Search

The folklorist Vladímir Propp identified a curious phenomenon in his study of 100 Russian fairy tales: despite their tremendous surface variety, they followed a single narrative structure or morphology. This article argues that the same phenomenon applies to SoTL articles: despite the tremendous variety of content and methods that SoTL articles evince, they have come to tell the same kind of story. They tell, over and over, a story of redemption. I identify two problems with the story of redemption, the first having to do with ethos (the character that an author projects to their readers), and the second having to do with plausibility. I propose an array of narrative possibilities to enable SoTL authors to tell other kinds of stories--possibilities based on problematizing rather than easily solving. I argue that these possibilities better realize how some of the foundational thinkers in SoTL wanted the field to evolve. While benefiting all SoTL practitioners, such an expansion of narrative possibilities will make the field a more welcoming place to humanities scholars in particular, many of whom share a skepticism about the possibility of linear progress and perpetual self-improvement.

In order for the fairy tale to maintain its effect on individuals, it must be transmitted to future generations in different ways. One of these transmitters is the storytellers. With the use of fairy tales in activities for basic language skills, fairy tales have become an important part of Turkish language teaching. Thus, Turkish teachers directly or indirectly assume the role of storytellers. For this reason, the opinions of Turkish teachers or prospective Turkish teachers about storytelling are important. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the opinions of prospective Turkish teachers about story and tale telling course. Phenomenological (phenomenological) design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the study and hermeneutic (interpretive) model, one of the types of phenomenological design, was used. The research was carried out on 26 3rd grade students continuing their education in the Department of Turkish Language Teaching at Bayburt University Faculty of Education in the autumn term of the 2022-2023 academic year. A semi-structured interview form consisting of 7 questions was used to determine their views on the "Story and Tale Telling" course. Content analysis technique was used to analyse the collected data. According to the opinions of prospective Turkish teachers, story and tale telling course is very important for prospective teachers.

One hundred popular children's books for ages 0-6 were selected from a local metropolitan library system with data from 10 library branches. These frequently checked out books were then analyzed for how disabilities were represented in the books. This study found that only a few books checked out of the library represent children with differing abilities. Out of one hundred books, only thirty-six books show differing abilities with all of them depicting visual impairment (e.g., glasses) and four depicting a mobility impairment (e.g., wheelchair) in addition to the visual impairment. Understanding that children's literature influences children's attitudes, it is vital to find opportunities to engage children in books depicting children with disabilities as children begin to develop their understanding and attitudes at a young age. [Note: The volume number (7) shown in the header on the PDF is incorrect. The correct volume number is 8.]

This article reports a local study of the presence of history as a subject in the kindergartens of Kristiansand, a municipality in southern Norway. There is no syllabus for history in the national curriculum; nevertheless, the research sought to find historical content in the kindergartens. The research method was informed by a precept of history didactics, namely that history is everywhere. Using this observation, tentative categories for content likely to feature history were formulated, and then searched for in the individual yearly plans of the kindergartens. This was supplemented by interviews. It is concluded that, in accordance with the national curriculum, history in the kindergartens is a local affair. It emerges especially through local history, visits to museums, and projects with historical features. This research was not designed to determine whether learning outcomes in history are achieved, nor to consider kindergartens outside Kristiansand. However, it references a corpus of literature on history in Norwegian kindergartens, and interacts with it. The conclusion about the presence of the subject is the same as was found for another city, Trondheim, in research by others. For international readers, the article also argues that in principle it is possible for young children to learn history orally and informally.

According to UNESCO, education for sustainable development (ESD) is characterized by the concern for training the skills necessary for a human individual to relate responsibly to the natural, economic and socio-cultural environment in which he lives, minimizing or completely avoiding the negative effects of actions on the quality of his life and that of others. This finality of education for sustainable development requires the prioritization of moral education and shifts the focus to the development of moral consciousness and the formation of a value system agreed and assumed by all members of a community. Because it essentializes human values, the fairy tale constitutes an ideal learning content in relation to the objectives of moral education. The wide and varied symbolism of the heroes who evolve in the fairy tale world, the situations they go through and the key tools in overcoming some crises turn the fairy tale into a source of learning with a safe and deep impact on the student, both cognitively and affective and volitional. Knowing the interdependence between the professional skills of the teacher and the training of the student's skills (Ceobanu et al., 2020, p. 277), a teacher has the duty to know what are the sources and contents of learning that optimally respond to the educational needs and interests of those whom he guides. Therefore, the teachers' conception of the educational potential of the fairy tale is a determining factor in the application or exclusion of this content from the instructive-educational/school activities. The study we are carrying out aims to determine the level of knowledge of the educational potential of the fairy tale by teachers from schools on both banks of the Prut and provides valuable data about their beliefs regarding the effectiveness of the fairy tale in training and educating the younger generations.

