The development of place categorization in children.
Item
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Title
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The development of place categorization in children.
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Identifier
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AAI9000721
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identifier
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9000721
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Creator
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Pazer, Shelley Dianne.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Katherine Nelson
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Date
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1989
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental
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Abstract
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The purpose and focus of this dissertation is to study the types of places children at 5, 8, and 12 years of age know, how they categorize them and what meanings they give to these places. It is also designed to begin to reveal how the language of place develops in children throughout the pre-adolescent years. In pursuit of this goal, the major contributing theories from a variety of fields are discussed with special attention given to the conceptual orientations and methodological frameworks of "contextual" approaches to category development. While there is variation along a number of dimensions in the approaches taken by these investigations, they are bound by an important underlying assumption that the environment plays a substantial role in cognitive and behavioral development. However, there has been little systematic research on the organization of place knowledge, particularly in child representational systems.;This dissertation examines the development of the structure of categories of environments in a manner analogous to the construction of taxonomies of concrete objects. This approach uses a production paradigm which is both systematic and flexible. It is expected to provide a way of directly determining the structure as well as the features associated with place categories.;Children in this research produced a taxonomy of places similar in structure to an adult taxonomy but different in content. A basic level of categorization was identified. The basic level categories had the greatest number of attributes and activities common to members of each place category while also sharing the least number of attributes and activities with members of other basic level place categories. Age changes occurred in an increase in number of place categories generated and in degree of agreement on typical place category members and typical attributes and activities associated with places. One exception to these changes was at the basic where all age groups agreed to the same extent on typical category members. For all age groups and at all levels of abstraction, places appeared to be better defined by activities than by attributes.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
