Children’s Superstitions: British and Canadian
Keywords:
superstitions, cross-cultural comparison, science education, educational psychology, British children, Canadian childrenAbstract
A 100-item test covering nine areas of superstitious belief was devised and administered along with ten control items to 1,749 children in Britain and Canada. On the average, British children agreed with six more (in total of 90) superstitions than the Canadian group. Younger children were markedly more superstitious than older; girls were slightly more superstitious than boys; academically inclined children were less superstitious than others. A science-based education has little effect on superstition in this sample. The implications for Canadian education are discussed.
References
Dudycha, A. J. The superstitious beliefs of college freshman in 1930 and 1949. School and Society, 1950, 72, 376–379.
Dudycha, A. J. Where did you get that superstition? Kentucky School Journal, 1966, 45, 38–39.
Marmor, J. Some observations on superstition in contemporary life. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1956, 26, 119–130.
Opie, I., & Opie, P. The lore and language of school children. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959.
Zapf, R. M. Effects of instruction on superstitious beliefs. Journal of Educational Research, 1938, 31, 481–496. (a)
Zapf, R. M. Superstitions of junior high school pupils. Journal of Educational Research, 1938, 31, 435–446. (b)
Zapf, R. M. Comparison of responses to superstitions on a written test and in actual situations. Journal of Educational Research, 1945, 39, 13–24.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Canadian Journal of Education follows Creative Commons Licencing CC BY-NC-ND.
