Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2459. Adviser: Daniel J. Walsh. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-227) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4089. Adviser: Liora Bresler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 238-248) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 8, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.

<p> The purpose of this study was to discover the readiness levels for a cohort of students entering kindergarten for the first time and find the factors that influence school readiness by using a valid and reliable readiness assessment tool to impact policy. The readiness levels were the dependent variables in the study. The independent variables were the factors that potentially impact the children&rsquo;s readiness such as: gender, ethnicity, socio-economic levels, and prekindergarten experience. A three-week summer readiness intervention created the opportunity to randomly match the attendees to non-participants to study effectiveness of the program. Quantitative data analysis discovered significant differences in school readiness for children in this sample among groups when comparing the independent variables of gender, prekindergarten attendance, socio-economic levels, and a three-week summer intervention. The readiness differences occurred in almost every domain and for overall readiness. Prekindergarten experience did raise readiness levels. Females in the sample entered schools significantly more skilled than males. Both, the children from paid and reduced text program exhibited higher levels of the essential skills upon entering school than the children receiving free texts. A summer three-week readiness intervention raised readiness skills significantly in overall readiness; Approaches to Learning; Cognitive, General Knowledge; Language Development; Early Literacy; and Social, Emotional domains. One implication from the results was that even a three-week readiness program had an impact; therefore interventions can make a difference in preparing children for school. However, as found in prior research socioeconomic level is highly correlated to school readiness.</p>

<p> The purpose of this dissertation study is to describe, explain, and analyze teachers&rsquo;, supervisors&rsquo;, and educational administrators&rsquo; perspectives, or self-reported opinions, regarding their current practices and policies of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Saudi Arabia (SA), and the challenges and the benefits of adopting the Reggio Emilia approach (REA) into early childhood institutions in SA. ECE faces many challenges in SA, such as: the traditional role of the teachers, a standard curriculum that is planned in advance, lack of collaboration with families, centralized education management, and the image of the child as passive learner (Metwaly, 2007). With these in mind, I argued that implementing the REA in Saudi kindergartens in a way that suits the social, culture, and religious context may help overcome some of the challenges that are confronting ECE in SA today. </p><p> Three theoretical frameworks guided this study: social constructivist theory, the community of collaboration perspective, and the theoretical foundation of ECE in SA. The social constructivist theory and community of collaboration perspective offered a comprehensive understanding of the RE philosophy and its core principles by explaining how children learn and the critical importance of community collaboration. In addition, examining the theoretical foundations of ECE in SA guided my understanding of current Saudi ECE practices and policies. </p><p> This study used in-depth interviews to explore and analyze ECE teachers&rsquo;, supervisors&rsquo;, and educational provincial administrators&rsquo; perspectives in Riyadh about the potential benefits and challenges of implementing the REA into the Saudi ECE context. Audiotapes and transcriptions from individual interviews with participants were used as data sources, along with documents and analytic memos. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative analysis approach; this can provide opportunities to explore the participants&rsquo; opinions about the likelihood of implementing the REA, what it would take to adopt it if possible, and how it could be modified to fit the social, cultural, and religious context in SA. </p><p>

This research is aimed at understanding versatile and evolving perceptions of childhood in Kazakhstan after the independence of the country. It draws on a variety of primary data including in-depth interviews and surveys with young people and representatives of non- governmental organisations working with young people. This research employs two concepts of sociology of childhood, which address the socio-historical condition of childhood as a social experience. It explores the role children played in traditional Kazakh families in the mid-19th- beginning of the 20th century. It also addresses state policy concerning children in Kazakhstan after independence. This research presents an analysis of how young participants perceive categories of ‘child’ and ‘adult.’ The question is raised whether traditional thresholds of childhood like education, marriage, and financial independence still play a role in understanding the transition from childhood to adulthood. Further, it presents a dialogue between young participants of this research with their older contemporaries on the characteristics of the young generation born after the independence. Finally, it sheds more light on discrimination of young females in the family and society.

