abstract: This dissertation examines Japanese preschool teachers' cultural practices and beliefs about the pedagogy of social-emotional development. The study is an interview-based, ethnographic study, which is based on the video-cued mutivocal ethnographic method. This study focuses on the emic terms that Japanese preschool teachers use to explain their practices, such as amae (dependency), omoiyari (empathy), sabishii (loneliness), mimamoru (watching and waiting) and garari (peripheral participation). My analysis suggests that sabishii, amae, and omoiyari form a triad of emotional exchange that has a particular cultural patterning and salience in Japan and in the Japanese approach to the socialization of emotions in early childhood. Japanese teachers think about the development of the class as a community, which is different from individual-centric Western pedagogical perspective that gives more attention to each child's development. Mimamoru is a pedagogical philosophy and practice in Japanese early childhood education. A key component of Japanese teachers' cultural practices and beliefs about the pedagogy of social-emotional development is that the process requires the development not only of children as individuals, but also of children in a preschool class as a community. In addition, the study suggests that at a deeper level these emic concepts reflect more general Japanese cultural notions of time, space, sight, and body. This dissertation concludes with the argument that teachers' implicit cultural practices and beliefs is "A cultural art of teaching." Teachers' implicit cultural practices and beliefs are harmonized in the teachers' mind and body, making connections between them, and used depending on the nuances of a situation, as informed by teachers' conscious and unconscious thoughts. The study has also shown evidence of similar practices and logic vertically distributed within Japanese early childhood education, from the way teachers act with children, to the way directors act with teachers, to the way government ministries act with directors, to the way deaf and hearing educators act with their deaf and hearing students. Because these practices are forms of bodily habitus and implicit Japanese culture, it makes sense that they are found across fields of action. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2011

Accumulative family risk factors can have a detrimental impact on young children's social emotional development and future school readiness. Identifying family risk and resilience factors can be a first step in linking families to needed services. Programs that serve families and children need a brief and valid screening tool that can quickly assess family strengths and needs. This study examined the validity and utility of the Environmental Screening Questionnaire (ESQ), a brief caregiver report of the family's situation. Participants included 324 parent/child (ages 3-60 months) dyads from a sample of programs that serve at-risk families (n = 72) and an online sample of caregivers (n = 252). Results from data analyses evaluating the validity and utility were promising. Validity was investigated by examining convergent validity using the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form. Caregivers from the online sample who had more family risk factors, as identified in the ESQ, were more likely to have elevated levels of stress (r = .23). Moreover, children from families with increased risk factors tended to have higher scores on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social Emotional (ASQ:SE) for two age intervals, 6 and 48 months, for the online sample. Utility data were gathered from caregivers and program staff. Results suggest the ESQ is an effective and useful screening measure that can help professionals identify areas of resource need, organize referral information, and monitor family outcomes. Caregivers found the ESQ to be helpful in understanding personal areas of risk and how risk and resilience factors can affect children's social emotional development. This study assisted in developing preliminary "red flag" risk factors that may be useful to programs serving families and children. Testing of the "red flags" is discussed for future research. / 10000-01-01

The Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) (Squires & Bricker, 2009) is used by pediatricians, educators, and parents to screen for developmental delays and identify children at risk for delay. The purpose of the ASQ: Social Emotional- Second Edition (ASQ:SE-2) is to screen for a child’s self-regulation, compliance, communication, adaptive behaviors, autonomy, affect, and interaction with people. A recent revision of the ASQ:SE-2 included items that were intended to identify children at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study provides an examination of the validity of the ASQ:SE-2 in identifying children at risk for ASD. In the present study, total scores on a subset of items from the ASQ:SE-2 that specifically addressed ASD were compared with results from a team clinical diagnosis of ASD for 60 children, between 18-48 months of age. When the ASD-related items were considered alone, the scores of children with ASD and those without ASD were significantly different, and there were no differences in ASQ:SE-2 total scores for children with and without ASD. These findings indicate that parents of children with ASD reported significantly more concerns on ASD-related items on the ASQ:SE-2 than parents of children without ASD. Moreover, the results suggest that an increasing ASD total item score on the broadband instrument resulted in an increased likelihood of a child receiving an ASD diagnosis.

abstract: This small case study reviewed research literature and Arizona standards and assessments utilized in the early learning continuum, with a focus on holistic development, specifically in the areas of social-emotional development and approaches to learning skill development. This conversation has become especially prevalent in the state of Arizona in light of initiatives around school readiness, and policy changes reflected within the state. Much has yet to be determined concerning how the systems approach works in Arizona local education agencies, specifically the depth, consistency, and approach in which nonacademic areas of social-emotional development and approaches to learning skills are addressed in the Arizona standards, local practices and classrooms, and preschool and kindergarten assessments. The study included a content analysis, conducted as a word count, of standards and assessments, as well as a small case study of including high academic achieving district (including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations). Through the data analysis, it was affirmed a culture of learning, reflecting social-emotional development and approaches to learning skill development was created within this Local Education Agency. Three categories (environment, individual, and decision making) emerged as a way to describe this culture through a theoretical perspective of sociocultural theory. The study offers an opportunity for discussion of social-emotional development and approaches to learning skill development, connecting to a high academically achieving district, and makes recommendations for policy, practice and further research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015

