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Recent work regarding children’s rights has advocated for research in non-Western settings and with participants who are ethnic/racial minorities. We addressed these issues through secondary analysis of interviews with 63 mixed-race South African children (9-, 11-, and 13-year olds) and their mothers. Participants’ responses to hypothetical vignettes depicting children’s nurturance and self-determination rights scenarios were coded using social cognitive domain theory and subsequently analysed with mixed-design anovas. Outcomes figured prominently in children’s and mothers’ reasoning. Moral reasoning was primarily invoked when discussing the right to privacy, extending earlier work and suggesting the importance of privacy across cultural contexts.

[Extract] Both psychologists and linguists who study language development have typically looked for commonalities across young language learners in babbled sounds, first words and early sentences, and the eventual elaborations of syntax. Their interest in language universals has been largely motivated by the undeniable fact that the ability to learn language is shared by all normally developing human infants. However, the words and sentences of children learning to talk within and across language communities reveal interesting differences as well as overlapping milestones. Consider these two English language learners. At 18 months, Johanna has a substantial vocabulary of single words that label important objects and entities in her world. She can talk about food (banana, apple, cheese), clothing (sock, shoes, hat), animals (birdie, cat), household items (keys, light), and toys (dolly, ball). Non-nominals are fewer: hi, bye-bye, up, down, no. Many of her words are learned and used in the course of naming games that she plays with her parents. Bath time elicits nose, teeth, eyes, ears, face, hair, belly. Picture books are also enjoyed as opportunities for displaying Johanna’s word knowledge.

This article seeks to provide a theoretical overview of bilingualism and discuss the key concepts and theories that inform classroom pedagogy with bilingual learners. Although some specific classroom strategies are introduced, the primary purpose is not to offer strategies, but rather to offer guiding principles based on theory and research to inform selection of strategies for working with bilingual learners. The first section explores the nature of bilingualism and its development and common myths and beliefs. The second section identifies key issues and concepts in bilingual education and explores an additive approach to bilingual learners, outlining broad pedagogical principles to inform classroom practices across years K-12.

This study explored declarative knowledge about children’s rights in 67 South African children between 9 and 14 years old, using semi-structured interviews addressing the following questions:What is a right? Who has rights? Do children have rights? What rights do children have? Why should children have rights? Can anyone take away your rights? Who can take away your rights?Data were analysed quantitatively to examine age and gender differences. Qualitative content analyses explored salient themes. There were no gender differences for any of the questions and significant age differences only for the question: What rights do children have? Although the children’s responses shared some similarities with other research findings, their perspectives on rights strongly reflected their specific social context, especially the prevalence of crime and child abuse. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and specific features of the South African socio-cultural landscape.

The aim of the study was to assess the emergent literacy knowledge of a group of South African pre-schoolers from low and low-middle class families and to explore their home supports for literacy. The sample comprised 24 subjects, aged between 5 years 9 months and 6 years 5 months. Sixteen of the subjects were from low-middle class families, while the remaining eight were from low-class families. The emergent literacy knowledge of the children was assessed using the Emergent Literacy Assessment Profile (ELAP), which was developed for the purpose of this study. The profile included subtests derived and modified from existing batteries developed elsewhere in the world for assessment of emergent literacy. The children's home supports for literacy were ascertained by means of personal interviews conducted with the parents in their home environments. Although both groups exhibited poor emergent literacy knowledge in general, it was found that there were statistically significant differences in the performance of the two groups on several subtests of the ELAP. The group of children from low-middle class families displayed relatively better literacy knowledge than their counterparts from low-class families. This group (i.e. the low-middle class group) also had better access to home supports for literacy. Thus, differences in home supports for literacy were strongly linked to differences in socio-economic status. The findings of the study confirm the much documented finding that home environments impact greatly on children's emergent literacy development. The finding that even the children with relatively more favourable home environments displayed deficits in emergent literacy knowledge indicates the urgent need to promote the emergent literacy development of pre-schoolers in South Africa, particularly those from historically disadvantaged communities. This has implications for parents, teachers, educare workers, librarians and speech-language therapists, inter alia.