This study delves into the realm of critical multimodal literacy through the lens of fairy tale reconstruction. Employing an innovative pedagogical approach, the research examines how students engage with and transform traditional narratives using a critical perspective and digital tools. This action research showcases how students collaboratively reconstructed fairy tales by reshaping characters, plotlines, and themes, with a particular emphasis on gender roles and empowerment. The integration of digital platforms facilitated the transformation, allowing for creative exploration of characters, settings, and emotions. Findings reveal that students exhibited nuanced critical insights as they questioned and reshaped traditional gender representations, power dynamics, and narrative structures. This research contributes to educational practices by highlighting the potential of critical multimodal literacy activities in fostering transformative learning experiences. By integrating critical analysis with digital storytelling, this study opens avenues for advancing pedagogical strategies that promote critical engagement, multimodal expression, and societal reflection.

In this research, were analysed the visual representations made by high school students as a result of reading a cult fairy tale and creating a project entitled "Harap-Alb's journey seen through the eyes of children" in the 10th grade geography lessons. The projects were carried out by 26 students, who worked in pairs. The geography teacher presented them on the Google Classroom platform the structure of the project (visual and written components), tasks (forming groups, reading fairy tales, making mind maps), instructions and requirements. The aim of this activity was to identify and illustrate ways in which certain cognitive barriers can be removed and through which dynamic and creative thinking can be acquired/encouraged.

Collocations make it possible to use and understand the language in an effective way. In this context, understanding collocation issues is important for both native speakers and language learners. This study aims at revealing certain determinations and problems with regard to the classification of word combinations in Turkish. For this purpose, descriptive analysis, content analysis, and category and frequency analyses have been employed herein. The sample of the study is composed of narrative (tale, story, and novel) texts selected through the cluster sampling method according to the level of 5th-8th grade students. Linguistic input of (+/-) 624,089 words has been entered into the research corpus as a result of the process involving the import of the texts into the electronic environment via a scanner, their digitization through conversion to text format, and their coding to be processed in Turkish language (ISO). The study involves the individual evaluation of word combinations in terms of their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. Then, the classification of these combinations has been applied as semi-restricted collocations, restricted collocations, figurative idioms, and pure idioms in terms of semantics, according to their structure whether it is syntactic dual or multiple. Generally, the semantic order of word combinations in narrative texts has been found to be as follows: Free combinations > semi-restricted collocations > restricted collocations > figurative idioms > pure idioms. The findings obtained reveal certain problems specific to the Turkish language with regard to the detection of word combinations, especially collocations, via programs. The study contributes to the literature as descriptions of word combinations in Turkish. More importantly it is thought that it will contribute to the development of literacy skills of students both in mother tongue education and foreign language learning.

Children's cartoons and films are often dubbed for obvious reasons that children find reading subtitles a challenging process in a film. This study investigated the issue of Otherness and the strategies of its audiovisual translation in the Arabic dubbed version of "Masha and the Bear," a Russian cartoon film. The study examined the orientation of three elements of Audiovisual Translation (AVT): the verbal, the para-verbal and the non-verbal. In the context of Masha and the Bear, the comparative analysis of selected dubbed episodes confirmed the three orientations and showed that the strategies most often used by the translator are paraphrase, substitution, and generalization. The results of the study suggest that the challenge mainly lies in the dilemma of meeting the audience's expectations without altering deeply the specificity of the Source Text (ST). They also show that in most cases the translator domesticated the SL product to meet the cultural values of the audience. This study also uncovered a few challenges posed by the rendering of otherness represented in cartoons, and accordingly understood how the translator coped with this aspect in the given multiple semiotic systems interacting in the cartoons. As cartoons play a major role in children's life and education, this study would develop increasing interests in translation of cartoons through dubbing and promote the local culture and ensure a higher degree of acceptability by the target viewer.

This research aims to support the "teaching of concepts" in the 3rd grade Life Science Course with activities. A quasi-experimental design (selective) with a pre-test and post-test control group, one of the quantitative research designs, was used in the research. Using songs, poems, rhymes, acrostics, stories, fairy tales, riddles/puzzles, animations, and traditional children's games, the experimental group's success in acquiring certain concepts from the third-grade life science course was enhanced by developing and implementing the above activities. Research data were collected with the "Concept Achievement Test" developed by the researcher by quantitative research data collection techniques. In the data analysis, arithmetic means were used to determine the academic success of the experimental and control groups. The Independent Sample t-Test was used for comparisons between groups. As a result of the research, there was a considerable achievement gap between the experimental and control groups, with the experimental group performing significantly better. According to these results, activities structured with songs, poems, nursery rhymes, acrostics, stories, fairy tales, puzzles/riddles, animations, and traditional children's games significantly impact student success in teaching concepts in third-grade elementary school biology classes. These activities apparently increase student success rates and are useful in this regard.

