In the United States, most of the Family, Friend, and Neighbor providers are the grandmothers of the child in care. Parental preference for Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) care for infants and toddlers is consistent across race, class, and ethnicity. Although FFN providers care for the largest number of infants and toddlers in the United States, they are not considered part of the childcare milieu. This exclusion means FFN providers are not, typically, the recipient of important childcare information and resources as formal childcare providers who provide care to the smallest number of infants and toddlers. 
The small number of studies on Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) care often refers to these providers as "invisible." It is in direct response to this sense of invisibility that this study is presented. Using a phenomenological methodology to bring forward the essence of FFN care, this study hopes to broaden the Field of Early Care and Education to include this group of diverse providers of care to young children. Instead of policy makers, funders, and early childhood professional development systems viewing "childcare" exclusively as formal and regulated this study serves to challenge this limited perspective by offering a richer perspective.

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The Foundation Phase in education is the most important learning years for the learners, since what happens during these years determines later academic success. The focus of this study is to obtain Grade 1 teachers' perspectives on the need for teaching assistants in the classroom. In South Africa, teaching assistants are normally reserved for preschools, institutes for learners with special needs, schools that practice inclusive education and some private schools. It is therefore needed to gain information from Grade 1 teachers on how they perceive and experience the presence or absence of a teaching assistant, and what effect it has on teaching and learning in their classrooms. It is also necessary to hear the statements of teaching assistants on how they experience this role in Grade 1 classrooms. Early Childhood Education (which includes the Foundation Phase) forms the basis of all other education; however, the South African education system is faced with numerous challenges which in various ways impede the teaching and learning of young children. These barriers include overcrowded classrooms, learner diversity and indiscipline which call for additional support in the classroom. By using a qualitative approach, this study attempts to collect and analyse the data obtained from teachers and teaching assistants, and interpret this information to gain insight into and explore various perspectives on the need for teaching assistants in a Grade 1 classroom. By making use of semi-structured interviews, data were collected from three groups of participants: teachers with teaching assistants, teachers without teaching assistants, and teaching assistants. These participants were selected from public, private and rural schools in order to allow for a broad spectrum of inputs. Findings indicate that all participants regard the presence of teaching assistants as non-negotiable in the Grade 1 classroom, as it allows the teacher to focus on teaching, whereas the administrative tasks may be channelled to the assistant. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Early Childhood Education / MEd / Unrestricted

