It is suggested in both academic literature and popular media that many children’s opportunities for play, particularly in North America and during middle childhood are decreasing and that the consequences include negative impacts on social, emotional and physical well being. One of the explanations for the decline in play, particularly amongst middle and high socio-economic-status families is an increased participation in structured extracurricular programming. This qualitative study explores parental accounts in order to understand some of the underlying ideas that shape their decision-making. Semi-structured individual interviews conducted using questions generated from a background literature review are implemented with five mothers, four of whom are spoken with twice. A thematic analysis approach is used to analyze the data. Integrating further literature, the ensuing discussion focuses on how a culture of fear may be contributing to an uncontrollable busyness of both parents’ and children’s lives. Protection, prevention and preparation are identified as specific motivations for structured program involvement that stem from a culture of fear. Particular focus is given to ideas behind the preparation mentality. The importance of early exposure, the intensity of extracurricular involvement, lost investment, wasted time, and the relationship these ideas have with discourses of intensive mothering are all explored. This study contributes new information to the existing dialogue about changes in children’s time-use, and provides insight into avenues for further qualitative research in the field. / Graduate

This qualitative study investigates the consequences of advancing three preschoolers into kindergarten in the province of Quebec, where the derogation exemption enables younger children to start school before they reach the age of admission of five years by September 30th. The rationale for this study came from an interest to discover the perspectives of the students, their teachers, and their parents on the topic of derogation. This study examines how these students, one in grade 4 and two in grade 6, feel about being the youngest in the class, and how teachers and parents perceive them as learners and socializers. The research design is based on an exploratory qualitative case study approach. The methods used to collect the data consist of interviews conducted with the three selected students, their homeroom teachers, and two parents; observations of the students in their school settings, and the analysis of documents such as field notes and journal entries. The interviews are analyzed within a socio-cultural interpretive framework in order to examine the way that derogation has affected the social and emotional lives of the three selected children. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is explored. This concept presents the idea that children develop their learning potential in a setting where they can learn with more capable peers and adults who provide guidance and support. When these younger children are advanced into a kindergarten class, they are placed in a setting with older peers and adult teachers. One of the issues addressed in this study is how the social milieu encourages derogated children to develop their cognitive approach to problem solving and learning. The themes that emerged from this study include the importance of parental support, peer acceptance, and self-esteem. The younger derogated students are more likely to experience success in their academic and social-emotional lives if they have good parental support, a