Robotics is needed as education keeps up with challenges students are facing in a technological environment. A long-term research project focuses on developing a feasible robotics-based learning environment that enables primary school teachers to introduce computer science education. This paper shows educational robotics combining storytelling to promote computational thinking through the method of Tell, Draw, and Code. The study was conducted via pre-post test, using the Beginners Computational Thinking test (BCTt), with third and fourth graders (N = 40) to determine if the integration of robotics-based storytelling activities enhances computational thinking skills. Results show that an increase in computational thinking is evident after the intervention is implemented. The approach of combining stories, texts, and literature with educational robotics seems to be a promising concept to equip students with the required skills.

Second language (L2) learners comprehend more when they are prepared for novel vocabulary that they encounter in a text. Input-based incremental (IBI) vocabulary instruction (Barcroft, 2012) provides L2 instructors and learners with a means of achieving this goal by (a) presenting optimal input to learners at the right time during a reading-focused lesson and (b) promoting the gradual development of different aspects of word knowledge over time. The approach draws on theoretical advances and research findings related to lexical input processing, including the benefits of acoustically varied input and opportunities for target word retrieval. This paper explains the IBI approach and demonstrates how it can be applied when teaching authentic texts, using as an example L2 German and "Wo Europa anfängt" (1991) by Yoko Tawada, a narrative that addresses themes such as transnationalism, migration, borders, and cultural identity.

The aim of the paper is to present several fairy tales from Giuseppe Pitrè's collection as a potentially interesting reading material for children. Since classical fairy tales in some cases depict traditional gender roles, they can present an obstacle to children's gender construction. Therefore, it is also important to read those stories which do not have a stereotypical gender discourse. We found such stories in Pitrè's collection of folk fairy tales from the 19th century. In the paper we present the analysis of the structure of several folk fairy tales from Pitrè's collection. The analysis has been performed according to Propp's structuralist method, while the task was to determine the morphology of those fairy tales dealing with female hero-seekers. Such heroines correspond to the feminist perspective and they are convenient for reading in education for the purpose of children's constructions of gender not exclusively provided by normative canons. The model of critical reading, which we suggest for reading the analyzed fairy tales, has been founded on reader-response criticism.

The socio-dynamics of the 21st century classroom reveals the importance of gender sensitivity as a living mechanism which constructs both intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. This study explores how reading and discussing comparative children's literature could impact pre-service English teachers' understanding of gender issues at a university in the west of Turkey. Adopting a qualitative case study design, the present study involved 25 senior pre-service teachers who were taking the literature course in the 2018-2019 academic year, fall term. Data was collected through written reports and semi-structured interviews. We analyzed the data inductively with codes and themes developing out of a recursive process of data collection and analysis. The findings display that a comparative analysis of fairy tales is an effective means through which the pre-service teachers develop gender sensitivity and become critically literate as a teacher. Besides, the comparative analysis helps the female participants improve self-sufficiency as a woman. Implications are also included for language teacher education programs.

The present study aims to determine the readability and clarity levels of certain Turkish tales for middle-school students. The study was conducted with a survey model. The study material consists of three tales each chosen from the books titled "Az Gittik Uz Gittik" and "Masal Masal Içinde," and the study group consists of 90 students who were studying in a middle school located in the central district of a province in the Spring semester of the 2018- 2019 academic year. The data collection tools used in the study include the Atesman Readability Formula, Çetinkaya-Uzun Readability Formula, and a Cloze Readability Application. Data collection was performed in two stages. In the first stage, the readability conditions of the first one hundred words of the tales were determined in order to apply the readability formulas. In the second stage, the Cloze Readability application was completed within three weeks by applying it to the study group using two texts per week. The analysis of the data was performed using the Descriptive Analysis technique. It was determined that the tales had a readability level of "easy" according to the Atesman readability formula, and "educational" according to the Çetinkaya-Uzun readability formula. It was found that the book titled "Az Gittik Uz Gittik" had a readability level of "difficult (frustration)" while the book titled "Masal Masal Içinde" had a readability level of "educational (assisted)" according to the Cloze Readability application.

