Doctoral Dissertation Research: The influence of home and school experiences on preschool children's dispositions and behaviors

本论文考察了4岁儿童如何发展行为模式。这个年龄段的美国儿童几乎有一半上学前班，每天离开父母4-8个小时。为了更好地了解儿童、教师和同龄人是如何影响早期社会化的，我将在课堂上和儿童S家中进行为期12个月的观察。我问：(1)儿童如何解读来自成人和同龄人的内隐和外显的社会化信息？(2)儿童如何对相互冲突的社会化信息做出反应？通过解决这些问题，我的工作突出了当前为低收入儿童扩大学前教育机会的政策建议的社会和文化影响。这项研究将建立一个关于初级社会化过程的账户。初级社会化是文化再生产和社会不平等的核心过程。然而，尽管承认儿童会接触到多个社会者，但之前的实证研究主要集中在一个领域。研究人员要么检查父母给孩子的信息，要么检查与成人世界隔绝的同龄人文化。相反，这个项目建立了一个关于基本社会化的经验描述，即发生在多个领域和多个社会者之间的过程。我研究了威斯康星州麦迪逊地区一家托儿中心的Head Start儿童的案例。我的观察将集中在阳光教室(化名)的17个3岁和4岁的孩子身上。我之所以选择阳光教室，是因为它的人口结构不同，而且它延长的托儿服务允许大多数孩子在每个工作日在那里度过6个小时以上。我将进行人种学观察，以追踪儿童个体在一段时间内的社会互动和行为。我将进行深入的采访，将我的观察结果与成年人对他们社会化方式的叙述进行三角比较。总之，这种数据收集和分析将向学者和政策制定者提供有关社会化机制的信息和父母与幼儿保育者之间交流的信息。

This dissertation examines how 4-year-old children develop patterns of behavior. Almost half of U.S. children in this age group attend preschool, spending 4-8 hours a day away from their parents. To better understand how children, teachers, and peers influence early socialization, I will conduct 12 months of observations both in the classroom and in children?s homes. I ask: (1) How do children interpret the implicit and explicit socialization messages from adults and peers? (2) How do children respond to conflicting socialization messages? By addressing these questions, my work highlights the social and cultural implications of current policy proposals to extend access to preschool for low-income children.This research will build an account of the process of primary socialization. Primary socialization is a core process in the reproduction of culture and social inequalities. Yet despite acknowledging that children experience contact with multiple socializers, previous empirical work focuses in a single domain. Researchers either examine parents' messages to their children or examine peer culture as isolated from the adult world. In contrast, this project builds an empirical account of primary socialization as process happening across multiple domains and among multiple socializers.I examine the case ofHead Start children at a childcare center in the Madison, Wisconsin area. My observations will be focused among the 17 children ages 3 and 4 in the Sunshine Room (a pseudonym). I have selected the Sunshine Room because of its demographic heterogeneity and because its extended childcare services allow most children spend more than 6 hours each weekday there. I will conduct ethnographic observations in order to trace the social interactions and the behaviors of individual children over time. I will conduct in-depth interviews to triangulate my observations with adults' narratives of their approach to socialization. Altogether this data collection and analysis will provide information to academics and policy-makers on the socialization mechanisms and messages communicated between parents and care providers for young children.