ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the ways in which young children develop their understandings of the world around them. We shall look first at what might be meant by ‘conceptual development’ and at perspectives on how this occurs in young children, and then consider specific aspects of young children’s scientific, mathematical, geographical and historical thinking. As Lee and Das Gupta point out, however, this is an area of research ‘in which there is little certainty and much theorizing’ (1995:117), arising from both psychological and philosophical standpoints.
Concepts are the ideas and understandings we each have which enable us to group together objects, events and abstractions and, in particular, relationships. Some of these concepts may be considered universal, while others are clearly culturally specific and involve different ways of categorizing things according to social practice (Rogoff 2003, Siegler 1998). White supports Wittgenstein’s claim that concepts are ‘public phenomena’, and that a key role of adults is to induct children into this ‘public heritage’ (White 2002:53). The number of possible concepts is infinite, and they are just as likely to be about the mundane and everyday (pencils, socks and teacups) as they are to be about more abstract ideas such as truth, beauty and speed. In our daily lives we constantly define new concepts in response to situations. Until we go to visit Granny we have no real need to construct a concept of ‘things we must take on our visit to Granny’ (Meadows 1993:105). Concepts, then, are mental models we construct to explain the world around us, which help us to deal with things and events more efficiently. As Siegler suggests: ‘Concepts allow us to organize our experience into coherent patterns and to draw inferences in situations in which we lack direct experience . . . Concepts also save us mental effort by allowing us to apply previous knowledge to new situations’ (Siegler 1998:213).