Disney's interpretation of the fairy tale, "Beauty and the Beast," and the decisions made to include or exclude certain key elements of the original plot, provide insight into how ideas about what it means to be human have changed over time. Specifically, a critical disability studies reading of "Beauty and the Beast" brings to light the taken-for-granted category of disability as a social construct, the ever-shifting indicators of an individual's normality/Otherness, and the socio-historical context that results in such distinctions. The intent of this paper is to (1) explain the theoretical framework behind a détournement, or counter-text, I created in order to articulate a critical disability studies reading of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," and (2) describe my experience of presenting this détournement to undergraduate education students, and the implications for incorporating critical disability studies into teacher education programs.

The Vygotskian preschool education program (VPEP) is built around mediation in the context of preschool age-specific activities such as sociodramatic play, constructive play, listening and retelling fairy tales, playing with dollhouses, motor activities, and some others. We used the VPEP as part of the daily curriculum in two pre-K classes at PS 197 in Harlem, New York, to promote the development of children's self-regulation and symbolic thought. Another pre-K class at PS 197 was used as the control group. For pre-and posttests, we administered the Coding and Symbol Search subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III (WPPSI-III), which target the ability to self-regulate, and the Block Design subtest of the WPPSI-III, which targets the ability to exercise symbolic thought. The results of the study demonstrate that the VPEP promotes the development of preschoolers' self-regulation and is beneficial for the development of their symbolic thought.

This article presents an approach to fiction devoted to detailing, visually presenting, and analyzing structural patterns in the literary text. This enhanced formalism will be illustrated with elementary examples ranging from the world of music to the world of the Brothers Grimm. Employing this "architectonic" approach would complement more familiar critical approaches and perhaps, given its more "objective" quality, appeal to the technically oriented student and encourage that student to engage more fully in the literature classroom.

In the field of K-12 education, the demand for effective coding education is gradually expanding with various coding tools such as Scratch being popularly used as an effective learning environment. However, an answer to the question of what constitutes appropriate computing concepts for children (e.g. elementary school students) has not been fully answered. In this regard, this study worked to develop computational fairy tales (CFT) for coding beginners and applied it to the elementary school classroom environment in Korea. This CFT was developed by extracting the concepts of computer science through literature analysis, developing a plot/episode and creating a story. The final CFT developed is composed of 15 core computational concepts. 152 elementary students participated in the experiment where students read the CFT and solved related problems over two weeks period. We analyzed the effects of the CFT on the acquisition of basic computing concepts and coding attitudes. The results of the study showed that both the score of computing concept comprehension and attitude was enhanced significantly (p<0.001). This study demonstrates the positive educational effects of CFTs in fostering understanding of basic computing concepts before students begin to code with algorithms directly.

Storybook reading experiences have the potential to foster children's cognitive skills in regard to sequencing a story plot, making predictions about the outcome, comprehending the story's message, and understanding cause-and-effect relationships. Deconstruction enables children to think critically about the story's protagonist's perspectives, themes, and messages. Thus, deconstruction can be a useful method for examining a story's elements with children and triggering them to make intertextual connections among stories. This study focuses on preschoolers' intertextual connection competencies and provides them with a novel activity. Therefore, the study focused on a well-known fairytale titled "The Little Red Riding Hood" along with two different, newer versions of the story. The present study's participants included thirty preschool children (fifteen girls and fifteen boys). The following three versions of the "Red Riding Hood" stories were read twice during the small group reading activity: "The Little Red Riding Hood," "Very Little Red Riding Hood" (written by Teresa Heapy, illustrated by Sue Heap), and "Who is Afraid of Red Riding Hood?" (written by Sara Sahinkanat, illustrated by Ayse Inan Alican). The stories present different perspectives and contradictory messages regarding the same topic. The findings revealed that the children talked about intertextual linkage between story plots wherein they focused on the climaxes as dissimilar and similar points. The study findings show that half of the children retold their stories along the same lines as those in the previous stories. On the other hand, eleven children drew intertextual connections in their stories and combined different characters, plots, and/or settings from the three versions. Deconstruction can be a fruitful teaching method with which early childhood teachers may encourage children to assert perspectives, think critically, and make intertextual connections among stories to foster their story comprehension.

