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An exploratory study was conducted to examine the effects of parental child protection employment on the children of the employees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted of eight children, who had one parent employed in a child protection agency in Eastern Ontario. The analysis of the interviews demonstrated perceived impacts on identified areas of the participants' lives: family transactions within the community; internal family functioning; and the impact on the individual participant. The interview results were also examined along four variables: gender of the child protection worker parent; gender of the participant; age of the participant; and position held by the child protection worker parent. Of these, only the gender of the child protection worker parent appeared to have a differing trend between groups. Further research is suggested to generalize these results beyond the participants in the study.

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This study has been an investigation of children's views of drama in education. It invited children to reflect on the dramatic process as used by a classroom teacher in the context of integrated units of study. The specific research question addressed was: What are children's conceptions of drama when used by a non-specialist classroom teacher as an integral part of learning? Children, ages 10-12 years, were observed and then interviewed in a semi-structured manner. The data were analyzed according to the phenomenographical research methodology. This suited the intent of the study in that the aim of phenomenography is to discover and describe the world as seen by participants. The results were presented in the form of conceptions which are descriptions representing the various ways people view, experience or conceptualize their experiences. Seven such conceptions, falling into three different groups, were discovered. The first group identified three ways in which children viewed drama as a purposeful strategy used by a teacher: (a) drama is a tool, (b) drama is a way of linking, and (c) drama is a novel way of teaching. The second group identified three ways in which children viewed themselves participating in the dramatic process: (a) drama is something one must take part in, (b) drama is play, and (c) drama takes on a life of its own. The third group dealt with one specific area of drama and identified role taking as being like the donning of a cloak. Insights from the study centered around three major observations: (a) the importance of understanding the meaning making of learners, (b) the importance of reflection, and (c) the power of drama in education as an educational strategy. Implications for educators and recommendations for further research were derived from these themes. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

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A child's ability to learn in school and school performance are affected by various factors. Variables that affect learning and academic performance in 46 children, 4 - 7 years old, were examined. Children, parents, and teachers completed questionnaires rating children's attitudes and behavior toward school. Children completed a computerized matching-to-sample (MTS) task. The MTS trained the children to form 3 stimulus classes. One stimulus class included three arbitrary stimuli, the others contained a positively or negatively valenced stimulus, a school-related stimulus, and an arbitrary stimulus. Class formation performance was assessed. Rate of learning predicted attitudes toward school, school attitudes predicted academic performance; however a hypothesized mediation effect of attitudes was not demonstrated. No significant differences in rate of forming stimulus classes containing emotionally valenced and school stimuli were found. Future directions for intervention in the early education of students who have poor attitudes toward school are discussed.

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