Matching Items (8)
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- All Subjects: Early Childhood Education
- Creators: Arzubiaga, Angela
- Creators: Eisenberg, Nancy
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Status: Published
Description
Guided by Belsky's Determinants of Parenting Process Model, the goal of the present study was to examine how mothers' personality (i.e., Conscientiousness) and behaviors (i.e., sensitivity, structure, and negative control) relate to children's developmental outcomes, such as internalization (i.e., committed compliance and effortful control) and academic adaptation. A multi-method, longitudinal model included five waves of data to examine the processes of the relations among variables. Mothers' Conscientiousness was measured via self-reported data when children were 18 months of age (N = 256), mothers' parenting behaviors were measured through observational laboratory tasks when children were 30 months (N = 230), children's internalization was measured using mothers' and caregivers' reports as well as observational data at 42 months (N = 210), and children's school adaptation was measured when children were 72 and 84 months (Ns = 169 and 144) using mothers' and teachers' reports. Through a series of regression analyses, the results supported the mediated effect of effortful control in the relation between mothers' behaviors and children's school adaptation. As hypothesized, mothers' Conscientiousness marginally predicted children's internalization. Contrary to hypotheses, mothers' Conscientiousness was unrelated to parenting behaviors and children's academic adaptation. Mothers' sensitivity interacted with maternal structure to predict children's effortful control. Socioeconomic status and child sex interacted with mothers' behaviors in predicting the child's committed compliance. The discussion focuses on the unique role of parenting practices and personality on children's internalization and academic adaptation and on the existing literature. Implications of the study for clinicians and intervention researchers are offered.
ContributorsKopystynska, Olena (Author) / Spinrad, Tracy L. (Thesis advisor) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Valiente, Carlos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Researchers who have previously explored the relation of broad-based temperamental approach constructs, such as surgency/extraversion, exuberance, or behavioral approach sensitivity, to academic competence (AC) in early elementary school have often found conflicting results. Moreover, few researchers have examined the interaction between these approach reactivity constructs and effortful control (EC) in the prediction of AC. The goal of the current study was to examine the fine-tuned relations of different aspects of temperamental approach reactivity in early childhood (42 and 54 months; N=223), such as impulsivity, frustration, and positive affect, as well as EC, to AC during early elementary school (72 and 84 months). Examining the complex relations may clarify the literature using broad-based approach reactivity constructs. Temperament was observed in the laboratory when children were 54 months of age. Mothers and caregivers also reported on children's impulsivity at 42 and 54 months. School-related behavioral adjustment was reported by children, mothers, and teachers, and GPA was reported by teachers at 72 and 84 months. The results of the study indicated that positive affect, EC, and receptive language ability were the only unique direct predictors of school adjustment and/or GPA. Without EC in the model, only positive affect and vocabulary predicted AC. Frustration, positive affect, and impulsivity each interacted with EC to predict AC outcomes, such EC was only related to higher AC for children with high impulsivity or anger, or low positive affect. Additionally, positive affect and impulsivity interacted to predict GPA, such that impulsivity was positively related to GPA for children with high positive affect, but it was negatively, albeit nonsignificantly, associated with GPA for children with low positive affect. These results were found to be similar for boys and girls. Finding are discussed in terms of the developmental importance of early EC for academic competence for children who have high approach reactivity, as well as the interactive effects of dimensions of approach reactivity on academic achievement.
ContributorsVanSchyndel, Sarah (Author) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Spinrad, Tracy L. (Committee member) / Valiente, Carlos (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
Mexico City has an ongoing air pollution issue that negatively affects its citizens and surroundings with current structural disconnections preventing the city from improving its overall air quality. Thematic methodological analysis reveals current obstacles and barriers, as well as variables contributing to this persistent problem. A historical background reveals current programs and policies implemented to improve Mexico’s City air quality. Mexico City’s current systems, infrastructure, and policies are inadequate and ineffective. There is a lack of appropriate regulation on other modes of transportation, and the current government system fails to identify how the class disparity in the city and lack of adequate education are contributing to this ongoing problem. Education and adequate public awareness can potentially aid the fight against air pollution in the Metropolitan City.
