentative settings: Co-constructions in children's peer discussions
'Taking part' in conversations requires different activities from the interactants depending on the kind of conversation. This article investigates co-constructions in oral peer group discussions of elementary school children from grades 2 to 6 (7-12 years old). Although dissent is the starting point of argumentations, negotiating processes in oral argumentations are often co-constructed by two or more speakers on different levels, including consensual contexts. Co-constructions presuppose that the second speakers recognize structures and expectations based on the turn of the first speaker and that they are able to complete or expand these structures. Therefore, co-constructions can be understood as an indicator for oral skills and as a key site of 'taking part' in small group discussions. The article will discuss two different kinds of co-constructions (morpho-syntactical and argumentative-structural) based on 60 transcripts from a bigger corpus of 180 peer discussions. The analysis will show that these co-constructions can be understood as synchronizations of thinking and acting and to what extent they are an indicator of oral skills and play an important role in cooperative learning settings. The results are relevant in school contexts when it comes to assess oral argumentation of students. For teachers, they are helpful to elicit requirements for children's argumentation skills and to design tasks conducive to learn to argue and develop assessment tools accordingly.
The interplay between teachers' value-related educational goals and their value-related school climate over time
Values education within the school context is, among other elements, shaped by a value-related school climate as well as teachers' value-related educational goals. This longitudinal study investigated the interplay between these two elements over fifteen months, starting in March 2021, and including four points of measurement ( - ). The sample consisted of 118 primary school teachers (years 1 and 2) from primary schools in Switzerland. Teachers' value-related educational goals were measured with the , and teachers' perception of their school climate was measured with the . along with for missing data were used to investigate the reciprocal relationships along the four dimensions of value-related educational goals represented by Schwartz's , , , and and their corresponding dimensions of a perceived value-related school climate of , , , and For the dimensions " and ," the analyses revealed that the perceived value-related school climate of predicted teachers' value-related educational goals of significantly from to , while an effect in the opposite direction from to and from to was found. For the dimension " and ," the analyses revealed that the perceived value-related school climate of predicted teachers' value-related educational goals of from to . These findings are discussed in light of the dynamic processes of values education within the school environment as well as in the context of environmental and societal developments.
Feeling well and doing well. The mediating role of school engagement in the relationship between student well-being and academic achievement
Students' well-being has become an important part of education policy in many countries. Research shows that well-being contributes to students' engagement in school, thereby supporting academic achievement. However, prior research has often neglected the interplay and multidimensionality of the constructs. The present study applied a six-dimensional student well-being model and a three-component school engagement model to untangle the differential associations of positive and negative well-being dimensions with the components of school engagement and academic achievement. Longitudinal mediation analyses using a sample of = 754 Swiss secondary school students and two measurement points (Grade 7 and Grade 8) revealed differential associations of well-being dimensions with engagement components, but no direct effects on academic achievement. Enjoyment in school, as a dimension of student well-being, had an indirect effect on academic achievement, mediated through behavioral engagement. The results imply that fostering students' enjoyment in school may be a promising strategy to enhance their behavioral engagement and, in turn, promote their academic achievement.
Moving to a "flat with referee" in older age: an embodied and social transition
Moving in older age is a critical experience in the person's life trajectory as it may require an important reorganization of their relation to the social and material environment. In order to better understand this experience, we propose to address it drawing on the concepts of rupture and transition as developed in the frame of sociocultural lifecourse psychology. We complete this theoretical framework with the distinction between frame and space and with literature on bodies and embodiment. We present a case study conducted in a building of so-called flats with referee, a type of flats developed in the frame of a political reform addressing demographic ageing, in a Swiss canton. We focus in particular on interviews with inhabitants before and after they moved to these flats. In the analysis, we discuss two aspects of this rupture/transition which, we argue, play an important role in the persons' experiences: firstly, the embodied dimension of the experience of rupture, which is notably related to the experience of a new physical environment; secondly, the social relations in these buildings designed especially to favor relationships among neighbors. Through this analysis, we aim at contributing to the understanding of development in older age from a sociocultural psychological perspective and to the literature on ruptures and transitions as we highlight theoretical and methodological implications.
Supporting children's numeracy competencies and families' HNE: Exploring the role of apps and digital parent information in STEM vs. Non-STEM families
Early numeracy competencies are of great importance for children's competency development. Here, early digital intervention approaches offer the potential to support all children and their families. We investigated whether the provision of specific numeracy learning apps and parent information about children's numeracy development improves both, children's numeracy competencies and the quality of families' home numeracy environment (HNE) while considering the potential impact of parental (STEM) occupation. Children's numeracy competencies were measured twice in two cohorts ( = 190 children; = 63.6 months; = 4.4; = 310 children; = 59.4 months; = 3.9) with a six-month interval between t1 and t2. Parents were surveyed about the family characteristics and the HNE. Families in the numeracy intervention group ( = 151) received tablet computers with specific numeracy learning apps and parent information. No significant intervention effect on the quality of the HNE was found. However, children from intervention families showed significantly greater numeracy competency gains, even when considering child and family characteristics and independent of parental occupations. Consequently, high-quality learning apps can support the development of children's numeracy competencies already at preschool age. Further ideas on how to reach families and enhance the HNE are discussed.