Research findings in the field of Mathematics Education emphasize that storytelling is an effective instructional tool in the teaching of mathematics, as it provides a meaningful context that attracts students' interest and makes learning a pleasant process. The use of stories and fairy tales in the teaching of mathematics motivates students to learn and provides students with an authentic context to understand mathematical concepts and procedures. It is a clear way to incorporate mathematics into other, broader cognitive domains and promotes mathematical discussion in the classroom. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the role that the use of storytelling can play in teaching fractions to third grade students. The study sample consisted of 76 third graders, who attended two primary schools in the city of Florina (Greece). This sample was divided into experimental (n=38) and control (n=38) group. In this study target-focused teaching stories were used. These stories were written in accordance with the objectives of a new Curriculum for rational numbers teaching. The study results showed that the use of storytelling had a positive effect on students' achievement in fractions, as the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group. The students who benefited most from the use of storytelling were those with medium, especially, with low performance. Finally, the use of storytelling had a positive effect on specific mathematical skills, such as comparing fractions, finding equivalent fractions, creating and manipulating representations and problem solving.

The present study aims to examine the use of picture books in preschool classes. Case Study, a qualitative research method, was employed as the research method. The data were collected through video recording, semistructured interviews, and documents. They were analyzed by means of document and descriptive analysis techniques. The research findings revealed that the books in the classes were generally composed of the picture books in the form of series and fairy tale books. Teachers participating in this study thought that books were not sufficient in most classes and that in addition to the books present in the classes, there should be more books related to science. The research findings showed that when children are read informative picture books, they display more distracted behavior compared to when narrative picture books are read. However, when examined in general, distracted behavior by children while the teacher reads were understood to be associated more with the strategies that the teacher uses while reading. The most remarkable finding of the study was that the teachers made a limited eye contact with the children while story reading, they did not adjust their tones according to the characters and carry out an activity except asking questions about the story in the post-story reading process.

Young people, in the age of puberty and early adolescence, are in need of images and narratives as role models to mirror their actual thoughts and feelings, and to stimulate the development of their (tradition(s)-related) life orientation. The development of a life orientation we see as a religiously or secularly founded process of identity construction--a work-in-progress; a process of 'learning by doing'. This is described in Part I of this contribution. As Jacob Moreno, the founder of psychodrama stated: 'Thinking is in the action'. 'Doing'--being actively involved in a situation--is the defining characteristic of key persons and key objects in narratives. This is in line with John Dewey's view that the activity new perspectives are created; learning by doing. In bibliodrama, making use of psychodrama techniques, connections are established between narratives from traditional (religious or secular) worldviews--but also from myths and fairy tales--and young people's individual life experiences. Seemingly without effort and as child's play, bibliodrama creates an encounter between the here-and-now and the once-and-then of narratives of long ago. The theoretical framework of this practice and the methods of bibliodrama are described in Part II. In Part III we present an example of bibliodrama performed with 18--20-year-old students of the Odisee Hogeschool (Odisee University of Applied Sciences) of Brussels (Belgium). We conclude our contribution with a few preliminary conclusions, a discussion and recommendations for the practice of bibliodrama in education to familiarise students with (religious and secular) life orientations traditions, in order to facilitate the construction of their own authentic life orientation.

This paper explores the role of fairy tales in relation to literacy, affective learning, self-authoring and narrative quest. The study examines fairy tales in the context of the New Literacy Studies with regard to improving cognitive, linguistic and creative writing skills for adult literacy learners.

This article approaches the study of children's literature as a threshold of change that allows readers to explore the reality around them, imagine other worlds and understand other perspectives. Based on the notion of the child's cognitive development organized into four stages--pre-reading, fantastic stage, fantastic-realistic stage and aesthetics stage--reading becomes a resource to combine fantasy and experience where the mirror is a highly suggestive element and prone to hundreds of interpretations and applications as can be seen in the plots of well-known books such as the brother Grimm's "Snow White," Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass," Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story" and J.K. Rowling's "The Philosopher's Stone," among others. As a result, as young readers go from one stage to another, the mirror gains greater symbolic complexity and they face the discovery of the self and the other as well as the confrontation between the so-called primary and secondary worlds, reality and the marvelous.

The present study was conducted to determine the thoughts of children, whose lives are governed by decisions taken by adults, on the right to self-determination. The study was conducted as a generic qualitative research, a qualitative research design. The study group included 16 children. The data were collected with semi-structured interviews conducted with children. Before the data collection process, the solo test game was played with children as ice breaker. After the solo test game, the modified version of the Cinderella fairy tale was read by the children and they were asked questions about the fairy tale. The objective of the modified Cinderella tale was to make children imagine a world where the decisions are taken by children. After the fairy tales, the semi-structured interview was conducted. The interviews were conducted upon the approval of the children to record the conversations, and the replies provided by children who did not provide approval for voice recordings were noted by the first author. The findings were analyzed with descriptive analysis. Based on the analysis results, the collected data was grouped in five categories that were organized under two themes. In conclusion, students stated that they were able to decide on daily matters such as selecting clothes, what to eat, however, they were presented with no choices in matters that could affect their lives such as school selection. Children stated that adults do not believe that children can make decisions on issues relevant to children's lives.

