Early years provision, which combines childcare and preschool education, has been considered vital for child development by theorists and practitioners. Within early years provision pedagogy is assumed to be both an enabling and constraining factor which can shape a particular experience of childhood and, possibly, prepare children for a particular adulthood. This thesis explores pedagogical processes and practices vis-à-vis children’s experiences in three different pedagogical contexts: a corporation nursery, a private nursery and an ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) Anganwadi centre in Chennai in Tamil Nadu (India). It explores the findings of a one year ethnographic study that involved observation/informal conversation with children and semi-structured interviews with teachers, care worker(s) and parents. The ethnographic study used methodological approaches from childhood research, adopted ethical positions from childhood studies and valued children as competent individuals that should be treated with respect throughout the research processes. The analysis of the empirical data uses the intersections of three concepts in the works of Foucault (subject), Butler (identity), Bourdieu (cultural capital) to illuminate and analyse the pedagogical processes and practices. The thesis characterises the different pedagogical contexts encountered in the study as: ‘activity centred’, ‘task centred’, and ‘care centred’. It explains that this context emerged in an on-going active process of negotiation, deliberation, reflection through ‘subjection’ and ‘resistance’. It demonstrates that children construct their embodied self-identity through everyday pedagogical/curriculum performativity and the teacher-children identities work within as well as outside pedagogical contexts. The empirical analysis identifies shame and distinction as key factors for pedagogical/curriculum performativity and argues that the embodied identities of children are fluid and contextual and that they are formed through the interaction of learning materials, academic ability/mastery, and bodily differences in the pedagogical contexts. It is argued that children employ cultural capital when (re)establishing home-nursery connections in different pedagogical contexts and that parents similarly use their cultural capital with a sense of ‘practical logic’ for decision making on matters related to early years provision, e.g. when recognising the transformative potential of children. The thesis findings suggest that there is an element of fluidity in pedagogical contexts and that the local cultural practices of teachers/care worker are reflectively integrated with minority world ideas when normative pedagogies are constructed. The thesis contributes to the development of childhood theory, by demonstrating that childhood is a complex phenomenon. At the policy level, the thesis makes recommendations for practitioners and administrators on how they can value local cultural knowledge, acknowledge reflexive practices of teachers/care workers, and equity issues in early years provision.

This dissertation, a qualitative case study conducted from a constructivist perspective, focuses on the construction and implementation of strategies of emotional scaffolding by two early childhood educators in a public elementary school. This study finds that emotional scaffolding is an excellent example of a tool that could help teachers reach developmentally appropriate practices for early childhood education in an age of accountability. The primary data consist of participant observations, participant interviews and key documents. The study has two primary interests. The first aims at understanding how young children’s learning experiences are enhanced when early childhood educators integrate emotions into their decision-making and practices. The second aims at enhancing the emerging picture of what emotional scaffolding means in early childhood education contexts. My analysis highlights three major themes that contribute to these participants’ decision-making for emotional scaffolding. The first is the participants’ beliefs about their self-perceived teaching identities. The second is their deep understanding of children. The third involves their assessments and reactions to their school climates. The findings focus on four areas of divergence from the literature. First is the important role that teachers’ personal beliefs about the most pedagogically important emotion play in constructing and implementing strategies for emotional scaffolding. Second, emotional scaffolding is an important part of teachers’ mediated agency in a time of increasing accountability. Third, teachers’ capacity to balance student excitement and engagement through their emotional scaffolding is the key to establishing and maintaining children’s engagement in academic activities. Fourth is that emotional scaffolding carried out in the early childhood classroom involves emotion work, not emotional labor. The study provides several implications. The first is that our perception of the emotional scaffolding process in the early childhood education context can be expanded. The second is the importance of sufficient preservice training. The third is that a principal who respects a teacher’s decision-making and practices can help a teacher provide effective emotional scaffolding. The final and perhaps most important implication is that an awareness of self is the most important element contributing to better decision-making in creating a meaningful and engaging environment for their students. / text

Within the last few decades there has been a push to identify students who have or who are at-risk for learning disabilities as early as possible. Much of this recent focus is related to research showing the positive long-term benefits of early education for the general population and children in poverty, as well as to educational theory about early educational interventions. However, little to no research has been conducted on the long-term effects of age of first service provision for students with learning disabilities. Whether students with learning disabilities are doing better academically in high school or graduating high school at higher rates based on when they are identified or when they received services is yet to be known. This study analyzed data collected from families and schools for 2,000 youth with learning disabilities from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 (NLTS2), a study that investigated a nationally representative sample of approximately 12,000 students with disabilities. The present study used latent variable structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the effects of age of first service provision on high school educational achievement and high school graduation in order to better understand the long-term effects of the age of intervention for students with learning disabilities. Contrary to what was hypothesized, the age a student first received services for a learning disability did not statistically significantly affect his or her grades in high school or likelihood of graduating from high school. The age a student first received services for a learning disability was statistically significantly and positively related to standardized achievement tests in high school; however, the direction of causation was counter to what was hypothesized. Students who received services at a later age performed better on high school standardized achievement tests. An important limitation of these data is that measures of a student's cognitive abilities or the severity of a student's learning disability were not available for use in these analyses. Further limitations and possible implications of these findings are discussed. / text

