Two-to-three-year-old children's interactions with peers in child-care centres: Effects of spatial distance to caregivers

In child-care centres, the influence of caregivers on the development of peer interactions seems ambivalent and mixed results are reported in the literature. Adopting an environmental approach, we examined the effects of the caregivers’ spatial proximity on children's social behaviour. The study was carried out with 175 children (18-40 months) in 12 child-care-centre groups. Children's behaviours were observed during free plays, and both children and caregivers’ locations were recorded. When peers were nearby, children's social behaviours were compared when they were in the immediate proximity (within 2 m) and out of the immediate proximity of a caregiver. Results show that in the latter situation children spend substantially more time addressing social overture to peers and interacting with them; positive interactions with peers show a particularly marked difference. This pattern of results is exhibited by the greater part of the children. Whatever the child-care-centre group, the age subgroup or the gender considered similar results are found. Results also demonstrate that when children are in the immediate proximity of caregivers they are socially oriented towards the attractive adult partners rather than towards peers.     

Notes on selective influence, probabilistic causality, and probabilistic dimensionality

The paper provides conceptual clarifications for the issues related to the dependence of jointly distributed systems of random entities on external factors. This includes the theory of selective influence as proposed in Dzhafarov [(2003a). Selective influence through conditional independence. Psychometrika, 68, 7-26] and generalized versions of the notions of probabilistic causality [Suppes, P., & Zanotti, M. (1981). When are probabilistic explanations possible? Synthese, 48, 191-199] and dimensionality in the latent variable models [Levine, M. V. (2003). Dimension in latent variable models. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 47, 450-466]. One of the basic observations is that any system of random entities whose joint distribution depends on a factor set can be represented by functions of two arguments: a single factor-independent source of randomness and the factor set itself. In the case of random variables (i.e., real-valued random entities endowed with Borel sigma-algebras) the single source of randomness can be chosen to be any random variable with a continuous distribution (e.g., uniformly distributed between 0 and 1).     

Let’s play at the park! family pathways promoting spiritual resources to inspire nature,pretend play,storytelling, intergenerational play and celebrations

Contemporary interest from scholars examining spirituality have suggested that young children have an innately rich spiritual dimension that can be nurtured when they are given opportunities to express it or when such expressions are recognised. Based on direct observations in natural settings, this article addresses the importance of children’s spirituality and how outdoor play spaces, especially community parks, can contribute to a child’s spiritual development through enriching activities in nature, pretend play, storytelling and intergenerational play. The article also aims to encourage consideration of a variety of strategies that can be used to support the holistic development of a young child and nurture children’s spirituality. Supporting a child’s spiritual development with playful activities in outdoor spaces can help to identify the child’s interests, strengths and creativity through relationships that shape bonds with both families and community.     

“Put the blame on…others!”: The battle of cyclists against pedestrians and car drivers at the urban environment. A cyclists’ perception study

The main hypothesis of the paper is that cyclists tend to blame primarily car drivers, for the conflict events they have experienced with cars, but they do not have the same intention for the conflict events with pedestrians. For this purpose, 306 cyclists were interviewed through a revealed questionnaire survey and 64% revealed that they had experienced a conflict with a pedestrian whereas 55% revealed that they had experienced a conflict with a car. From the responses, two linear regression models were developed, with the perceived responsibility considered as the dependent variable.The cycling–pedestrian model indicated that cyclists who also have car accessibility, tend to blame primarily the pedestrians for the incidents, compared to cyclists who do not possess a car. Further, cyclists tend to give less responsibility to pedestrians for incidents occurred at sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. compare to incidents occurred at shared use paths. In addition, cyclists do not blame pedestrians for conflicts occurred primarily at sidewalks and crosswalks; places were pedestrians are considered to have the priority. Finally, cyclists aged between 55 and 64 years old, are giving less responsibility to pedestrians for the incident, compare to cyclists aged between 25 and 39 years old.On the other hand, the cycling–car model showed that an illegal cyclist’s movement at a road segment can reduce by half the responsibility the cyclists give to the car drivers, compare to the responsibility they give when the latter have an aggressive driving behavior. It was also found that cyclists, who tend to cycle less than 1 h, do not blame so much the car drivers for the incident, compared to cyclists that cycle for longer. Finally, cyclists who prefer the bicycle lane to be located along the road instead at the sidewalk, tend to accuse less the drivers for the incident.     

Sharing is (s)caring? Interactions between buses and bicyclists on bus lanes shared with bicyclists

This paper presents the results of an observation study of interactions between bicyclists and buses on shared bus lanes. The aim of the paper is to analyse bicyclists’ safety on bus lanes shared with bicyclists. Straight sections of two bus lanes shared with bicyclists in Belgium are observed. All interactions between bicyclists and buses over two full weeks are recorded and analysed. Additionally, the lateral position and riding speed of bicyclists that are in interaction with buses are compared with the behaviour of bicyclists that are not in interaction with buses. One of the observed bus lanes is in line with road design guidelines in a number of countries that state that a sufficiently narrow bus lane (<3.5 m) is hypothesised to be safer than a somewhat wider bus lane; the other observed bus lane is deemed too wide according to these guidelines and is hypothesised to lead to close overtaking manoeuvres.The results show that close interactions between bicyclists and buses are relatively frequent on both types of analysed bus lanes. Close overtaking manoeuvres (a bus overtakes a bicyclist with a lateral distance less than 1 m) as well as close bicycle-following situations (a bus drives behind a bicyclist with a time gap less than 2 s) are quite common on both analysed bus lanes. The analyses could not confirm the hypothesis that a sufficiently narrow bus lane is safer than a wider bus lane. On the contrary, close interactions seem even slightly more common on the narrower bus lane. Slightly more close overtaking manoeuvres take place on the narrower bus lane, but the difference is not statistically significant. Additionally, more bicycle-following situations take place on the narrower bus lane because overtaking is more difficult. The results show that buses often maintain a close time gap in these situations. The overtaking speed of the buses is, however, significantly higher on the wider bus lane compared to the narrower one.Moreover, the presence of a bus has an influence on the behaviour of bicyclists. Bicyclists who get overtaken by a bus ride more closely to the edge of the road than bicyclists who are not in interaction with a bus. While the road design guidelines assume that bicyclists take up a width of one meter from the edge on bus lanes shared with bicyclists, the observations show that bicyclists take up much less space while being overtaken. The presence of a bus does not have a significant influence on the standard deviation of the lateral position of the bicyclist. On the narrower bus lane, some findings suggest that bicyclists who are involved in an interaction with a bus ride faster than bicyclists who are not involved in an interaction with a bus.