This chapter bridges theories of social justice (e.g., Osborn, 2006) and intercultural citizenship (e.g. Byram, 2008) to classroom practices in an introductory German course at a research university. By interpreting a fairy tale [Cinderella], 16 university students reflected on issues of gender roles and (in)equality both in historical and current contexts. Several activities in a 75-minute online session are described. In this brief intervention, students demonstrated the ability to contemplate complex, real-life issues such as gender roles and stereotypes using the target language.

The purpose of this research is to analyze Turkish fairy tales in the context of educational properties of fairy tales. 10 Turkish fairy tales gathered around from different parts of Turkey by several researchers have been analyzed in the scope of the research conducted by document analysis method. Determining factors of the chosen fairy tales were that they had different storylines and characters and that they were from different regions of Turkey. The data analysis of the research was conducted with content analysis method and most of the analyzed fairy tales were exemplary to the reader-listener showing the characteristics of selflessness, bravery, benevolence, and honesty whereas some of the fairy tales were found to be weak in directing the reader-listener to act with confidence and use intelligence by portraying an image of dependency for supernatural powers while solving problems by the protagonists.

Fairy tales are used intensively by Turkish teachers in Turkish lessons. Elements in tales need to be examined in many respects such as their suitability for cultural transmission, psychological benefits, and harms, correct and effective use of language and so on. The opinions of the Turkish teachers in the field are very important for this subject which needs to be examined in depth. This research's model is descriptive, semi-structured interview is a data collection tool for this research. Participants except one seem to have found tales interesting for all students. It is seen that teachers use talents primarily for semantic knowledge and moral values, and then for language skills achievements. Teachers have answers that they use tales more for values such as goodness, honesty, respect, and love. There may be an interpretation that teachers often do not encounter situations where students generally look askance at tales. It is seen that teachers are leading the opinion that there is not a fairy tale that should not be read. This answer is followed by the response that tales with negative contents should not be read. Ranking of tales of most positive reactions given by students can be done respectively as: all tales which have a happy ending, Keloglan tales, Snow white tales, Aesop's Fables… According to teachers, tales which should be absolutely read by students are listed as follows: Keloglan, Grimm Brothers, One Thousand and One Nights.

Working with contexts is a key component to design and technology activity and education. The most recent iteration of the national curriculum programme of study for design and technology, in England, sets out that children between the ages of 5 and 7 "should work in a range of relevant contexts" (DfE, 2013, p.193); suggested contexts including "home and school, gardens and playgrounds, the local community, industry and the wider environment". Whilst these are real world and familiar contexts, fictional contexts also provide opportunities for developing "creative spaces" in which to speculate and discuss. This intrinsic case study explores the work of two primary teachers' development of a design and technology activity, where traditional tales provide the context. Children explore design problems and opportunities through the eyes of the "Billy Goats Gruff", as they seek assistance to cross the river. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and document analysis of children's design work. The case study reveals how multidisciplinary and imaginative approaches to teaching and learning in the primary classroom stimulate and nurture design thinking, dialogue and critique.

The hermeneutics of fairytales, understood as a new way to get their deep significances and therapeutic effects on children by the process of psychic conflicts awareness, represents a frequent topic in the current research, a real source of inspiration for those delivering literature for children or for those using fairytales for therapeutic purposes, either in case the children with special problems, or in individual or group psychotherapy of adults. Based on the experience in teaching fairytales at the specialization Pedagogy of Elementary and Preschool Education, and at two of the activities of the reading group, Books Mirrors, of the Department of Science of Education within the Faculty of Sociology and Psychology of the West University from Timi?oara, this article is a reflection on the therapeutic size of fairytales and of the didactic implications arisen.

The concept of "perezhivanie" has gained theoretical attention and is beginning to feature in empirical studies of young children, where the role of emotion is foregrounded (e.g., Ferholt, 2010). However, the idea of a "collective perezhivanie" of adults and children in early childhood settings has not yet been researched. In the context of collective emotional imagination (Fleer & Hammer, 2013; Fleer & Peers, 2012), this paper foregrounds the key relations between audience and players, and between real relations and role relations. It extends a line of work developed by Zaporozhets (1986, 1986/2002, 1994/2005) and furthered by Strel'kova (1986) and El'koninova (2001, 2002) on a related concept known in Russian as "soperezhivanie." Through a study of 25 children, three educators, and the first named author, participating in a fairy tale festival in a multi-age children's care setting in Australia (60 hours of video observations) the concept of "soperezhivanie" is drawn upon to make sense of the experiences of the participants. It was found that moments of collective "perezhivanie" were co-experienced by children and teachers when teachers took a role in the play and the group united around a key moment of emotional contradiction in the fairy tale. This research provides insights into ways in which early childhood educators can plan for children's emotional development in collective whole group contexts. The outcomes make a contribution to the unfinished work of Vygotsky on the concept of "perezhivanie."