<p>There is by now compelling evidence that most of the matter in the universe is in the form of dark matter, a form of matter quite different from the matter we experience in every day life. The gravitational effects of this dark matter have been observed in many different ways but its true nature is still unknown. In most models dark matter particles can annihilate with each other into standard model particles. The direct or indirect observation of such annihilation products could give important clues for the dark matter puzzle. For signals from dark matter annihilations to be detectable, typically high dark matter densities are required. Massive objects, such as stars, can increase the local dark matter density both via scattering off nucleons and by pulling in dark matter gravitationally as the star forms. Dark matter annihilations outside the star would give rise to gamma rays and this is discussed in the first paper. Furthermore dark matter annihilations inside the star would deposit energy inside the star which, if abundant enough, could alter the stellar evolution. Aspects of this are investigated in the second paper. Finally, local dark matter overdensities formed in the early universe could still be around today; prospects of detecting gamma rays from such clumps are discussed in the third paper.</p> / Introduktionsdelen till en sammanläggningsavhandling

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This study is a qualitative case study of one writer, my daughter Zoe, over a period of two years comparing her writing at home with the writing completed at school during kindergarten and first grade. This study involves descriptions, interpretations, and analyses of Zoe's writing, including the processes and products across the two settings. There are two frames through which the writer and her writing are described, analyzed, and interpreted in this study. The first frame focuses on the purposes for and functions of Zoe's writing activity at home and in school. This includes our present understanding of written language development in terms of purposes and functions, the conditions writers require in order to write, determinants of written language, and the various systems upon which writers rely to make meaning. The second frame through which Zoe's writing is described, interpreted, and analyzed in this study focuses on the nature of the two settings, the home and the school. The settings are analyzed in terms of the activities and experiences in which the writer engages within each setting. The goal of this study is to understand the nature of a young child's writing activity across the home/school settings by analyzing the writing she did in each of those settings. The impact of the social nature of the settings upon her writing activity are also considered. A theoretical framework for written language use and development is presented and discussed as a vehicle for understanding and developing writing programs and developing supportive relationships between the school and the home.

This multiple-case study describes the literacy events that occurred during play in three holistic preschool classrooms over a four-month period. The data includes field notes from observations and from discourse with participants, audiotape transcriptions, interviews, and writing samples. Analytic induction was used for the analysis. Within play, literacy was used as: a support for play themes, a frame for play themes, and as an extraneous aspect of play. Literacy events involved transactions with print, as well as social transactions. Social transactions within literacy events were analyzed for whether they involved: self-construction of meaning, joint construction of meaning, direct instruction, or challenge. The data show that in print-rich environments, where reading and writing materials are accessible, and where literacy is an expected way of life, teachers can meaningfully facilitate literacy development. The teachers capitalized on the many teachable moments that arose during play by carefully observing children and making relevant literacy-related contributions. The children explored and developed their own understandings about literacy, and at the same time, nurtured literacy development in their peers; literacy development was both personal and social. By themselves, and with support from peers and teachers, the children explored the functions and features of written language, they tested their hypotheses about written language, and they developed strategies used by successful readers and writers. Play was found to be a meaningful and effective medium for facilitating literacy development.

This dissertation is a study of case-based instruction in early childhood teacher preparation. I sought to determine if case-based instruction could be used effectively to develop theoretical knowledge, cognitive processes, and decision-making skills in preservice early childhood teachers, and if case-based instruction provided any measurable benefit over more efficient traditional didactic instructional practices. Results indicate case-based instruction can enhance preservice early childhood teachers' learning of theoretical knowledge when used in combination with standard textbook readings and conventional examinations. Findings also indicate case-based instruction may differentially impact students with different levels of prior knowledge. Some data suggest traditional didactic instructional can positively impact preservice teachers' cognitive processes and decision-making skills. Results also indicate case-based instruction may facilitate consolidation of misconceptions held by early childhood preservice teachers.

In this pilot study, generalizability theory was used as an exploratory analysis of the various sources of error in the scoring of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales. The different score conversions, raters, and growth of participants were the facets used in a fully crossed, random effects design. The results indicated that the score conversions effectively controlled for the variability in typically developing children in the same age range. The results showed that the raters accounted for small amounts of the estimated variance. In addition, the results indicated that the CSBS was sensitive to the different rates of development in the participants in the study. The results suggested that the CSBS successfully controls for the variability in the development of communicative behaviors without sacrificing sensitivity to different rates of growth and uses cluster scores to effectively differentiate strengths and weaknesses in individual children. The findings and their implications for futures studies are discussed.

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