Orientador: Fernanda Rossi / Resumo: A Educação Infantil, primeira etapa da educação básica, tem como função promover à criança o desenvolvimento em todas as dimensões: física, emocional, cognitiva, social, artística, entre outras. A criança é partícipe e protagonista da sociedade e as descobertas de suas potencialidades (pessoais e sociais) fazem parte do seu desenvolvimento integral e relacionamento consigo mesma, com os outros, com o ambiente que a cerca e com os conhecimentos históricos e sociais. Neste contexto, a manifestação corporal do Yoga, com seus conhecimentos práticos e filosóficos, articulados aos conhecimentos e vivências da Educação Infantil, apresenta-se como uma possibilidade de ação pedagógica que contribui para a formação da criança. Esta pesquisa apresenta como objetivo geral analisar um processo de ensino e aprendizagem de Yoga e o desenvolvimento do conhecimento de si e da autoestima da criança no contexto da Educação Infantil. Os objetivos específicos consistem em analisar as possibilidades de uma proposta de ensino e aprendizagem para a Educação Infantil, com os conhecimentos filosófico-práticos do Yoga, para a formação do conhecimento de si e da autoestima na infância; e subsidiar professores e professoras, mediante proposta de ensino e aprendizagem no formato de produto educacional/livro digital, para a inserção e o desenvolvimento de práticas pedagógicas com Yoga na Educação Infantil. A pesquisa, de abordagem qualitativa, foi desenvolvida em uma escola de Educação Infantil municipal d... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Early childhood education, the first stage of basic education, has the function of promoting children's development in all dimensions: physical, emotional, cognitive, social, artistic, among others. The child is a participant and protagonist of society and the discoveries of his potential (personal and social) are part of his integral development and relationship with himself, with others, with the environment that surrounds him and with historical and social knowledge. In this context, the bodily manifestation of Yoga, with its practical and philosophical knowledge, linked to the knowledge and experiences of Early Childhood Education, presents itself as a possibility of pedagogical action that contributes to the formation of the child. This research has as general objective to analyze a teaching and learning process of Yoga and the development of the child's knowledge of self and self-esteem in the context of Early Childhood Education. The specific objectives are to analyze the possibilities of a teaching and learning proposal for Early Childhood Education, with the philosophicalpractical knowledge of Yoga, for the formation of self-knowledge and self-esteem in childhood; and subsidize male and female teachers, through a teaching and learning proposal in the format of an educational product / digital book, for the insertion and development of pedagogical practices with Yoga in Early Childhood Education. The research, with a qualitative approach, was developed in a municipal ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Introduction: This study investigated the use of spatial language by preschool teachers and children in 12 preschool classrooms to see if there are gender differences in the length and amount of spatial language teachers used with preschool boys versus girls or in the language boys versus girls used, during small group geometry activities. Spatial language, which includes words that explain the configuration of objects and their location in an environment, is related to math skill more broadly (Verdine, Bunger, Athanasopoulou, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2017). Research indicates that girls are scoring lower on spatial skill tests as early as third grade (Levine et al., 1999), so this study aims to determine if one of the contributors may be differences in the way teacher or child language varies at an early age. Research Questions 1. Will teachers use words from all three categories of spatial language during geometry small group activities in preschool? 2. How much of the teachers’ spatial language use during geometry small group activities is directed at boys versus girls? 3. Will children use words from all three categories of spatial language during geometry small group activities in preschool? 4. How much spatial language are boys using versus girls during geometry small group activities Methods: Teacher and child language was coded in videotaped observations of preschool geometry activities collected for a larger study. The resulting data were not normally distributed so frequency counts and duration were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U tests. To further analyze the results from my Mann-Whitney U tests, I ran correlations for both preschool boys and preschool girls. Results and Conclusion: Mann-Whitney U tests showed a significantly longer duration of teachers’ use of spatial language towards preschool boys versus girls (p = .03) and of preschool boys’ versus girls’ own use of spatial language (p = .04). The frequency of spatial words used was not statistically significant for either teachers or preschoolers. There was no positive correlation that occurred for the preschool boys in terms of how long the teacher talked to them and the boys’ use of spatial language. There was a positive correlation in terms of the frequency with which the teacher talked to the girls and the girls use of spatial language. Though the boys’ spatial language was not related to the amount of time teachers’ used spatial language, the fact that girls spatial language was may suggest in general girls are more sensitive to teachers’ verbal interactions and their cues for responding. Children’s understanding of spatial language is important and contributes to their continued understanding of other important concepts as they progress through their education. Therefore, it is important that children gain an early confidence and skill in using spatial language. Preschool teachers have an opportunity to support them in developing their skills in this area through their own use of spatial language as well as the way in which they encourage children to use it themselves.

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For Research and Application our group decided to do research on the influence Instagram has through high schoolers' and their self-esteem. The reason we choose high school students is because, a lot of groups within our class were focusing on college students and self-esteem through Instagram. The way we collected our data was by sending out a survey asking question about how many likes were satisfactory to these students and did it influence their self-esteem. We also use Rosenberg's self-esteem scale to see how this influenced their self-esteem. Through this research we found that with the literature reviews Instagram does influence ones self-esteem, but through our survey we found that Instagram does not influence ones self-esteem.

"The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of establishing routines in nursery schools and kindergartens. It will discuss the factors to be considered, procedures to be followed, and examples of establishing routines. This paper will not attempt to discuss in detail the establishing of routines in the home, but will show the relationship of the home and the school"--Introduction. / "August, 1951." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Sarah Lou Hammond, Professor Directing Paper. / Typescript. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-59).