ContributorsGarcia, Lucero (Author) / Duarte, Marisa E. (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Inclusive education has become a global movement through the policies of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (e.g., Salamanca Statement). These policies led many developing nations to adopt these policies in their national policy agendas. Turkey has developed inclusive education policies that deal with the education of students with disabilities (SwD). However, although SwD are the largest group who are marginalized and excluded from educational opportunities, there are other groups (e.g., cultural-linguistic minorities) who experience educational inequities in access and participation in learning opportunities and deal with enduring marginalization in education. This study examined a) Turkish teachers’ and parents’ conceptualizations of inclusive education for diverse groups of students, namely SwD, Kurdish students (KS), and girls, who experience educational inequities, b) how their construction of students’ identities influenced students' educational experiences in relation to inclusive education, c) how their stories revealed identities, differences and power, and what role privilege played in marginalization, labeling, and exclusion of students within conceptualizations of inclusive education. I used cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 1999) and figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998) to understand the teachers’ and parents’ interpretations and experiences about inclusive education. This qualitative study was conducted in four different schools in Maki, a small southwestern city in Turkey. A classroom photo, with a vignette written description, and a movie documentary were used as stimuli to generate focus group discussions and individual interviews. I conducted classroom observations to explore the context of schooling and how students were positioned within the classrooms. Classroom artifacts were additionally collected, and the data were analyzed using a constant-comparative method. The study findings demonstrated that students had different equity struggles in access, meaningful participation, and having equal outcomes in their education. The education activity system was not inclusive, but rather was exclusive by serving only certain students. SwD and girls had difficulty accessing education due to cultural-historical practices and institutional culture. On the other hand, Turkish-only language policy and practices created tensions for KS to participate fully in education activity systems. Although stakeholders advocated girls’ education, many of them constructed SwD’s and KS’ identities from deficit perspectives.
ContributorsKilinc, Sultan (Author) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Thesis advisor) / Kozleski, Elizabeth B. (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Elizabeth Blue (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Social-emotional competence (SEC), or effectiveness of social interaction, plays a central role in children’s health and well-being. The three goals of the current study were to describe the development of SEC during a preschool year; identify an appropriate factor structure for observed teacher-child interactions; and predict SEC growth from children’s characteristics (emotional competence, language risk, gender, and race/ethnicity), teacher-child relationship quality, and classroom characteristics (relational climate, observed teacher-child interaction quality, and curriculum). Children’s social competence, anger/aggression, effortful control, and emotion knowledge (N =822) was assessed at three time points during a preschool year via teachers’ reports and behavioral assessments. In the fall, teachers reported the quality of their relationships with children and teacher-child interactions were observed in classrooms. Aim 1 results indicated that children exhibited linear increases in effortful control and social competence and stability in anger/aggression, although social competence was the only construct where linear change varied among children. Due to a lack of longitudinal measurement invariance, growth in latent emotion knowledge could not be evaluated. Several gender and racial/ethnic differences were identified in SEC intercepts, but not the social competence slope. Language risk and impulsivity were consistent predictors of SEC intercepts. Aim 2 results indicated that teacher-child interaction quality was primarily unidimensional. Finally, results from aim 3 indicated that children’s emotional competence at the beginning of the year and classroom relational climate were predictive of growth in social competence. End-of-year social competence levels were associated with supportive teacher-child relationship quality (particularly among girls), high emotional competence, low language risk, and supportive classroom relational climate; girls had higher social competence than boys. Although not directly associated with social competence, observed teacher-child interaction quality was conditionally predictive of the social competence in the context of supportive teacher-child relationships. Further, when observed teacher-child interaction quality was average or high, children with low emotional competence exhibited greater growth in social competence than children with high emotional competence. The results inform our understanding of SEC development, the nature of teacher-child interactions in preschool classrooms serving high-risk populations, and potential school-based mechanisms for promoting social competence.