Background/Aim: During the past two decades, major advances in maternal-fetal medicine, neonatology, and the development of regionalized perinatal care have resulted in dramatic increases in survival rates, by more than 60%, of extremely immature (EI) infants born at less than 26 completed weeks of gestation, creating a new infant population. Studies of school-age outcomes in children with an extremely low birth weight of < 1000 g, born in the1980s, indicated that these children had a substantially high prevalence of low-severity neuropsychological deficits, behavioral problems, and difficulties at school. Information on school-age outcomes of extremely preterm children born in the 1990s is sparse, and mainly restricted to the neurobehavioral and developmental outcome. The aim of this research was to investigate the comprehensive neurological, developmental, functional, and mental health status and health care needs of children born at 23-25 weeks of gestation in the 1990s, allowing a total view of the child in the context of the family, his peers, school, and the health care system. The ultimate aim was to obtain a clearer understanding of the functional capacities of these vulnerable children and the possibilities of ameliorative interventions, as a basis for planning and provision of services for this growing population. Methods: We studied 11-year-old children born from 1990 through 1992 before 26 completed weeks of gestation in all of Sweden. All had been evaluated at a corrected age of 36 months. Of 89 eligible children, 86 (97%) were studied at a mean age of 11 years. An equal number of children born at term served as controls. The following methods were used: 1) well validated, mailed questionnaires filled out by the parents, class teachers and the children themselves; 2) structured interviews were conducted with a parent or a primary caregiver; 3) review of pediatric case records and records from other specialist health care services; and 4) anthropometric measurements (length, weight, head circumference and body mass index) from birth to 11 years of age. The following domains were explored: current health status, growth attainment, mental health assessment, emotional well-being, adaptive functioning and social competencies, school performance, executive functions, and learning and language skills. Relations of socioeconomic background and of environmental and perinatal risk factors to the long-term outcome were evaluated. Results: EI children compared with the controls had significantly higher rates of specific diagnoses or disabilities including neurosensory impairment (15% vs 2%, respectively), asthma (20% vs 6%), poor motor skills (26% vs 3%), poor visual perception (21% vs 4%), poor learning skills (27% vs 3%),poor adaptive functioning (42% vs 9%), and poor academic performance (49% vs 7%). As a consequence of these disabilities, significantly more EI children than controls had chronic conditions, which included functional limitations (64% vs 11%), compensatory dependency needs (59% vs 25%), and services above those routinely required by children in general (67% vs 22%). Regarding growth attainment, EI children had significantly lower values for all three growth parameters (length, weight and head circumference) than the controls at 11 years. They showed a sharp decline in weight and height z scores up to 3 months’ corrected age, followed by good catch-up growth in both weight and height up to 11 years. EI children did not exhibit catch-up growth in head circumference after the first 6 months of life. Preterm birth and parental height were significant predictors of 11-year height, and group status (prematurity) correlated strongly with head circumference. Our results also suggest that the EI children had a significantly greater risk for poorer mental health and poorer emotional well-being than the control participants, including internalizing (anxiety/depression, withdrawn behavior and somatic complaints), and attention, social, and thought problems. No differences in externalizing problems were found between the EI cohort and controls. Multivariable analyses disclosed a number of significant predictors of behavioral adjustment: group status (EI vs control), family function, social risk, male gender, and presence of a chronic medical condition. Concerning school performance, more than half (59%) of our EI cohort were experiencing school difficulties and 15%, compared with 5% of the control children were attending special schools or having full-time special education. Despite fewer adaptive skills in the EI cohort these children were not different from the controls in respect to being happy and being positively adjusted in their day-to-day life. Compared with controls, EI children had a significantly increased risk for executive dysfunctions in most of the areas assessed (Attention control and Attention switching, Hypoactivity, Planning/organizing, and Working memory). EI children were also at increased risk for deficient skills in language tasks (comprehension, communication, and expression) and in the four standard measures of learning skills (reading/writing, math, general learning, and coping in learning). However, only a relatively small number of EI children exhibited severe impairments in executive or non-executive skills. Multivariate analyses revealed that prematurity, executive dysfunction and male gender were associated with poor learning skills. Conclusions and implications: Children born extremely immature have significantly greater health problems and special health care needs that require ongoing services through the school years. However, it is notable that very few children have severe impairments that curtail major activities of daily living. The overall results of this study are reassuring. Despite having an increased risk for mental health problems, executive dysfunctions and school difficulties, 85% of the EI children were in the mainstream schools and a majority were not having major adjustment difficulties. In terms of growth, most of our EI children showed good catch-up in late childhood and were within 2SD of their mean midparental height at 11 years of age. Although biological immaturity is associated with an increased risk for a substantial number of behavioral/emotional problems, improvement of the modifiable environmental factors will benefit the outcome in EI children. We also believe that knowledge of the course of development of psychopathological conditions from early childhood to adolescence and beyond is crucial for identifying the need for intervention and prevention strategies. Thus when there is evidence to suggest neuropsychological and behavioral or emotional problems, early identification and preventive measures might help families to manage these from an early stage. Our findings further suggest that current preterm follow-up programs might benefit from the addition of psychological and family services to traditional neurodevelopmental assessments, especially in the neonatal period and first years of life.