<p> Grandparents play an important yet varied role in grandchild care-giving, from being the primary caregiver of their grandchildren, to sharing living space and child rearing with their children and grandchildren, to providing informal childcare for grandchildren while their parents/guardians are at work. Grandparents also play a variety of roles in family constellations, including tradition keepers, storytellers, and family gatherers. One unexplored question in the research literature is how grandparents providing care negotiate nature with their grandchildren. Using the theoretical concepts of Funds of Knowledge, <i>nepantla</i>, and Common Worlds anthis study documents and analyzes how grandparents and grandchildren use space, sensory experience and story to negotiate nature experiences. Six groups of grandparents and grandchildren with a history of lifelong nature involvement are co-researchers in this study. The first data collection method was the Mosaic approach, which includes participant observation of care-giving routines, child-led tours of geography important to their care receiving, and child-taken photographs. The second method was walking interviews with grandparents, which were mapped using geographic information systems to produce a spatial transcript. The final method was to create documentation books and a slide show in the style of the Municipal Infant-Toddler Schools of Reggio Emilia that were shared in a large group gathering of all participants. Data analysis was undertaken using a critical constructivist lens, part of a larger crystallization approach. </p><p> Key words: grandparents, nature, grandchildren, children's geographies, geo- narratives, Funds of Knowledge, <i>nepantla</i>, Common Worlds </p><p>

Past research has established that children typically learn better from live demonstrations than from 2-dimensional sources of information like video. The current dissertation investigated the efficacy of a new form of 2-dimensional learning medium, specifically the self-paced slideshow, where children advance through slides of an unfolding action sequence at their own pace. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to test whether the "video deficit effect" extends to the self-paced slideshow. In Experiment 1, children saw demonstrations of novel event sequences either live, via a video, or by advancing through a self-paced slideshow. They were then tested on their ability to perform the sequences, as well as their verbal memory for the action. Individual difference measures were also collected to provide some insight into how children's inhibitory control, theory of mind skills, and verbal ability related to their performance. Findings suggest that all children showed learning, in that children across the three learning media outperformed their peers in a no demonstration control group. In line with past work, children in the live condition outperformed those in the video and self-paced slideshow conditions at reproducing the target actions. However, children's memory did not differ across conditions. To further explore the self-paced slideshow, Experiment 2 directly compared learning from the self-paced slideshow to learning from a video. Two alterations were made to the slideshow: the method of extracting slides was altered to create a more natural flow of action, and the content of the slides was altered to help children focus more on the object than the person. Children's performance differed little between conditions, with the exception of children reproducing fewer actions in the slideshow condition on two (of four) toys. Ultimately, this dissertation documented that the video deficit effect extends to the self-paced slideshow: live demonstration produces superior learning for children. Future work should investigate at what age the self-paced slideshow might become a useful learning medium as well as how to enhance children's learning from 2D sources given the increasing role that they play in daily life.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:31:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2013-03-27Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:41:26Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 alves_cx_dr_arafcl.pdf: 1499924 bytes, checksum: b152ea0099bf6c7ab8c0a3900386dc09 (MD5) / O presente estudo reconstituiu e caracterizou a memória de educadores junto a crianças entre 4 e 6 anos de idade, em escolas do campo, buscando articulações possíveis entre suas experiências lúdicas infantis e ações docentes. Quanto à perspectiva teórico-metodológica adotada, optou-se pelas contribuições de estudos, tais como os de Gastón Pineau, Antônio Nóvoa, Pierre Dominicé, Franco Ferrarotti, Marie-Christine Josso, Delory-Monberger, Belmira Bueno, Denice Catani, Maria Helena Abrahão, entre outros, que exaltam a potencialidade e a propriedade que o método autobiográfico traz para pesquisas que tomam a memória e a narrativa autobiográfica como objeto de conhecimento e fonte de formação. Suas proposições articulam conhecimento, narração, experiência e memória e permitiram a este estudo a reflexão sobre o processo de formação e de prática docente requeridos. A partir desta perspectiva, a coleta de dados empírica foi feita por meio de depoimentos orais de sete educadoras que atuam em três escolas do campo do município de Araraquara-SP. O processo de análise dos dados buscou sustentação na teoria da Analise de Conteúdo, de Lawrence Bardin (1977). A aproximação ao pensamento de Walter Benjamin permitiu a valorização do brincar e seu potencial, entendido como experiência social, cultural e histórica, uma vez que dedicou parte de seus investimentos à relação entre brincar na infância e memória, conferindo expressividade à história, à experiência e à narrativa, em seus impasses e contrastes. Como resultado, as narrativas dos educadores valorizaram o brincar na infância enquanto fase de experiências significativas da vida e constitutivas de suas infâncias. Retrataram em suas memórias as referências de uma sociedade rural e urbana que reconhecia a brincadeira tradicional e popular... / This study reconstructed and characterized the memory of educators together with children between 4 and 6 years old, in country schools seeking possible links between their playful child experiences and teaching actions. As for the theoretical and methodological perspective adopted, the studies of Gaston Pineau, Antônio Nóvoa, Pierre Dominicé Franco Ferrarotti, Marie-Christine Josso, Delory-Monberger, Belmira Bueno, Denice Catani, Maria Helena Abrahão, among others, were used as reference. These studies expose the potentiality and property that the autobiographical method brings to researches which takes memory and autobiographical narrative as objects of knowledge and information source. Their statements articulate knowledge, narration, experience and memory allowing this study to reflect on the process of required training and teaching practices. From this perspective, the empirical data collection was done through oral testimony of seven educators who work in three country schools in Araraquara - SP. The process of data analysis was supported by the theory of Content Analysis, Lawrence Bardin. The similarity to Walter Benjamin’s though allowed the appreciation of playing and its potential, understood as a social, cultural and historical experience, once he dedicated part of their investments to the relation between playing during childhood and memory, giving expression to history, experience and narrative in its difficulties and contrasts. As a result, the educators’ narratives valued the act of playing during childhood as significant experiences of life and part of their childhood formation. Their memories show references of a rural and urban society that recognized the traditional and popular games as a contemporary social activity which also coexisted with the presence of electronic and industrialized toys. Both the toys and the kinds of toys mentioned... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