abstract: Social-emotional competence (SEC), or effectiveness of social interaction, plays a central role in children’s health and well-being. The three goals of the current study were to describe the development of SEC during a preschool year; identify an appropriate factor structure for observed teacher-child interactions; and predict SEC growth from children’s characteristics (emotional competence, language risk, gender, and race/ethnicity), teacher-child relationship quality, and classroom characteristics (relational climate, observed teacher-child interaction quality, and curriculum). Children’s social competence, anger/aggression, effortful control, and emotion knowledge (N =822) was assessed at three time points during a preschool year via teachers’ reports and behavioral assessments. In the fall, teachers reported the quality of their relationships with children and teacher-child interactions were observed in classrooms. Aim 1 results indicated that children exhibited linear increases in effortful control and social competence and stability in anger/aggression, although social competence was the only construct where linear change varied among children. Due to a lack of longitudinal measurement invariance, growth in latent emotion knowledge could not be evaluated. Several gender and racial/ethnic differences were identified in SEC intercepts, but not the social competence slope. Language risk and impulsivity were consistent predictors of SEC intercepts. Aim 2 results indicated that teacher-child interaction quality was primarily unidimensional. Finally, results from aim 3 indicated that children’s emotional competence at the beginning of the year and classroom relational climate were predictive of growth in social competence. End-of-year social competence levels were associated with supportive teacher-child relationship quality (particularly among girls), high emotional competence, low language risk, and supportive classroom relational climate; girls had higher social competence than boys. Although not directly associated with social competence, observed teacher-child interaction quality was conditionally predictive of the social competence in the context of supportive teacher-child relationships. Further, when observed teacher-child interaction quality was average or high, children with low emotional competence exhibited greater growth in social competence than children with high emotional competence. The results inform our understanding of SEC development, the nature of teacher-child interactions in preschool classrooms serving high-risk populations, and potential school-based mechanisms for promoting social competence. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2020

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No description available.

This qualitative study examined the perceptions and understandings of various stakeholders in the early childhood sector of Mississippi about kindergarten readiness in response to the implementation of more rigorous academic standards in kindergarten. The participants (N=20) in this study were parent/guardians and teachers at 2 elementary schools in Mississippi and various preschool programs that feed into them including public pre-K, private child care, and Head Start. These perceptions and understandings were compared with official documents including position statements of professional organizations and learning standards. The results of the study provide insight into the perceptions and understandings of the participants as they experience the readiness process from preschool through participation in kindergarten. The qualitative analysis showed that as more rigorous standards have been implemented in kindergarten, all stakeholder groups are experiencing high levels of pressure related to the testing and accountability requirements related to the standards. This has caused a mismatch between the stated values of kindergarten teachers and the practices they reportedly use as they shift to what I conceptualized as more environmental-behaviorist teaching methods versus the social-constructivist, play-based methods they believe to be more effective. The analysis also revealed a breakdown in communication as kindergarten teachers expect the other stakeholder groups to come to them to see what is happening in kindergarten. This is driven by a mismatch between the standards and actual practices. A surprising finding is that the perceived job satisfaction of preschool teachers seems to have improved as they see themselves in a more vital role in the readiness process. This study is organized into five chapters. Chapter I provides an overview and rationale for the study. Chapter II includes a review of the literature which includes historical perspectives about kindergarten readiness, theories of kindergarten readiness, domains of readiness, and stakeholder perspectives of kindergarten readiness. Chapter III provides the methodology for the study. Chapter IV presents the findings from the analysis of data. Chapter V provides a discussion of the findings, suggestions for future research, and implications for practice.

In the United States, approximately 400,000 children reside in foster care, and most have been exposed to caregiver abuse, neglect, or abandonment. A majority of foster children suffer the effects of damaging circumstances including poverty, violence, inferior health care, and substandard housing. Consequently, young foster youth frequently struggle to accomplish developmental tasks such as establishing secure attachment relationships, cultivating preacademic skills, and acquiring social-emotional competence. The purpose of this research was to determine the impact of Peace4Kids, a nonprofit community-based organization, on young foster youths’ social-emotional development and pre-academic skills. Data collected from parents, teachers, and administrators during semi-structured interviews documented children’s experiences as they attended the organization’s Saturday Core Program. Participants noted that as foster children participated in a variety of curricular and co-curricular experiences at Peace4Kids, their social, emotional, and academic development were positively impacted. Parents, teachers, and administrators reported that the organization’s culture of consistency, trust, and accountability promoted secure attachment relationships among foster youth, staff members, and peers at the Saturday Core Program. Participants iterated that secure relationships provided a foundation for foster children to subsequently acquire social and emotional capacities, including persistence, conflict resolution, self-regulation, and autonomy. As youth in foster care developed social-emotional competencies, pre-academic skills such as literacy and numeracy emerged. This study’s findings indicate that a comprehensive approach is necessary to address the unique needs of foster children who have experienced prior trauma. Additionally, this research study contributes to a growing body of work that explores the role of attachment relationships in group and organizational settings.

Technology plays an increasingly significant role in the lives of children and adults, and it is imperative to understand if and how it impacts the development of psychological processes and the subsequent behaviors of preschool-aged children so that we can better understand how to navigate guidelines for use and interventions for overuse. To better understand the relationship between screen time use and a child’s social emotional development, it is important to consider parent time on screens, child time on screens, and any effects an older sibling in the home or parental gender may have on their development. This study gathered screen time usage rates from parents and their preschool-aged children and then measured the social emotional development of these children using an electronic version of the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment for Preschoolers, Second Edition (eDECA-2). Results were analyzed using sequential regression models and found child and parent screen time usage to be negatively associated with the social emotional development of the child. There were no moderating effects of the presence of an older sibling in the home. There were only moderating effects for parental gender when considering primary parents, which showed that when a male is a primary parent, increased parental and child screen time leads to a steeper decrease in behavioral concerns than when the primary parent is female. Additionally, categories of screen time usage were analyzed using multiple analyses of variance and showed that parents who used tool-based applications rated their children with higher levels of social emotional development. Results that analyzed the child’s categories of use did not show delineated differences between tool-based and non-tool-based applications.