abstract: The overall goal of this dissertation was to examine teacher characteristics, teachers’ beliefs, and contextual factors that may motivate teachers’ decisions to engage in high quality teacher-child interactions. I use two complementary studies to meet this goal. These two studies provide insight into several aspects of early childhood teachers’ and children’s interactions including the complexity of the conversations and teachers’ supportive practices. Findings from both studies reveal that teachers are selective in how they distribute their time and attention across various types of high-quality interactions with children. Study 1suggests that teachers’ perception of how often children interact with one another motivates their decisions to engage in high quality teacher-child interactions (i.e., facilitate children’s peer interactions). Study 2 suggests that teacher well-being, specifically teacher depression, limits the extent to which teachers engage in high quality interactions (i.e., complex conversations with children). Importantly, this dissertation also showed that teachers’ motivation for engaging in teacher-child interactions does not stem from their own characteristics or perceptions alone. In addition to these factors, contextual aspects of teacher-child interactions also appear to influence teachers’ motivation to engage in high-quality teacher child interactions. Study 1 revealed that the gender composition of the children involved in each teacher-child interaction was associated with the extent to which teachers use facilitative practices, as well as with the direction and magnitude of both quality and frequency effects on teachers’ facilitation. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that the relation between teacher depression and complex conversations is changed when teachers and children are engaged in academic activities (e.g., math, books, language) relative to play or routine activities. In both Study 1 and 2, I used a teacher-focused observational coding system. Use of this observational coding system contributes novel, objective information about teacher-child interactions, as prior work on teacher-child interactions has most often relied on teachers’ self-reports of how often they interact with students. Findings from this dissertation will contribute new knowledge about teacher and contextual classroom characteristics and teacher-child interactions that will inform efforts to promote positive teacher child interactions and, in turn, student and teacher well-being. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Family and Human Development 2017

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This dissertation adds to the growing body of research on L2 academic discourse socialization in classroom contexts. Although the importance of students' writing in socializing them into their target discourse communities has been well documented, much less has been made of how students learn through online activities when the division between more and less knowledgeable individuals are blurred. Addressing this gap, this qualitative extended case study explored the experiences and perspectives of novice L2 graduate students in academic literacy practices that involved online writing activities. The focal participants included five first-year female graduate students from different cultural backgrounds enrolled in a graduate class during fall 2008 semester. Data sources included interviews with focal students and with the professor, class observations, field notes, questionnaires, handouts, and students' reflective essays. Anchored in language socialization theories (Duff, 1996, 2003; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986) and the notion of community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), this study provides an ecological perspective on these five L2 students' socialization into academic literacy activities. The findings revealed how the students negotiated competence, relations, and identities to participate legitimately as competent members of their classroom communities. This study also contributes to an understanding of the changing role of novice learners in a given academic community by analyzing how they variably exercise their agency and develop their subject positioning in academic literacy activities that are imbricated in social, cultural, and discoursal contexts. Ultimately, this study enriches the notions of academic discourse socialization by demonstrating the dialogic and transformative nature of academic literacy practices mediated by online discourses in order to highlight ever more contextual information. / text

Syftet med studien är att bidra med ökad kunskap om lärares arbete med faktatexter i flerspråkiga klassrumskontexter. I studien undersöks därför hur två lärare strukturerar textarbetet i momentet ekonomi i samhällskunskap, vilka olika sätt att förhålla sig till en text som möjliggörs för eleverna genom de två lärarnas sätt att ställa frågor och tala om texten i undervisningen, samt hur lärarna i undervisningen stöttar elevers användning och förståelse av ämnesspecifika ord och begrepp. I studien antas ett receptionsteoretiskt perspektiv på läsande, där det i interaktionen mellan läsare och text anses ske meningsskapande möten. Vidare antas i studien ett sociosemiotiskt perspektiv, som ger språkvetenskapliga verktyg för att beskriva hur lärarna skapar struktur och använder texters ämnesbegrepp i undervisningen. I diskussionen av hur lärare rör sig diskursivt mellan ett ämnesspecifikt språk och ett vardagsspråk är Vygotskijs (2001) teorier om elevers begreppsutveckling relevanta i studien. Materialet i studien består av videofilmade lektioner från två olika klasser i år 5, när klasserna arbetade med temat familjens ekonomi inom ämnet samhällskunskap. I videofilmerna fokuseras läraren i respektive klass. Materialet har transkriberats och analyserats med utgångspunkt i makrogenrer operationaliserat som läsförlopp, textrörlighetsmodellen samt idéerna om diskursiv rörlighet. Resultatet visar att lärarna, som arbetade med samma tema, hade olika sätt att strukturera sina arbeten med texten. Trots olika arbetssätt framträder dock en varierad textrörlighet i båda lärarnas undervisning. Resultatet visar också att de filmade lärarna bygger broar mellan en ämnesspecifik språkdiskurs och en vardaglig språkdiskurs genom att använda sig av olika språkliga sambandsmarkörer. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultatet att i den lektion som består av flertalet av läsförloppets sekvenser visas variation i fler typer och dimensioner av textrörlighet och dessutom används fler sambandsmarkörer, jämfört med i den lektion som består av ett färre antal av läsförloppets sekvenser.