Kids in Context

How do educators teach contentious topics in a post-conflict society?

Stay tuned for our new paper drawing on interviews with NI teachers to show how interpersonal pressures, school environments, and cultural contexts shape what’s possible in the classroom.

Congratulations to Dr Eva Grew for her first publication with Kids in Context, and 3rd year UG Sadhbh Drummond for her first publication of her career!

Read the abstract using this link!

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New Paper!

Play doesn’t always look how adults expect.

In our new paper, Children’s Perspectives on Playfulness: A Child-Centred Qualitative Study, children describe play as joyful and immersive—but also sometimes quiet, solitary, and open-ended. They emphasise the importance of adults who support play without directing it.

These findings highlight the value of child-centred, autonomy-supportive environments across home, school, and community contexts.

Children’s Perspectives on Playfulness: A Child-Centred Qualitative Study This qualitative study examines children’s lived experiences of play and playfulness through interviews and creative methods with 10 children aged 8–11 in a Playwork setting. Thematic analysis identified three core themes: playfulness as an internal experience; the contextual nature of playfulne...

on tour at Cognitive Development Society 2026 in Montreal, Canada!
What happens when young people pass on stories about conflict?

Dr. Jocelyn Dautel presented research finding that adolescents tend to transmit less polarized, more balanced versions of narratives over time. This points to a potential role for youth as peacebuilders in everyday communication.

on tour at Cognitive Development Society 2026 in Montreal, Canada!

Emma Pitt shared our latest research on children’s reasoning about wealth and social group change.

Across a diverse sample, children viewed upward mobility as achievable—but predominantly explained it using intrinsic, effort-based accounts, with limited reference to structural influences.

These findings suggest that children’s explanatory frameworks for inequality may be shaped early and remain relatively stable across contexts.

A big thank you to the other symposium presenters for such a thoughtful and engaging session—great to be part of it.

on tour at Cognitive Development Society 2026 in Montreal, Canada!

We were delighted to organise a set of talks on Why inequality persists: Children’s explanations across gender, wealth, and status at CDS 2026 in Montreal this month.

Chaired by Jocelyn Dautel and Emma Pitt, the symposium brought together four talks examining how children make sense of inequality across domains including domestic work, wealth, social mobility, and immigration.

A key theme across the session was children’s tendency to explain inequalities in intrinsic terms—focusing on individual traits or effort—rather than structural factors. Together, the talks highlighted how these early explanatory frameworks may shape children’s attitudes toward inequality, social change, and prosocial behaviour.

Huge thanks to all the symposium presenters for such a thoughtful and engaging session—really exciting to see this work advancing across multiple contexts and domains.

The Kids in Context Lab is thrilled to host Jacob Glassman and eager to hear about his work in Northern Ireland, the USA, New Zealand and Israel, investigating how children in different countries think about solving large-scale conflicts between groups.👥🌍

Already he has found that children understand that a problem that's been going on for a long time might be harder to fix, but also that they would still try to help, no matter how long the conflict has lasted. We look forward to collaborating with Jacob on this work in Northern Ireland!🌟

Tuning in to Misinformation Research 🎧

Earlier today, the Kids in Context team attended a talk by Mitch Dobbs, a third-year PhD student from the Psychology of Misinformation Lab at Northeastern University.

We were eager to hear about his work on the cognitive and social factors that drive belief in false information. Mitch discussed his projects which investigate how source credibility and intent shape belief updating, as well as what influences public mistrust in in institutions (e.g., the medical community and government officials) and how to remedy this.

Mitch is advised by Dr. Briony Swire-Thompson and is currently funded by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP).

Thanks for the insightful talk, Mitch!

New semester at Queen’s, and the Kids in Context team is ready to get back to work! 🧠✨

Excited to continue our research into how children and young people think, learn, and understand others. Can’t wait to see what this semester brings!

See our website for more information:

Kids in Context | Queen's University Belfast Kids in Context is a research group in the School of Psychology at Queen’s University, Belfast focusing on children’s social and cognitive development, or how young people think and learn.

Our Research is Driven by Curiosity🤔

As the year comes to a close, we reflect on the progress and insights gained throughout 2025. Curiosity has remained central to our work, guiding the questions we ask and the studies we pursue, particularly in understanding how children and young people view and make sense of the world around them🌍

Looking ahead to the new year, these reflections will continue to guide our research, helping us explore new questions about children’s thinking, learning, and experiences in ways that are meaningful, engaging, and relevant🎈

Thank you to the School of Psychology for featuring our team! Great to see our researchers and ongoing projects recognised across the wider School🌟