This dissertation reports findings from a study of the social interactions of second graders as they engaged in daily periods of classroom free play. The purposes of the study were: (a) to examine how students used oral language and literacy practices to construct social identities and status relationships; and (b) to analyze how these everyday literacy practices and peer relations on the local level of the classroom were linked to broader, macrolevel social relations. The study focused on a group of children—consisting primarily of working-class Latina and African American girls—who played regularly in a play office that was set up in the comer of a Spanish-immersion classroom within an urban elementary school. Data collection included thirty-one hours of audio and videotape. Analysis consisted of thematic analysis fieldnotes, taped data, and students’ written artifacts, and microanalysis of key peer-play events. The microethnographic analysis combined Fairclough’s (1989; 1992) approach to critical discourse analysis with Bloome and Egan-Robertson’s (1993) framework for analyzing intertextuality as a social construction. The findings show that children used literacy practices, and formed complex play identities and relationships, which drew upon multiple discourses, including domestic family life, the adult workplace, the peer group, and romantic love. The results of the study were ambiguous and contradictory: girls defined themselves as strong females in their interactions with boys and in their fantasy play as ‘bosses’ of their own ‘companies’. However, their conceptions of being ‘boss’ were closely bound to performing clerical tasks and child care. Girls both sustained and resisted traditional love ideologies in the contradictory ways that they appropriated popular-culture texts. The results of the study indicate that peer-play literacy practices and social interactions are not politically neutral, but rather are deeply connected with how children form identities, status relationships, and ideologies of gender and class. Social theories of discourse need to develop more dynamic terms for adequately describing the complex, ambiguous, and contradictory processes in which subjectivities and relationships are constructed in children’s everyday peer play.

Diana Baumrind's identification in the 1960s of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles, as well as her demonstration of correlations between optimal developmental outcomes and the authoritative style, continue to have profound influences on how child socialization is thought about and researched. But, times have changed. Cultural psychology's assumption of intentional individuals and intentional cultures co-constructing each other allows for the possibility that historically mediated sociocultural differences between the 1960s and 1990s may have influenced childrearing practices and outcomes. For this study, instruments used by Baumrind were adapted to investigate cultural ideals and families today. Middle-class, urban, Northeastern families in which parents (n = 10) of preschool children appeared to meet criteria for the authoritative style were studied in depth. Although the ratios of nurturance and demandingness appear to be comparable in the two time periods among authoritative parents, 1990s parents show substantially more conformist and authoritarian attitudes than did their predecessors. Whereas attitudes of 1960s authoritative parents support children in speaking their minds, 1990s authoritative parents support children in minding their speech. This change is interpreted as a function of historical changes in parents' creative intuitions that optimal developmental outcomes are now less related to the 1960s discourse of agency, and more related to the 1990s agency of discourse. As a consequence, what may appear to be a matter of authoritarianism on the parts of parents is interpreted here as greater vigilance regarding the significance of speech acts for succeeding in the 21st century.

The purpose of the study was to explore parents' socialization goals and to describe the patterns of caregiver-child social interaction for the sample of 6 Chinese American toddlers, whose parents immigrated to this country recently. The theoretical framework for the study was Vygotsky's sociocultural approach which assumes that children's thinking derives from human social relations and is embedded in the sociocultural context. The study used a qualitative method of data collection and analysis. Data collection included a demographic questionnaire, two focused interviews and videotaped observations of caregiver-child interactions in everyday activities and joint play. The analysis focused on how caregivers guided and facilitated children's learning and adaptation to life in a North American setting. Parental goals were identified and five themes immerged from the interview data: a focus on learning; an emphasis on developing a loving relationship with the child; an emphasis on bringing up a moral child; an emphasis on guided independence and on adopting the values of the host culture while maintaining the values of their own cultural heritage. Links between the patterns of parent-child interaction and the parental goals were explored. The parents' conscious, creative synthesis of cultural values and practice were discussed. Implication for teachers and clinicians were suggested.

The purpose of this study was to describe, for a selected group of kindergarten children, the commonalities and differences related to present or expected low academic achievement. The sample of 81 students included only those students who entered the regular education segment of the district's kindergarten in the years 1983-84 and 1984-85 and who were evaluated by a school psychologist at some point in their kindergarten year. The following variables were considered: age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, primary language, significant family history, significant health history, perinatal influence, social behavior, ability, achievement, perceptual motor skill, attention span, speech and/or language disorder, fine motor coordination, and gross motor coordination. These data were analyzed and described in terms of frequencies, percentages, correlations, means, standard deviations, analysis of variance, and multiple regression procedures. No single ethnic group or gender had a significantly high or low percentage of children described by any of the variables studied. Of all the variables included in the study, only ability and perceptual motor skill were significantly related to academic achievement in the kindergarten year. Kindergarten achievement was the only variable which predicted academic achievement in the following year. In years two and three post evaluation, academic achievement tended to be predicted by the previous year's achievement scores.