This article investigates the potential benefits of using children's literature in adult second language (L2) classrooms. A short-term, intensive university course for English reading and writing was designed incorporating children's literature into the curriculum. The author describes the course and discusses how children's literature can be used to improve students' linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills. Both the teacher's and students' perceptions and attitudes towards the use of children's literature in such a context are addressed. The author concludes that, with adults in the L2 classroom, children's literature can be used as a model for student writing, can engage students in critical thinking, and can be a springboard for meaningful discussions and creative composition. Finally, the author provides suggestions of how language teachers can integrate reading and writing instruction, as well as critical thinking, using children's literature with adults in L2 classrooms.

Fairy tales to female writers are major resource for their abundant writings, but for the feminist poets since 1960s, they become essential subject matter to often deal with in their literary production. With the motivation to address the conventional tradition of patriarchal society, and re-address the stereotype females inhabiting these tales, feminist writers set upon revealing the underlying sub-context of these tales, presenting them with more adult-suited themes. Anne Sexton's "Transformation" is a pioneering revision of Grimm's fairy tales in which the poet does not only satirize the patriarchal society she grew up in, but she also rejects the female stereotype that her upbringing intended her to be. In the following paper, the feminist messages which Sexton's fairy tales intended to deliver are examined to reveal the poet's position concerning feminism and her relationship with female role-models and the male figures she presents in her fairy tales.

In this article, we analysed the collaborative use of tablets (iPads) in a third-grade primary classroom in Norway where the pupils created fairy tales. The pupils worked in groups of five and shared an iPad in their group. We observed and recorded the story's development, which lasted a week, using video recordings and field notes. We explored the issue of role the tablet played in collaborative writing activities. We analysed data from a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) perspective. Our findings suggest that the iPad supplemented the role of regulator for interactions in writing activities and that the mobility of the device contributed to the development of the story. However, it is the teacher's design of the classroom activity that is key to the role the iPad plays in collaborative writing activities.

Design and implementation of a collaborative course project, using Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) to teach and discuss the concepts of orality, cultural legacy, archetypes, adaptation/appropriation, and social criticism in an Introduction to Literature course at Historically Black Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama. The student groups are guided through the use of interactive, collaborative strategies in the creation of a group oral presentation that reconfigures the LRRH story in combination with other narratives discussed during the semester in order to convey a message of social criticism. The project encourages students to reclaim or "own" a traditional tale from Western literary tradition by transforming it to communicate a new message.

This article asks why adults play dress-up and investigates the role of object play in the making of magical thinking and the reforming of adult identity. The author looks at a wide spectrum of narratives and their genres--the fairy tale "Cinderella," the film comedy "Some Like it Hot", the epistolary novel "Pamela", the film melodrama "Now, Voyager", the psychoanalytical case study of "Miss K.," and the memoir "My Judy Garland Life". She asserts that these narratives help define what constitutes "a woman's story" as a story of transformation by setting its representation in relation to objects or aesthetic worlds, into which the woman changes or immerses herself with the same intensity and single-mindedness as a child at play. The author draws on the works of psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas to explain the transformational object seeking and aesthetic moment of these narrative representations and argues they model a woman's longing for transformation and make it imaginable to the adult mind. (Contains 2 figures.)

The paper begins with some issues related to aesthetics, aesthetic education, art and axiological education. The empirical research has the general assumption that secondary school students and youth have difficulties in selecting values. The objective of the research was three fold: to design, to organize and to carry learning activities from which students shall acquire educational values through the study of art objects. The exploratory research was conducted on a sample of 50 students (25 in experimental group and 25 in control group). The content sample included fairy-tales and short stories ("Beauty and the Beast; The money earned" by Alexandru Mitru) and artistic topics on several well-known art objects (The Endless Column, Table of Silence, The Gate of Kiss, Peles castle, Voronet monastery, and St. Michael's Cathedral from Cluj-Napoca). The tested hypothesis stated that "if secondary school students are involved in learning contexts where they perceive, analyze and explain artistic objects then they develop aesthetic and ethic values." The learning context students were exposed to represents the independent variable and the outputs--the educational values themselves--represent the dependent variable. In order to test for the hypothesis we planned a formative didactic experiment. In order to test the hypothesis the pre-test/post-test design was used.

