TY  - JOUR
A1  - Seitz, Maximilian
A1  - Lenhart, Jan
A1  - Rübsam, Nina
T1  - The effects of gendered information in stories on preschool children’s development of gender stereotypes
JF  - British Journal of Developmental Psychology
N2  - Social‐cognitive theory posits that children learn gender stereotypes through gendered information. The present study examined whether children learn new gender stereotypes from stories when unknown words are linked to a gendered protagonist or context information. In Experiment 1, 40 3‐ to 6‐year‐old preschoolers were read stories with either a gendered protagonist embedded within a non‐gendered context, or a non‐gendered protagonist embedded within a gendered context. In Experiment 2, the same sample of children were read stories with the protagonist and the context displaying congruent or incongruent gender information. Each story featured an unknown activity linked with the stereotypical content. Both experiments indicate that the children rated the activity according to both the gender of the context and of the protagonist; however, the effect of the latter was stronger. In addition, children showed higher interest in the unknown activity if the protagonist’s gender matched their own sex. Thus, gender information in stories influences how children perceive unknown words.
KW  - gender development
KW  - gender stereotypes
KW  - shared‐reading
KW  - social‐cognitive theory
KW  - storybooks
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-214622
VL  - 38
IS  - 3
SP  - 363
EP  - 390
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Vaahtoranta, Enni
A1  - Lenhart, Jan
A1  - Suggate, Sebastian
A1  - Lenhard, Wolfgang
T1  - Interactive Elaborative Storytelling: Engaging Children as Storytellers to Foster Vocabulary
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - Positive effects of shared reading for children’s language development are boosted by including instruction of word meanings and by increasing interactivity. The effects of engaging children as storytellers on vocabulary development have been less well studied. We developed an approach termed Interactive Elaborative Storytelling (IES), which employs both word-learning techniques and children’s storytelling in a shared-reading setting. To systematically investigate potential benefits of children as storytellers, we contrasted this approach to two experimental groups, an Elaborative Storytelling group employing word-learning techniques but no storytelling by children and a Read-Aloud group, excluding any additional techniques. The study was a 3 × 2 pre-posttest randomized design with 126 preschoolers spanning 1 week. Measured outcomes were receptive and expressive target vocabulary, story memory, and children’s behavior during story sessions. All three experimental groups made comparable gains on target words from pre- to posttest and there was no difference between groups in story memory. However, in the Elaborative Storytelling group, children were the least restless. Findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to optimizing shared reading as a method of fostering language.
KW  - storytelling
KW  - shared reading
KW  - language intervention
KW  - preschool
KW  - language development
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-232136
VL  - 10
ER  -