Reasoning about social inclusion over the early years of primary school: a focus on epistemic cognition

ABSTRACT

In this longitudinal study, we explored children's reasoning about social inclusion/exclusion at Year 1 and Year 3 (n = 169 Year 1, n = 129 Year 3) of early primary education in Australia and how this reasoning related to changes in children's epistemic cognition. The data collection involved 30-minute interviews in which children were asked to engage in two tasks related to (1) epistemic cognition and (2) including an aggressive child in play. Findings showed that children were more likely to choose to include the aggressive child in Year 3 if they also expressed Subjectivist epistemic beliefs than if they expressed Objectivist beliefs. The children who expressed Subjectivist epistemic beliefs were more likely to justify their decision to include an aggressive child in a more nuanced and complex manner. We argue for a focus on epistemic reflexivity for reasoning about social inclusion as a way in which to provide new understandings about how broader contextual influences may mediate such reasoning.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic cognition
• epistemic beliefs
• social inclusion
• children’s reasoning
• primary school

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge Joshua Sizemore, who supported the analysis of the qualitative data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jo Lunn Brownlee http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2929-4770

Sue Walker http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7267-9978

Laura Scholes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8849-2825

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant [DP130102136].