Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Idaho, 2006. / Abstract. "May, 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-122). Also available online in PDF format.

The aim of this research study was to investigate the early childhood teachers&rsquo / perceptions about their roles in the development of self-discipline in children. In order to specify this aim, the research question which asked &ldquo / How do early childhood teachers perceive their role in the development of self-discipline?&rdquo / was investigated. Current study was conducted based on qualitative research methodology. In order to investigate the aim, a case including seven early childhood teachers working at the same institution was reached. The main data collection instrument was an interview protocol consisting of two parts: vignettes and interview questions. The instrument included questions related to the meaning and importance of self-discipline, and how to support it in classroom environment, and was developed according to observations and related literature. Additionally this instrument was pilot tested with six early childhood teachers. The interviews for the main study were conducted between December 2009 and January 2010. According to the findings, early childhood teachers were aware of self-discipline, its importance, and its development. However, some strategies which were being used by the teachers should be discussed with them in terms of relatedness of those strategies with self-discipline.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-145). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: Rosemarye Taylor. Includes bibliographical references (p. 144-157).

This study examined which methods are most effective in training parents to use positive guidance techniques, a lecture-base only parent training series or a lecture-based plus hands-on parent training series. Maternal characteristics of depression, stress level, and attitudes towards positive guidance were explored as possible moderators. A two way repeated measures ANOVA indicated that the cognitive understanding of the use of positive guidance over time of the participants in the control versus treatment groups did not significantly differ. However, a t-test showed that both groups improved in their cognitive understanding of positive guidance over time. A second two way repeated measures ANOVA confirmed that the behavioral use of positive guidance over time of the participants in the control versus treatment groups significantly differed. Further investigation revealed that, while the two groups did not differ in their behavioral use of positive guidance before the program, the treatment group improved over time whereas the control group did not. Depression, stress level, and attitudes towards positive guidance did not moderate the effects of being in the control versus treatment group on participants' behavioral use of positive guidance. The results indicate that all participants gained a better understanding of effective parenting techniques, but a hands-on component in parent training programs may be necessary for parents to incorporate these strategies into their parenting behaviors. / text

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The thesis deals with the heterogenous category of the “unaccompanied minors”, concentrating the scientific work on those who migrate from Romania to the Italian city of Bologna. Between different migratory routes that include Romanian minors, I chose to explore the ones linked with the underground and illegal contexts. In order to analyse the reasons and the morphology of their migratory career, I used the multisituated field research which allowed me to consider the social policies in both the Romanian and the Italian environment. The main debate on the situation of the “unaccompanied children” refers to the extent to which these minors leave their country of origin “accompanied” by different adult figures and it also involves the role played by these adults. The first chapter is dedicated to a brief theoretical and methodological introduction to the main arguments of the thesis such as Romanian migration to Italy, trafficking in human beings, transnationality of migrant’s migration and decentered cooperation as a means of contrasting illegal migration and trafficking. Each field of research is characterized by a specific methodological approach, but they are all linked by the anthropological perspective I adopted throughout the entire work. The Romanian context, analized from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective represents the object of the second chapter. Some aspects of the Regime policies and other characteristics of the Romanian poscomunist period of “transition” are useful frameworks that become a background of the migration flows outside the country. The third chapter focuses on the Romanian patterns of migration. The reconstruction of some past attitudes that Romanians adopted towards migration are relevant in order to reveal the continuity with the present migratory practices. A consistent part is dedicated to a concrete example based on a field research in Bologna on a group of Romanian roma migrating from the south of Romania. The contact with these persons opened a debate on the limits between legal and illegal migration practices among the Romanians. The conclusion is that minors’ migration to Italy follows the adult patterns and flows. The nucleus of the field researches is included in the fourth and the fifth chapter. Before presenting the settings and the itineraries of the field researches, some deconstructive reflections are made on the representations that common sense and social sciences create on concepts as “child”, “minor” and “childhood”. A first perspective on the Romanian migrant minors emerges from a research concentrated on a group of roma teenagers engaged in Bologna in activities like windscreen washing, pocket-picking, begging and street prostitution. The aim of the research was to gain access to their daily life, to observe their relationship with the adults who “accompany” them and the strategies they activate in order to take some material profit out of their migratory experience. A parallel field research focuses on the Romanian minors who are part of the roma group coming from the south of Romania. Most of them are reunited with their family in Bologna, but according to the Italian law, they are all living as illegal migrants. Others are only temporary sheltered by these families and they meanwhile dedicate to illegal survviving practices. An interesting point of my participant observation was to reveal the motivations that these minors give when asked about the refusal to start a legal career inside the local Centres dedicated to the “non accompanied minors”. Their autoreflexivity brings some light on the controversy regarding the adequacy of the local and national care system and the migratory projects the minors have. In this respect, a small part of the research is dedicated to the phenomena of minors’ street prostitution in Bologna, as a useful contribution to the fragmented vision researchers have on the “unaccompanied” or “separated” children. The last chapter focuses on a decentered cooperation project that emerged as an alternative response the local administration from Bologna had chosen for facing the presence of numerous migrants coming from the south of Romania. The group of Romanian roma who was also the object of my field research became the starting point for the cooperation proposals between the city of Bologna and the city of Craiova. Although there are three projects involving the two administrations, throughout a period of stage in the Romanian city of Craiova I chose to analyse, only the one dedicated to the “urgent measures” requested in order to contrast the illegal migration and the trafficking in minors. This final part of the thesis highlightens the possible contribution that such a project might bring to the study of a complex and in some parts contradictory phenomena as that of the “unaccompanied” migrant minors.

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