This study addresses two questions. What light does the work of George MacDonald shed on the concept of 'spiritual development' and what is the pedagogical function of his fantasy? The thesis is largely concerned to clarify these conceptual issues but the reason for raising them is practical. The promotion of spiritual development in schools is a statutory requirement. The conclusions of this thesis contain implications for curricular strategies for meeting that requirement and attention will be drawn to them. Two major claims are made. The first concerns the issue of whether a coherent spirituality necessarily depends on - and thus must be promoted within - a religious framework. The implication of MacDonald's recourse to fantasy, a discourse dispensing with traditional religious categories, to explore the theme of spiritual development is that a spiritual pedagogy does not need to be rooted in traditional religious concepts and truth-claims. The two discourses, the 'theistic' and the 'non-theistic', are compatible and complementary. Secondly, the concept of 'transfiguring fantasy' is introduced and commended. MacDonald's transfiguring fantasy functions pedagogically, as potentially does all such unclosed flmtasy, by calling in question the distinction between the narrative one reads and one's own life-story. The two realms, those of the text in one's hands and the life one is leading, elide and the task of resolving the enigmas of the fantasy becomes one with the unfinished business of making sense of one's own story. This thesis also considers the familiar Romantic themes of nature, childhood and the imagination, which MacDonald treats with original insight. Nature is akin to fantasy in its capacity to engage and direct the attentive spirit. Childhood is the pattern of what we must become. The imagination's role is to summon us to press beyond the borders of what may be scientifically proven or rationally articulated.