Children who are native Spanish-speaking Language Minority Youth (LMY) comprise the fastest growing population of students in the United States. In addition, these children lag significantly behind their non-LMY peers in academic achievement. To aid in their development of academic skills, it is necessary to evaluate individual factors that are related to later reading and math achievement. One such individual factor is executive function (EF). EF is defined as the set of cognitive skills that underlie children’s ability to regulate their thoughts and actions. Among the skills encompassed by executive function are inhibitory control (i.e., the ability to suppress a dominant response in favor of a subdominant response), working memory (i.e., the ability to maintain and manipulate information in short-term memory), and shifting (i.e., the ability to switch flexibly between tasks). Children who speak more than one language are theorized to have what is called a “bilingual advantage” in their executive function ability such that they outperform their non-LMY peers on tasks of inhibitory control. It is theorized that the bilingual advantage originates from the simultaneous activation of both languages and the constant need to select the relevant language while ignoring their other language. This conflict between languages and the need to select just one language in which to respond confers cognitive advantages that are said to generalize to inhibitory control. However, findings are mixed regarding whether the bilingual advantage exists. A closer examination of these findings suggests that the bilingual advantage is dependent upon the type of inhibitory control task administered. Specifically, the bilingual advantage is said to exist on tasks of interference suppression (IS; defined as the ability to ignore or suppress irrelevant salient perceptual information in a bivalent task and selectively attend to relevant conflicting information), but not on tasks of response inhibition (RI; defined as suppressing a dominant response in favor of a less dominant response). The goal of this study was to evaluate the different types of inhibitory control among children with some degree of exposure to both Spanish and English and to understand better whether there is a bilingual advantage conferred on tasks of interference suppression (but not on tasks of response inhibition) for children with a greater degree of bilingualism. In the current study, 100 Spanish-speaking LMY preschool students were administered an English and Spanish language measure to determine their degree of bilingualism as well as seven computerized tasks of inhibitory control. Four of the computerized tasks evaluated IS (two required verbal responses, two did not) and three of the computerized tasks evaluated RI (one required a verbal response, two did not). Consistent with the first hypothesis, the verbal and nonverbal computerized tasks measured a unitary inhibitory control construct. Consistent with the second hypothesis, results indicated that IS and RI were distinct domains within the broader construct of inhibitory control. Consistent with the third hypothesis, results indicated that a higher degree of bilingualism was associated with stronger inhibitory control, and that children’s degree of bilingualism was relatively more associated with IS than with RI. These findings support the presence of a bilingual advantage conferred to children’s inhibitory control, as well as a specific advantage conferred to inhibitory control tasks that require IS. However, degree of bilingualism was strongly related to children’s English language skills. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / June 14, 2016. / Bilingual Advantage, English Language Learners, Executive Function, Inhibitory Control, Self-Regulation / Includes bibliographical references. / Christopher J. Lonigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Carla Wood, University Representative; Arielle Borovsky, Committee Member; Jesse Cougle, Committee Member; Michael Kaschak, Committee Member.

Children’s interests are often used as a rationale in child-centered approaches to build emergent curriculum that is tailored to young children’s motivations for learning. Against a neoliberal backdrop of standardized learning objectives, emergent curriculum appeals to children’s interests to foster children’s agency through building curriculum alongside teachers. However, research on children’s interests calls for further development of theory regarding children’s interests as the concept may be conceptualized narrowly in research and practice. This study explored the concept of children’s interests within a child-centered preschool classroom at a private university-based school that implements emergent curriculum. I used critical childhoods studies and Actor Network Theory as analytic and theoretical frames for conceptualizing children’s interests as socially and materially constructed among networks of both human and nonhuman actors. The findings are presented as a case study of a Store project that was developed based on children’s interests in money, stores, and ice cream. Fieldnotes and memos from participant observation, artifacts, and teacher documentation were used to map actor networks acting upon one another in the development of the Store project. Through the tracing of the material and semiotic transformations of money, stores, and ice cream, I argue that children exhibited agency through expressions of resistance that were made viable in network with material and other nonhuman actors. Children sought free interests that circulated outside the frames of the Store project’s currency by networking with red shoes, emptied bookshelves, and lollipops. Even as teachers supported and sustained the interest-based Store project toward real learning goals through eliciting children’s feedback and sense of duty, children offered silence as well as critique of the shopkeeper/customer dichotomy as resistance. As such, I propose that children exhibit agency through resistance in the process of redefining their interests within the contexts of their particular childhoods. Implications of the findings explore ways that children’s interests are situated within and propulsive toward particular childhoods and markets of labor futures. Though non-publicly funded child-centered settings that adopt emergent curriculum are partially sheltered from neoliberal demands on proffering real learning outcomes, they are networked within a neoliberal context through their positions within markets of schooling.