Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-122). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

In contemporary UK preschool, technological resources have become a standard feature of the environment. This has prompted widespread discussion around the appropriateness of technologies in preschools and for some time concerns were raised that technology is socially detrimental for children. These concerns have since been challenged as it has been argued that they are unsubstantiated and not evidence-based. Yet despite this realisation, few studies have been conducted about children’s social interaction around technologies in order to contribute to this debate. Furthermore, negative concerns have largely been attributed to the technological artefacts themselves and the cultural and wider preschool context is often overlooked. In the 1980s, research on the ecological preschool environment in relation to children’s social behaviours was widely available but similar studies situated in contemporary technology-rich preschool environments is limited. Thus, a body of literature to inform the technology debate in relation to social interaction is restricted. This study provides an empirical foundation to begin exploring 3 to 5 year old children’s social interactions in technology-rich local authority preschools by: identifying the observable child-child interactions as children engage with technology in preschools; exploring the preschool characteristics which may contribute to these interactions; and exploring the role that technologies play in contributing to these interactions. The study adopts an inclusive definition of technology and addresses a broad range of resources, providing a new perspective on the role of technologies in education and in relation to social interactions. These areas of interest were addressed using four qualitative methods: observation, activity mapping, researcher-led games with children and interviews with practitioners. Following the nine-month data collection phase and iterative thematic analysis, two key findings emerged from the data. Firstly, children’s social interactions during technological activities in preschool were complex and multifaceted with few discernible patterns emerging. Secondly, the wider preschool context made a large contribution to the contingent and divergent interactions observed, diluting claims that technological artefacts alone influence children’s social interactions.

This thesis connects with and extends inter alia the recent but as yet peripheral move within the sociology of childhood to open up children's agency to empirical analysis. Drawing heuristically upon actor-network theory and thought of this kind its aim is to expose the networks of heterogeneous associations upon which children's agency and power depends. Focusing upon children's every day play activities; the analytical lens is extended to consider the role of nonhumans that are embedded in children's mundane play interactions within their local neighbourhood and within their school playground. In doing so, this thesis argues that nonhumans are crucial participants in social interaction that are implicated in and pivotal to the heterogeneous networks of associations that children, as heterogeneous engineers, actively create to achieve their particular goals and desires. As a corollary to this, an analytical incorporation of nonhumans has drawn attention to the wider role that nonhumans play in the life worlds of children. In respect to this, the argument this thesis advances is that nonhumans,in their diverse forms, are functionally important in holding children's social relations in place. Drawn from ethnographic fieldwork with children, this thesis argues that children's agency, power and social relations, take their form and are an outcome of the heterogeneous associations that take place between humans and `things'.

Thesis (M. Ed.(Opvoedkundige sielkunde))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 240-251).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Elizabeth A. Vandewater. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed June 16, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-134).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-103). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-105). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Ithel Jones, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Childhood Education, Reading and Disbility Services. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 25, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 107 pages. Includes bibliographical references.