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

本论文研究了4岁儿童的行为模式是如何发展的。在这个年龄段的美国儿童中，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、教师和同伴如何影响早期社会化，我将在教室和儿童中进行为期12个月的观察。的家。我的问题是：（1）儿童如何理解来自成人和同伴的内隐和外显社会化信息？(2)孩子们如何应对相互冲突的社会化信息？通过解决这些问题，我的工作突出了当前政策建议的社会和文化影响，以扩大学前教育的低收入儿童。这项研究将建立一个帐户的过程中的初级社会化。初级社会化是文化和社会不平等再生产的核心过程。然而，尽管承认儿童与多个社交者接触的经验，以前的实证工作集中在一个单一的领域。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离的同龄人文化。相反，这个项目建立了一个经验性的帐户初级社会化的过程发生在多个领域和多个socializers.I检查的情况下，在麦迪逊，威斯康星州地区的儿童保育中心的开端儿童。我的观察将集中在阳光房的17名3岁和4岁的孩子（化名）中。我之所以选择阳光房，是因为它的人口异质性，因为它的扩展托儿服务允许大多数孩子花6个小时以上，每个工作日。我将进行人种学观察，以追踪社会互动和个体儿童的行为随着时间的推移。我将进行深入的访谈，以三角测量我的观察与成年人的叙述，他们的方法来社会化。总之，这种数据收集和分析将为学术界和决策者提供有关社会化机制和父母与幼儿照料者之间交流信息的信息。

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.