Western Europe has been constructed in the field of education abroad as a "traditional" location: in some sense or another that label is used to suggest that it has a kind of static or dormant significance. In reality, Western Europe is an enormously rich location for study abroad precisely because it is a fluid learning environment that contains and sustains multiple meanings and ambiguities. It is a location that has been represented and constructed by American culture in some key ways over time and what is represented is simultaneously true and untrue. Within that paradox resides a great learning opportunity. This article explores some of the ways in which Europe has been created and recreated in the American mind and relates those constructs to the limitations, opportunities, and dynamics that may be explored in education abroad. Those constructs represent in part the baggage that students bring with them. In this article, the structure will recreate the experience of students coming to Europe. The essay explores the baggage they carry; engagement with the European environment, and, finally, the process of return. In that structure, which mirrors the experience of the study abroad student, a partial but suggestive set of perspectives emerge that go further than defending the traditional and, instead, present a cogent set of rich realities that collectively create the case for Europe. (Contains 35 endnotes.)

The author contends that reading some narratives of make-believe can become for many children the ultimate form of fantasy play, providing them with a sense of control absent in their real world. She employs terms from French structuralist critic Gérard Genette, from Austrian child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, and from English pediatrician D. W. Winnicott, to discuss Eleanor Estes's classic 1960s children's novel "The Witch Family." The author shows how the embedded stories of the work engage its young readers in narrative games and offers them a complex picture of children at play, one they recognize and enjoy. She contends that young readers come not only to relish the structurally transgressive manipulations of the story but that, because they do so, they are better able to face the world at large. As children learn to handle the monsters and witches of Estes's narrative fantasy, they learn to cope with the doubts and worries of childhood itself, and this proves key to the book's longevity and continued popularity.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) negatively affects the cognitive and psychomotoric spheres of the pupil's social behavior and social adaptation. The review of many studies states that pupils with AD/HD achieve worse learning results because of insufficiently functioning cognitive processes, such as attention, (work) memory, thinking, problem solving, language, small- and large- scale motorics. Behavioral features, exhibited with AD/HD, include low-frustration tolerance, temper problems, persistence, emotional liability, depression, peer rejection, poor self-concept and poor self-esteem. Because of insufficiency of the cognitive processes, the difficulties of social behavior and social adaptation, pupils with AD/HD more often have a dysfunction of pupils' role that manifests by learning difficulties and behavior problems. The manifestation of the disorder in the younger school age in the context of children's school activities and roles actualizes the exceptional interest of the educational science in the analyzed phenomenon. The search and construction of effective means of socio-educational help for AD/HD primary class pupils should be associated with coordination and adaptation of different effective educational methodologies of different conceptual origin. In order to develop cognitive, psycho-motoric abilities and social behavior of the group of primary class pupils with AD/HD (N=22), activities of supplementary education were organized after classes (their duration was 6 months). During the forming experiment, original methodologies were constructed and national and foreign researchers' educational methodologies were adapted and tested in new, specific conditions (methods of fairy-tales, correction of cognitive behavior, graphical-logical tasks, games in the sport hall). Even by relatively rare activities of supplementary education in a homogeneous group of children suffering from AD/HD positive changes of cognitive, psychomotoric sphere, social behavior and social adaptation were achieved. (Contains 14 footnotes, 4 figures and 1 table.)

Every person in his lifetime has many times experienced the miraculous impact of the fairy-tale on his imagination, mind and feelings. But we seldom reflect upon the content not only in the ethical aspect of fairy-tales but also as a source of different kinds of knowledge, among them the knowledge of mathematics. The use of fairy-tales in lessons opens up one of the new ways of learning. However fairy-tales are not so widely used in mathematics education in primary schools and preschools. The result of a poll of 86 teachers showed that they approve of the use of fairy-tales in the process of learning mathematics. The analysis of the content of fairy-tales makes it possible to come to the conclusion that here are figuratively and conspicuously seen connections found in the foundation of the theory of probability. Fairy-tales also give a striking reflection of the interconnection between the quantity and measure, there are used different kinds of measures--the thumb (Mary Thumb), an inch (Tom Thumb), at the distance of a call, a three--step length, etc.

The authors investigate the nearly ubiquitous cultural icon for girls' play, the princess. They survey historical instances of princess play from the beginning of the American republic to the New Millennium, look at the literature concerning princesses in various periods, and discuss the individual recollections about princess play of a number of women. The authors argue that the figure of the princess, by absorbing a range of girlhood ideals, aids in reconciling the contradictory notions about what it means to be a girl in contemporary society.