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

本论文研究了 4 岁儿童如何形成行为模式。这个年龄段的美国儿童几乎有一半在上学前班，每天离开父母 4 到 8 个小时。为了更好地了解儿童、老师和同伴如何影响早期社会化，我将在教室和儿童家里进行为期 12 个月的观察。我问：（1）孩子们如何解读来自成人和同龄人的隐性和显性的社交信息？ (2) 儿童如何应对相互冲突的社会化信息？通过解决这些问题，我的工作强调了当前扩大低收入儿童接受学前教育的政策建议的社会和文化影响。这项研究将建立对初级社会化过程的描述。初级社会化是文化和社会不平等再生产的核心过程。然而，尽管承认儿童会与多个社交者接触，但之前的实证研究仍集中在单一领域。研究人员要么检查父母向孩子传达的信息，要么检查与成人世界隔离的同辈文化。相比之下，该项目对初级社会化作为跨多个领域和多个社交者之间发生的过程建立了实证解释。我研究了威斯康星州麦迪逊地区一家儿童保育中心的启蒙儿童案例。我的观察重点是阳光房（化名）里的17名3、4岁的孩子。我选择阳光房是因为它的人口异质性，而且它的扩展托儿服务允许大多数孩子每个工作日在那里度过 6 个小时以上。我将进行民族志观察，以追踪各个孩子随时间的社会互动和行为。我将进行深入的采访，将我的观察与成年人对他们的社会化方法的叙述进行三角测量。总而言之，这些数据收集和分析将为学者和政策制定者提供有关社会化机制以及父母和幼儿照顾者之间传达的信息的信息。

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.