ContributorsJohns, Sarah Katherine (Author) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Spinrad, Tracy L. (Committee member) / Bradley, Robert H. (Committee member) / Grimm, Kevin J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
This dissertation examines how young children engage with digital games at home and how parents think and talk about their children's digital gaming. This is an ethnographic case study of the digital game playing of six three-year-old children in six families. This study combines ethnographic methods and critical perspectives to construct analyses that have the potential to rethink young children's digital game play. The focus of this study is on understanding how digital gaming functions in children's everyday lives. This study shows that young children's digital game play takes place in the interstices of their everyday family life. Digital games do not entirely change or displace other practices in early childhood, but they are integrated into existing young children's everyday practices in their family life. Digital games as a source of young children's imagination enrich young children's play rather than substitute for young children's spontaneous non-digital play. Young children and their parents tactically use young children's mobile game play to cope with their modern life. Negotiating over game selections, time, and space between young children and their parents is an everyday practice of families and digital games are a site not only for family power struggles but also of shared activity. Digital games reflect the dominant culture in which they are produced. However, this study shows that young children do not passively receive the messages in the games but rather make sense of the game contents according to their everyday local experiences. Digital games are now a part of everyday practices for both adults and young children, and young children's digital game play reflects contemporary society.
ContributorsHuh, Youn Jung (Author) / Tobin, Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Lee, Kyunghwa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Definitions of quality child care are subjective, depending on who is defining quality, and constructions of quality remain a contested issue in the early childhood field. There are multiple ways of defining quality child care, most of which are from the perspectives of researchers, policymakers, and professionals. Few studies of child care quality take into consideration parents’ perspectives of what quality child care means to them and what they deem as important for the wellbeing of their children (Ceglowski & Davis, 2004, Duncan et al., 2004, Harrist et al., 2007, & Liu et al., 2004). This study compared parent perspectives to criteria for assessing child care used in Quality First, a statewide quality improvement and rating system for providers of center-based or home-based early care and education, to better understand the gaps drawing from ecological theory (refs – add these) and discuss the consequences of these different perspectives.
This study utilized a comparative qualitative analysis of ways in which parents and state agencies view determinants of child care quality. The data for this study were collected from interview responses to open-ended questions on a larger mixed-method study with parents of children under the age of 6 from the Central Arizona area. The quality indicators used by Quality First included the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-R), Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R), Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS-R), and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), which were analyzed and compared to parent descriptions of quality factors in child care.
The findings of this study contribute to the discussion of ways in which parents’ perspectives are similar and different to that of quality rating scales, in this case those used by Quality First, and how the gap may be contributing to unintended consequences. In the study, I noticed that parents were more inclined toward affect qualities as quality indicators whereas the Quality First had more structural qualities as quality indicators. This led to the addressing of the need to bridge this gap to have a more comprehensive understanding of quality child care to meet different needs as identified by parents and professionals.
This study utilized a comparative qualitative analysis of ways in which parents and state agencies view determinants of child care quality. The data for this study were collected from interview responses to open-ended questions on a larger mixed-method study with parents of children under the age of 6 from the Central Arizona area. The quality indicators used by Quality First included the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-R), Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R), Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS-R), and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), which were analyzed and compared to parent descriptions of quality factors in child care.
The findings of this study contribute to the discussion of ways in which parents’ perspectives are similar and different to that of quality rating scales, in this case those used by Quality First, and how the gap may be contributing to unintended consequences. In the study, I noticed that parents were more inclined toward affect qualities as quality indicators whereas the Quality First had more structural qualities as quality indicators. This led to the addressing of the need to bridge this gap to have a more comprehensive understanding of quality child care to meet different needs as identified by parents and professionals.
ContributorsCharania, Sharmeen (Author) / Swadener, Beth B (Thesis advisor) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014