ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the social, emotional, and cognitive effects that schooling, television, and families have on children. It discusses parental and peer influences on development. Despite the aura of mistrust generated in schools, most children willingly, even eagerly, go. The major attraction for them is clearly the other students. Bossert studied in a traditional school the effects of teaching style and type of tasks assigned on friendship formation and self-esteem. Wright and Huston have evaluated the attention-getting (perceptually salient) properties of television and measured their impact on different-aged children. Some of these are animation, rapid movement of characters, fast scene changes, rapid cuts as opposed to slower zooms, loud music, laugh tracks, special effects, and peculiar sounding voices. The school is a different social system from the family, with its own unique rules, customs, and roles. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the child in a family context.