This graduate thesis will focus on a subject of preschool or early childhood education, as well as education systems in the Czech Republic and South Korea. The legislative documents will take a crucial part in this text, for they provide a general frame of information included in education acts and decrees considering early childhood education. The introduction will comprise the worldwide history of early childhood education. Then, we will divert our focus onto the history of education of the countries mentioned above. After division of Korea, only amendment od South Korean education system will be a subject of research. The following chapters will explore both of the modern and conterporary legislation related to education system and early education of children in both states. Also, current affairs of these two countries will be mentioned and talked about. The Czech Republic is dealing with numerous subject matters, such as 2-year-old children enrollment. South Korean, too, has its own subjects to debate, such as longterm competition between public and private kindergartens. Objectivity in this thesis will be the cornerstone in comparing both education systems and preschool education. Subjective remarks will be attached in a form of a commentary. The reader of this text should acquire elementary...

Preschool documentation has been a recent topic in Sweden amongst preschool teachers, preschool managers, education policymakers, and researchers. Interest in this topic is driven in part by the 2010 revision of the Swedish preschool curriculum that introduced requirements concerning the use of documentation in follow-up, evaluation, and development activities in preschool. Of particular interest is the relative open-ended quality of the language describing the requirements in the curriculum as to how these documentation practices should be enacted. What kinds of documentation preschool teachers adopt and implement in their pedagogical practices is therefore a key question. Research by Vallberg-Roth (2012) has shown that some preschool teachers in Sweden document in a number of locally unique ways, in order to strive for curriculum-specific goals on one hand, and ensure child learning and development on the other. Learning and development can be described in terms of teacher’s competency rubrics proposed by Sheridan et al. (2011). These rubrics are analytic tools in preschool teachers’ documentation processes. This systematic review examines different kinds of documentation practices as they are described in selected articles and finds documentation types to include; pedagogical, systematic, teacher binders, and use of portfolios, as well as other techniques used by preschool teachers to document. This review implies that documentation is multi-faceted partly due to the uncertainty surrounding how to carry out its processes as well as the need to meet the individual needs of every child. In line with already defined competency types by Sheridan et al. (2011), which include knowing what and why, knowing how, and interactional, relational and transactional competences, the thesis also tentatively relates documentation types within the reviewed articles to teachers’ competency, thereby laying a possible foundation for the improvement of preschool teaching in Sweden.

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This study sheds light on preschool teacher’s and principal’s view and practice of how systematic quality work affects the equality in preschools. In January 2020, the convention on the rights of a child became part of Swedish law, which strengthened children’s rights in the Swedish society and childcare. The preschool’s current curriculum states that all children have the right to equivalent preschool education. In order to advance towards fulfilling this objective, the application of SKA is utilized as a means to monitor quality and ensure development. Our purpose with this study is to examine preschool teachers and assistant principal’s perception of systematic quality work in relation to equivalent preschool education along with the work of equal treatment - which is practiced within preschools. We will also define how they experience their opportunities within this matter. We mean to further examine how the convention on the right of a child’s integration in Swedish law affects the work of preschool staff. The desired outcome of this research study is for it to contribute to a more profound development of practices in preschool education. This qualitative study was supported by arranging interviews, involving four preschool teachers along with two assistant principals. When we compiled our data, we were able to draw a connection between the participant’s interpretation of the concept of equality and quality within preschools.  In summary, we see a connection in children being deprived of their right to equality within the preschool and surrounding factors, which explains this finding. In our compiled data, there is seemingly a diversity in how concepts are perceived among the principles within the preschool organisation. Apparently, various structural frame factors also had a significant impact on the preschool’s equality. In our findings it appeared so that teachers' approach towards children’s different needs and prerequisites was vital to work supportively for children’s right to equality in preschools, which in turn also affects the quality of the preschool itself.

Preschool education is quite underestimated but it is an important and integral part of the educational system. The quality of education in kindergartens is reflected in the preparedness of children entering elementary school. A top class kindergarten, with a sound educational program is the result of the efforts of all its employees. The management of such a kindergarten plays a significant role in its success. This thesis deals with specific management of kindergartens and the approach of the headmaster to individual elements of management. The theoretical part consists of management terminology definitions and explanations and the placement kindergarten education in the scope of the Czech educational system and its development. The practical part of this thesis is dedicated to discovering the relationships between the educational programs in kindergartens with the style of their management. The goal of this work was to discover, what factors effect the style of kindergarten management, if there has been a change in the conditions of kindergarten management, and what is the relationship between the curriculum, climate and management of kindergartens. In order to fulfil the goals of this thesis I utilised both a quantitative and a qualitative approach to my research. The research took place within...

This investigation had the dual purpose of exploring, in historical perspectives, the academic discipline known as Early Childhood Education and the use of Early Childhood Education as a vehicle for compensatory education in the Portland Public Schools from 1965-1984.