Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Social skills in children
- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Creators: Eisenberg, Nancy
Description
This study investigated father-child Activation Theory and the impact of activative fathering on children's dysregulation and social skills. The sample followed 145 families of typically developing children across ages 4 to 6. Fathering and mothering behaviors were coded via naturalistic observations at child age 4, children's dysregulation was coded during a laboratory puzzle task at age 5, and children's social skills were rated by parents and teachers at age 6. Results found support for a constellation of activative fathering behaviors unique to father-child interactions. Activative fathering, net of mothering behaviors, predicted decreased behavioral dysregulation one year later. Support was not found for moderation of the relation between activative fathering and children's dysregulation by paternal warmth, nor was support found for children's dysregulation as a mediator of the relation between activative fathering and children's social skills. These results suggest that parenting elements of father-child activation are unique to fathering and may be more broadly observable in naturalistic contexts not limited to play activities alone. Additionally, activative fathering appears to uniquely influence children's self-regulatory abilities above and beyond identical mothering behavior. In the present work, paternal warmth was not a necessary for activative fathering to positively contribute to children's regulatory abilities nor did children's dysregulation link activative fathering to social skills.
ContributorsStevenson, Matthew (Author) / Crnic, Keith (Thesis advisor) / Dishion, Thomas (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation examines Japanese preschool teachers' cultural practices and beliefs about the pedagogy of social-emotional development. The study is an interview-based, ethnographic study, which is based on the video-cued mutivocal ethnographic method. This study focuses on the emic terms that Japanese preschool teachers use to explain their practices, such as amae (dependency), omoiyari (empathy), sabishii (loneliness), mimamoru (watching and waiting) and garari (peripheral participation). My analysis suggests that sabishii, amae, and omoiyari form a triad of emotional exchange that has a particular cultural patterning and salience in Japan and in the Japanese approach to the socialization of emotions in early childhood. Japanese teachers think about the development of the class as a community, which is different from individual-centric Western pedagogical perspective that gives more attention to each child's development. Mimamoru is a pedagogical philosophy and practice in Japanese early childhood education. A key component of Japanese teachers' cultural practices and beliefs about the pedagogy of social-emotional development is that the process requires the development not only of children as individuals, but also of children in a preschool class as a community. In addition, the study suggests that at a deeper level these emic concepts reflect more general Japanese cultural notions of time, space, sight, and body. This dissertation concludes with the argument that teachers' implicit cultural practices and beliefs is "A cultural art of teaching." Teachers' implicit cultural practices and beliefs are harmonized in the teachers' mind and body, making connections between them, and used depending on the nuances of a situation, as informed by teachers' conscious and unconscious thoughts. The study has also shown evidence of similar practices and logic vertically distributed within Japanese early childhood education, from the way teachers act with children, to the way directors act with teachers, to the way government ministries act with directors, to the way deaf and hearing educators act with their deaf and hearing students. Because these practices are forms of bodily habitus and implicit Japanese culture, it makes sense that they are found across fields of action.
ContributorsHayashi, Akiko (Author) / Tobin, Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study drew upon a bioecological framework to empirically investigate the relations between environmental chaos and preschoolers' language across time, including the potentially mediating roles of children's effortful control and parenting. Child sex also was examined as a moderator of these relations. For this study, the following data were collected at 30, 42, and 54 months of age. Household chaos and (at 30 months) socioeconomic status (SES) were reported by mothers. Children's effortful control (EC) was rated by mothers and nonparental caregivers, and was observed during a number of laboratory tasks. Maternal vocalizations were assessed during free play sessions with their children (at 30 and 42 months), and supportive and unsupportive parenting behaviors and affect were observed during free play and teaching tasks at each age. Mothers also reported on their own reactions to children's negative emotions. Finally, (at 54 months) children's expressive and receptive language was measured with a standard assessment. Structural equation modeling and path analyses indicated that SES at 30 months and greater levels of household chaos at 42 months predicted not only poorer language skills, but also deficits in children's EC and less supportive parenting in low-income mothers at 54 months, even when controlling for stability in these constructs. Children's effortful control at 42 months, but not parenting, positively predicted later language, suggesting that EC may play a mediating role in the relations between household chaos, as well as SES, and preschoolers' language abilities. Child sex did not moderate the pattern of relations. Post-hoc analyses also indicated that the negative relation between chaos and language was significant only for children who had low EC at 42 months. This study represents a much-needed addition to the currently limited longitudinal research examining environmental chaos and children's developmental outcomes. Importantly, findings from this study elucidate an important process underlying the links between chaos and children's language development, which can inform interventions and policies designed to support families and children living in chaotic home environments.
ContributorsGaertner, Bridget Maria (Author) / Spinrad, Tracy L. (Thesis advisor) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Hanish, Laura (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012