Outside school hours programs provide recreation, play and leisure-based programs for children aged 5 to 12 years in before- and after-school settings, and in the vacation periods. Over the past ten years, the number of programs has grown rapidly due to women’s increasing participation in the workforce. At the same time, critical changes for the operation and administration of Queensland outside school hours care services were occurring following the introduction of mandatory standards and quality assurance. This study is a critical ethnography investigating the circumstances for two Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) services located on school sites at this time of change. The services were responding to the introduced legislative and accreditation requirements, the burgeoning numbers of students in the programs, and the requirements by parents for care for their school-aged child. The findings of this study show the complexity of the dualities of purpose and the operational administration of OSHC services, an area that has been little identified and discussed to date. This study illuminated not only aspects of OSHC services, it provided an opportunity for the co-ordinators of the two OSHC services to reflect on the operational structures. As the majority of OSHC services in Queensland (and other Australian states) are located in school sites, a closer examination of the relationship between OSHC and schools provided insights into some issues concerning the sector. Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action was used to investigate the state of affairs and analyse the consensual and coercion meaning-making that occurred in the interactions between the stakeholders, specifically between the OSHC coordinators and school principals. Critical ethnographic research techniques, including participant observations and semi-structured interviews, were used to investigate what appears below the surface of social existence in the OSHC settings. On the surface, the interactions between the coordinators and principals appeared congenial. However, the study found that the vulnerability of the OSHC services for alienation and marginalisation was linked to the lack of legitimacy and reduced sense of social membership endowed by the ambience of the school setting in which the services were located. The study found that the distorted communicative action that took place within the OSHC settings exhibited the pathologies of alienation, withdrawal of legitimation and lack of collective identity. Examining the relationships of the key stakeholders within the outside school hours care services offers conceptual understandings of existing institutional relationships and practices, This critical ethnography pinpoints sources of power and unease contributing to the concerns for the outside school hours sector and recommends ways to develop these programs.

Bibliography: leaves 369-391. / xiv, 391 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis seeks to elucidate the origins, nature and impact of age standards in the organisation of state-provided elementary schooling in South Australia from 1875 to 1990. The study traces the shift which occurred from ungraded schools to the classification and promotion of scholars according to attainment and then increasingly on the basis of chronological age. It also examines the introduction of specialist departments, teachers and pedagogy to better manage the youngest pupils. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1997?

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-134).

This diploma thesis is concentrated on perception of seniors by primary children (aged six to eight years). How primary children imagine seniors, how they perceive them and what characters children think seniors have got. The theoretical part is divided to three chapters. At first there is defined a primary school age. There are described characteristics and relationships between children, with their parents and mainly with their grandparents. In the second chapter there is characterized the old age, the role of seniors in families and their relationship with grandchildren. Then there is described the attitude to the old age seen by society. The last chapter of the hteoretical part contains the way I collected information (through a drawing and an interview). The practical part is focused on the fact how children draw seniors and searching for attributes in children´s drawings. Children´s attitudes to the old people are searched through interviews.

This thesis entitled "Psychological Aspects of Interrogation of Children" deals with the psychological aspects of interrogation of sexually abused children aged six to twelve. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first section consists of five chapters and it focuses on theoretical knowledge. There is described expert knowledge about children´s development, interrogation, the output interrogation, i.e. testimony, and specifics of interrogation of children. The second part processes the results of the actual research. The research objective of the thesis was to identify psychological aspects which affect the interrogation of children, to determine and describe them. In this thesis qualitative research was used to achieve the aim, especially a part of the grounded theory method. In my research I termed eleven categories aspects which influence the interrogation of children. These categories are described in detail in the chapters entitled Result and they are discussed in detail. This thesis can serve to individual institutions involved in criminal proceedings concerning juvenile offenders as well as to general public.

This thesis focuses on the relation of a Roma pupil and a school from the point of view of a teacher. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part is divided into four subtopics. The first subtopic is dedicated to the Roma in Czech society, their differentiation, the social situation of the Roma, the relation between the majority and the minority, and especially the conflicts between the majority and the minority. The second theme deals with the Roma family, how it looked in the past and what it is today. It also focuses on the education of children by gender and the family's influence on the child's success in school. The third theme deals with the education of the Roma and especially with pre-school, primary and secondary education. The fourth theme describes communication with Roma parents. The second part deals with the research itself. The research method used is a qualitative method and especially a semi- standardized questionnaire. The aim of the diploma thesis was to find out what the relationship between a school and the family of a Roma pupil in the Liberec region is. The whole problem is examined from the point of view of the educator. Other objectives of the research were to find out the level of communication between schools and the families of Roma pupils, to find out how the...

This thesis probes the share and adequacy of gymnastics in physical education classes at primary school. Second and fourth grades of the primary school were selected for the research. Teachers of these grades were subjected to a questionnaire. These questionnaires have been prepared on the basis of educational programs of individual schools. The objective was to determine to what degree the gymnastic exercise is included in physical education classes. The evaluation was carried out by comparing the responses of individual teachers of each of the two grades and the two most important items were processed graphically. These questions are the total annual funding of physical education and gymnastic classes and also the most widely used gymnastic tools for these schools.