Nativism

A general school of thought, or doctrine, according to which abilities are claimed to be inborn and not developed through experience.  Recent nativist accounts of infant ability treat core knowledge as innate along with ways of interpreting events on the basis of that knowledge.  However, they are not so extreme as to rule out a …

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)

Sponsored by the US National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the NSLY refers to a series of longitudinal studies of various birth cohorts begun in the 1960s and 1970s.  Of particular interest is the NLSY-79, which began in 1979 to study adolescents and young adults born between 1958 and 1965, and its related …

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth)

Sponsored by the US National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, this study of children and adolescents enrolled in seventh through twelfth grade in 1994 has focused on social networks, health behaviours and health outcomes, including sexual and reproductive health.  See Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS), Longitudinal studies, National Child Development Study (NCDS), National …

National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY)

Sponsored by Statistics Canada, this study, focused on child development broadly conceived, began in 1994 by studying children from birth to age 11, and is expected to follow them to age 25.  See Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS), Longitudinal studies, National Child Development Study (NCDS), National Educational Longitudinal Surveys (NELS), National Institute for Child Health …

National Literacy Strategy

In the UK, a government-driven policy (1999) initiative aimed at raising standards of literacy and targeting all primary school pupils (ages 4-11), and also low-attaining early secondary school pupils (ages 12-14).  The strategy emphasises not only the curriculum content of word, sentence and text level analysis in reading and writing, but also a teaching method …

National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care (NICHD-SECC)

A study of infants living in ten US communities in 1991, it follows these children from birth through fifth grade focusing on parental and non-parental care and social and cognitive development.  See Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS), Longitudinal studies, National Child Development Study (NCDS), National Educational Longitudinal Surveys (NELS), National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health …

National Educational Longitudinal Surveys (NELS)

Sponsored by the US Department of Education, this study began by studying eighth-graders in public and private schools and has conducted biennial interviews and assessments since 1988 focused on educational attainment and occupational and family outcomes.  See Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS), Longitudinal studies, National Child Development Study (NCDS), National Institute for Child Health and …

Narrative

Essentially, a detailed story that can be written or spoken, and from these forms can be biographical, fictitious or historiographical in nature.  In fact, it is evident in all human acts of creativity involving not only writing and speech, but also visual media such as film, television, painting, photography and theater.  It constitutes one of …