California Preschool Learning Foundations - ECEZero2Three ...

awareness of and response to diversity
in gender, culture, and ethnicity,
particularly as these are apparent in
differences in people’s appearance and
behavior. This is complex research
literature, particularly because of the
multiple origins (e.g., social learning,
conceptual development, direct exposure
to diversity) of young children’s
responses to human diversity in their
experience; see Aboud (2005, 2003).
Empathy and Caring
Young children’s capacities to
respond sympathetically and helpfully
to others in distress have been
of long-standing interest to parents,
professionals, and researchers. These
capacities build on children’s developing
social and emotional understanding
and contribute to their ability to
cooperate successfully with others in
group learning environments.
In understanding the development
of caring, it is important to distinguish
a young child’s emotional response to
another’s distress, which emerges very
early, from the behavioral capacity
to help the distressed person. Knowing
how to aid a peer in distress is a
complex challenge to a young child
(it is an even greater conceptual challenge
to figure out how to assist a
distressed adult); therefore, genuine
helping behavior emerges later in the
preschool years than does a child’s
emotional response to another’s upset.
The period of three to four years of age
is a crucial one. From before the age
of three, young children respond with
concerned attention to the distress of
another and are interested in finding
out why the person is upset. But it is
not until later in the preschool years
that children can accompany their
empathic response with assistance
California Department of Education • Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 1
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(although this does not necessarily
occur reliably). For recent reviews of
this research, consult Eisenberg, Spinrad,
and Sadovsky (2006), Thompson
(1998), and Zahn-Waxler and Robinson
(1995).
Initiative in Learning
How children approach new learning
and problem-solving challenges
is a critical feature of their academic
success. “Approaches to learning” is
an important predictor of classroom
achievement in kindergarten and
the primary grades, with the term
“approaches to learning” defined as
teacher ratings of children’s classroom
engagement, motivation, and participation
(Alexander, Entwisle, and Dauber
1993; Duncan, Claessens, and Engel
2005). Young children’s natural curiosity,
interest, and self-confidence that
they can discover the answers to their
questions are a central component of
their capacities to benefit from learning
opportunities (Thompson 2002).
Beginning in early childhood, there
are significant differences in the
enthusiasm, motivation, and selfconfidence
that children bring to new
learning situations. The work of Dweck
and her colleagues has demonstrated
that from relatively early in childhood,
children develop distinctly different
learning styles that influence their initiative
in learning and their persistence
when faced with difficult challenges
(see Burhans and Dweck 1995; Dweck
2002; Dweck and Leggett 1988). Children
with a “performance orientation”
focus on efforts in learning situations
that elicit positive evaluations from
others and avoid negative judgments.
As a consequence, these children
may avoid situations that are likely to
result in failure and they may not per-
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT