No description available.

In this study the author attempts to identify factors that are determinants for why some pupils in Swedish grade school have high status in comparison with their peers. The study takes on the characteristics of both an ethnographic and a literature study by comparing the findings of interviews carried out with students of a first grade class with previous research. The study identify several tools for analyzing of how status may be understood in specific situations.The study also finds that important factors for gaining high status amongst children in aschool classes might be the ability to apply access strategies to get accepted in social interactions, such as game play, have the ability to create games that are enjoyed by peers and social skills, to name a few. Overall the study shows that children's game play with each otherare crucial for their social interactions and their social position. The study also show that children that have earlier established relationships with other children in a specific group alsohave a better opportunity to establish a high status position.

The purpose of this study was to explore what the word "play" means and implies for Korean preservice kindergarten teachers in an early childhood teacher education program. The research questions under investigation were: (1) How do Korean preservice teachers with an early childhood emphasis view play? (2) How do factors such as culture and education influence the constructing of these views? The participants were ten Korean preservice kindergarten teachers enrolled in the Department of Early Childhood Education in one teacher education college in Korea. The data for this study was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews both individual and group and other qualitative methods. The findings of this study showed that Korean preservice kindergarten teachers had a conceptual conflict in the perception of general play and educational play. General play was considered as a fun, enjoyable, and spontaneous activity that is engaged in without concern for a specific outcome. General play was also thought as the opposite concept to work or study. Educational play was regarded as an ironical concept, since Korean preservice kindergarten teachers thought that learning occurs through working, not playing. Korean preservice kindergarten teachers theoretically advocated for the pedagogy of learning through play, just as they were taught in the teacher education program. However, Korean preservice kindergarten teachers did not agree with the practical effect of play on children's learning. Korean preservice kindergarten teachers were more supportive of a structured and pre-planned program for young children, believing that it resulted in better learning opportunities for children than a play-oriented program. The findings of the study revealed that personal experiences with play, the kind of education of the preservice teachers themselves received in their teacher training program, and Korean culture had significant roles in influencing the participant preservice teachers' ideas on play. This study implies that interpretations of play as an educational tool vary from culture to culture. Further research is needed to more deeply understand how views and attitudes on play are created and enacted.

The purpose of this study was to explore what the word "play" means and implies for Korean preservice kindergarten teachers in an early childhood teacher education program. The research questions under investigation were: (1) How do Korean preservice teachers with an early childhood emphasis view play? (2) How do factors such as culture and education influence the constructing of these views? The participants were ten Korean preservice kindergarten teachers enrolled in the Department of Early Childhood Education in one teacher education college in Korea. The data for this study was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews both individual and group and other qualitative methods. The findings of this study showed that Korean preservice kindergarten teachers had a conceptual conflict in the perception of general play and educational play. General play was considered as a fun, enjoyable, and spontaneous activity that is engaged in without concern for a specific outcome. General play was also thought as the opposite concept to work or study. Educational play was regarded as an ironical concept, since Korean preservice kindergarten teachers thought that learning occurs through working, not playing. Korean preservice kindergarten teachers theoretically advocated for the pedagogy of learning through play, just as they were taught in the teacher education program. However, Korean preservice kindergarten teachers did not agree with the practical effect of play on children's learning. Korean preservice kindergarten teachers were more supportive of a structured and pre-planned program for young children, believing that it resulted in better learning opportunities for children than a play-oriented program. The findings of the study revealed that personal experiences with play, the kind of education of the preservice teachers themselves received in their teacher training program, and Korean culture had significant roles in influencing the participant preservice teachers' ideas on play. This study implies that interpretations of play as an educational tool vary from culture to culture. Further research is needed to more deeply understand how views and attitudes on play are created and enacted.

No description available.

This thesis is a study of sibling play and language sociaIization. The concept of language socialization is defined as socialization through language as well as socialization to use language (Schieffelin and Ochs 1986). Fieldwork was carried out for 15 months in a small, Quichua-Spanish bilingual, agricultural community in the central highlands of Ecuador. The lack of land and the desire for change have motivated many men to migrate to the coast and to the major cities of the sierra, striving for upward mobility and economic success in the Ecuadorian society. Lately, however, after the recent takeover of two haciendas, it has been possible for the comuneros to remain in the community. The main focus was on 4 children (2-3 years of age) and their interactions with their siblings and parents. The study is a presentation of their everyday lives, and is based on microanalyses of children's play, parent - child interaction, sibling caretaking and children's work. A San Nicohis developmental story is presented. It was clear that the siblings - hence not only the mothers - were in charge of the young children during much of the day. Siblings are, moreover, often raised in pairs, so that an elder child is in charge of a younger one. Threats, rhetorical questions and other types of teasing were conunon means used by adults as well as older siblings to socialize young children. Also very small children were able to take the perspective of their younger siblings. They functioned as interpreters in "language teaching", in so-called diga routines, and in ente,1ainments. In this highly gendered society, the children's play transcended gender boundaries. For instance, young boys were observed"breastfeeding" their young siblings. A language shift ft'om Quichua to Spanish is apparently under way in the community. The comuneros themselves are at a loss to understand or explain why this is happening and, above all, why this is happening now. They do not see the Quichua language as endangered, since they see it as innately Indian. Contrary to what the comuneros initially claimed, it was found that no children under the age of 10 were fluent in the vernacular. Sibling caretaking is possibly one of the most important factors explaining this language shift in their children's lives.

The research is ethnographic and based on the theoretical contributions of the Sociology of Childhood, having as central nucleus the concept of childhood as social construction and the child as a social actor, historical-cultural subject. The main objective of the present study was to understand how children experience their childhoods from the games of free choice created by them within the routine of a municipal institution of Early Childhood Education. Based on this central objective, the following specific objectives were listed: a) understanding of what and how children play in the routine established by their educators; B) to investigate how children organize play and how peer groups are constituted at playful occasions, and c) to analyze the social relationships that children construct among their peers while playing. The study included 25 children, both boys and girls, aged three years, members of a public school of Early Childhood Education in the Municipality of Aracaju / SE. For the production of data, field diary annotations, photographs and video recordings were used during the months of February to June 2016. The analyzes revealed that, in play routines, children use a multiplicity of prior knowledge that they provide The rules and behaviors appropriate to the routine scheme, allowing children to recognize and organize a play. The results indicated that there is a social order that structures the groups of pairs with rules constructed by the children themselves in the occasions of games. This social order allowed the development of joint play, in which children created and negotiated their actions. The social order was recognized in the way the groups organize themselves to play, in the attempts of access to the groups and development of strategies of entrance and resistance of the children in the groups, in the hierarchies established between the pairs of age, revealing the figure of the leader and his Functions in the established play, the autonomy of the child in the resolution of conflicts and disagreements, norms and values, such as solidarity and the value of friendship in the games created. The formations of groups of games were governed by strategies that used the friendship as main way of access to the groups gathers. Thus, the findings of this work signaled the children's agency in their social interactions, revealing their capacity to interact among peers, confirming the idea that they are socially active and protagonists of the social world. / A pesquisa possui cunho etnográfico e fundamentou-se nos aportes teóricos da Sociologia da Infância, tendo como núcleo central o conceito de infância como construção social e a criança como ator social, sujeito histórico-cultural. O objetivo principal do presente estudo foi compreender como as crianças vivenciam suas infâncias a partir das brincadeiras de livre escolha por elas criadas dentro da rotina de uma instituição municipal de Educação Infantil. Com base nesse objetivo central foram elencados os seguintes objetivos específicos: a) compreender de quê e como brincam as crianças na rotina instituída por suas educadoras; b) averiguar como as crianças organizam as brincadeiras e como se constituem os grupos de pares em ocasiões brincantes e c) analisar as relações sociais que as crianças constroem entre seus pares de idade enquanto brincam. Participaram do estudo 25 crianças, de ambos os sexos, com idades de três anos, integrantes de uma escola pública de Educação Infantil do Município de Aracaju/SE. Para a produção de dados foram utilizadas anotações em diário de campo, fotografias e gravações em vídeo durante os meses de fevereiro a junho de 2016. As análises revelaram que, nas rotinas de brincadeiras, as crianças lançam mão de uma multiplicidade de saberes prévios que fornecem as regras e os comportamentos adequados ao esquema da rotina, permitindo às crianças reconhecerem e organizarem uma brincadeira. Os resultados indicaram que existe uma ordem social que estrutura os grupos de pares com regras construídas pelas próprias crianças nas ocasiões de brincadeiras. Esta ordem social permitia o desenvolvimento da brincadeira conjunta, na qual as crianças criavam e negociavam suas ações. A ordem social foi reconhecida na maneira como os grupos se organizam para brincar, nas tentativas de acesso aos grupos e desenvolvimento de estratégias de entrada e resistência das crianças nos grupos, nas hierarquias estabelecidas entre os pares de idade, revelando a figura do líder e suas funções na brincadeira instituída, na autonomia da criança na resolução dos conflitos e desacordos, nas normas e valores, como a solidariedade e o valor da amizade nas brincadeiras criadas. As formações de grupos de brincadeiras foram regidas por estratégias que utilizaram a amizade como principal forma de acesso aos grupos brincantes. Sendo assim, os achados deste trabalho sinalizaram a agência das crianças em suas interações sociais, revelando sua capacidade de interagirem entre pares, confirmando a ideia de que elas são socialmente ativas e protagonistas do mundo social.

D'une part, l'objectif de la présente recherche est d'établir les indices de fidélité du premier niveau d'analyse portant sur la segmentation des activités d'un enfant en salle de jeu et de l'échelle de satiété qui composent le Children 's Play Therapy Imtniment (CPTI : Kenberg, Chazan, et Normandin, in press). D'autre part, le but de l'étude est d'évaluer les séquelles psychologiques de l'abus sexuel chez les enfants à travers le jeu libre, en utilisant la segmentation et l'échelle de satiété du CPTI. L'échantillon est constitué de 10 enfants abusés et de 10 enfants non abusés, âgés de 2 à 7 ans et pairés au niveau du sexe et de l'âge. Chaque enfant est filmé en situation de jeu libre avec une évaluatrice, pendant deux périodes de 45 minutes. La segmentation du matériel vidéo permet ensuite de distinguer les unités de jeu des autres catégories d'activités (préparation au jeu, non-jeu, interruption), alors que l'échelle de satiété permet de déterminer si le jeu est complet ou non. Les résultats font état de bons indices de fidélité pour le CPTI quant à la différenciation des catégories d'activités et quant à la satiété que procure le jeu. De plus, les résultats d'analyses de variance indiquent que les enfants abusés jouent significativement moins longtemps et ont significativement plus d'unités de jeu que les enfants non abusés. Aucune différence significative n'a toutefois été obtenue en ce qui concerne le facteur de satiété. Cette étude fournit donc un instrument dont le premier niveau d'analyse (segmentation) et l'échelle de satiété permettent d'analyser fidèlement le jeu libre. Les résultats significatifs obtenus encouragent la poursuite de l'analyse des répercussions de l'abus à travers le jeu libre de l'enfant.

The starting point of our study was raised as a concern, when we realized the fact that we both consider ourselves lacking knowledge of how we as prospective pre-school teachers should manage children´s play that perceived as violent. We were also keen to learn how certain standards may influence pre-school teachers and be reproduced by them in relation to children’s play with elements of violence. The aim of our study is to examine how teachers of pre-school children reason around children´s violent play, and how their reasoning might visualize the prevailing norms of ethics and morals, gender and child perspective. The questions we ask ourselves are:  How do pre-school teachers reason concerning children's play with elements of violence? How are standards of ethics and morality, gender and child perspective in teachers' reasoning about children's games involving violence reproduced? 
When analysing our material we chose a norm-critical perspective, when looking at our data through the three norms; ethics and morals, gender and child perspective. In collecting our data we used a qualitative approach and our method is qualitative interviews. The conclusion from our study is that we can identify the three norms about ethics and morals, gender and child perspective when pre-school teachers reason about children´s play with elements of violence, and that these norms are reproduced by the pre-school teachers.

Syftet med studien var att bidra med kunskap om hur barnen kan samspela på förskolegårdar, beroende på hur gårdens utformning och därmed zonernas placering ser ut. De frågeställningar jag använt i studien är följande: Hur ser gårdars utformning ut utifrån Grahns zoner? och hur samspelar barnen på förskolegårdarna? För att få svar på mina frågeställningar gjordes en förstudie med skiss av tre förskolegårdar samt observationer i två delar. Första delen av observationerna gick ut på att bekräfta vilka zonerna var på gårdarna när jag såg barnen använda dem, och andra delen var observation av hur barnen använde gårdarna i sin lek. Studiens resultat visade på tre aspekter av förskolegårdarna: Hembas i lek, brist på naturområde och lek i åldersblandade grupper. En av gårdarna framstod i resultatet som mest mångdimensionell utifrån zonindelningen, på grund av sitt stora skogsområde, vilket i linje med den tidigare forskning som finns tyder på större möjligheter för barnen att utveckla sin koncentration och fysiska aktivitet. En annan gård framstod som den mest genomtänkta trots brist på zoner och skogsparti. Resultatet visade slutligen att varken alla zoner eller hela gradienten behövs för att barnen ska få möjlighet till mångdimensionella lekar på sina gårdar, men att exempelvis skogsområdet gynnar lekarna och samspelet.