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This study examined the relationship between teachers' assessment of children's overall school adjustment and children's self-esteem, behavioral styles, and the valuing styles of parents. Subjects were 75 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children from middle-class families in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area who were subjectively rated by teachers (n=8) as best adjusted (n=38) or least adjusted (n=37) in terms of overall psychosocial and academic functioning in the classroom. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was used to measure children's self-esteem, Dimensions of Temperament Survey to measure their temperament, and Matthews Youth Test for Health to measure their Type A behavior pattern. The Little Parental Valuing Styles Scale was the instrument used to measure parents' self-reported valuing styles. One-factor multivariate analysis of variance was used to evaluate mean score differences for either best and least adjusted children, or their parents for each instrument. The best adjusted children were found to have higher self-esteem, were more rhythmic, less reactive, more competitive and less impatient-aggressive than least adjusted children. Parents of best adjusted children were more accepting and less overprotective and rejecting than parents of least adjusted children. / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Text in afrikaans / The main object of this research was to present the profile of a child that bullies other children and to place one changeable element, namely self-esteem, within this profile. The description of children that reflect bully behaviour in accordance with the Gestalt approach is absent in most of the familiar Gestalt literature. The Gestalt approach is therefore utilized as a theoretical framework to describe the profile of children that bully others. The empirical research methodology is performed by combining a qualitative and a quantitative research approach. The approach to the research was based on the dominant-less-dominant model whereby the dominant approach, namely the qualitative approach, was utilized. The quantitative approach had a supportive role to the qualitative approach in this research by utilizing a standardized measurement instrument to round off the profile of the child identified as a bully. The profiles compiled of the children that bully others can be utilized as a guideline for Gestalt therapeutic interventions. / Social work / M. Diac.

Many recent studies have confirmed that mindfulness meditation has wide ranging potential to improve the mental health and well-being of adults, though few studies have explored its potential to help younger populations. In the current study, a sample of 4th and 2nd grade students was trained in the techniques of mindfulness meditation. Baseline electroencephalograms (EEGs) were taken before the training, and again after a 10 week period of daily meditation practice. Measures of attention, creativity, affect, depression, behavioral inhibition/activation, emotion regulation, impulsive/aggressive behaviors, and social anxiety were also administered before and after the meditation practice period. Results indicate that mindfulness meditation produces increased relative left-frontal alpha activation, a brain pattern that has been associated with increased positive affect and more adaptive coping responses to aversive events. Significant post-meditation improvements in depression and creativity were also found in the experimental condition. / by Sara Elizabeth Klco. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Current theoretical accounts of gender role development argue that children are active participants in their own and their peers' gender role development (Liben & Bigler, 2002; Ruble, Martin, & Szkrybalo, 2002). Specifically, children have been reported to bully peers whose behaviors do not conform to gender norms (Ruble & Martin, 2002). Gender-related bullying is especially problematic among adolescent boys who use gay-baiting (calling a boy gay when he does something atypical of his gender) to publicly harm male peers whose behaviors are incongruent with society's definition of masculinity (Pollack, 1998; Kimmel, 2003a; Kimmel, 2003b). Relationships among endorsing traditional masculine gender roles for the self-and others, contingent self-esteem, gender-based bullying, and academic performance have been hinted at in the literature, although there has not been a study connecting these themes. The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, is to determine the relations among (a) endorsing traditional masculine gender roles via sex-typing of the self and others, (b) contingent self-esteem, (c) gender-related bullying, and (d) academic success. In addition, I propose and test the notion that contingent self-esteem mediates the relationship between sex-typing of the self and others and gender-related bullying (perpetrators and victims). Participants included 103 7th grade boys (31 European Americans, 72 Latinos) who reported on (a) their personal sex-typed attitudes (OAT-PM) and sex-typed attitudes towards others (OAT-AM), (b) levels of contingent self-esteem, and (c) gender-related bullying (perpetrators and victims) in the spring of 2008. Students' final GPAs were also obtained. Results indicated that Latino boys were more likely than European American boys to be perpetrators of gender-related bullying. European American boys, in contrast, were more likely than Latino boys to become victims of gender-related bullying. In addition, boys were more likely to engage in gender-related bullying if they were highly sex-typed and if their self-esteem was contingent upon proving their masculinity. Such findings suggest the need for researchers to develop intervention programs designed to teach students to have more flexible conceptions of gender in order to minimize the amount of gender-related bullying in the schools. / text

The study investigates how participation in sport can enhance a learner’s self-esteem. There are other significant factors such as the academic performance, peer acceptance, support from school and parental support, which may contribute to increasing the self-esteem of a learner. However, sport has been chosen as the point of focus in this study. The theories underpinning the study are Self-determination Theory (SDT), Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) and Achievement Goal Theory. SDT distinguishes between intrinsic motivation which refers to engaging in something for the pleasure and satisfaction and extrinsic motivation refers to engaging in an activity for some kind of reward external to the activity itself. CET suggests that people must experience both satisfaction for both competence and autonomy in order to maintain intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic rewards like material rewards undermine intrinsic motivation. Achievement Goal Theory proposes two goal orientations, that is, task orientations and ego orientations. Task oriented individuals seek personal improvement and task mastery whereas ego oriented individuals seek to outperform others. Therefore task orientation is self-referenced whereas ego orientation is externally referenced. This was a qualitative single case study research design informed by an interpretive paradigm. It is about people’s subjective experiences and how they understand and interpret the world around them. The idea was that the researcher wanted to discover the unique experiences of participants regarding sport participation and to find out what inspire them. Focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews as well as observations were used as data collection procedures. The school that was selected for this study is a school situated in the urban area in Pinetown. Six learners involved in sports were chosen to participate in a focus group session which aimed to gather information on their experiences about sports. Leaners who participated were selected from Grade 10, 11 and 12. The sports coordinator who is also a physical education teacher was requested to take part in the semi-structured interview. The intention of the session was to collect data on her views about leaners’ experiences and whether the support related to sports given by the school to the learners has benefits that could enhance learners’ self-esteem. Although the school offers a variety of sports and encourages everyone to participate, there are still learners who are not involved in sports for various reasons. This non-participation needs to be addressed as it is important for adolescents to have high self-esteem in order to lead normal lives. Therefore the government and the school need to work together to ensure that all learners take part in sport. Parents also have a role to play in ensuring that their children participate in sport. Data analysis based on the responses of the participants revealed that learners engaged in sport and have a higher self-esteem than those who do not participate. Moreover, learners participating in sports have positive relationships with their teachers, parents and peers. The results of the study indicated that there is, indeed, a positive relationship between sport participation and self-esteem. This study was therefore seen as beneficial in motivating leaners and parents to motivate their children to partake in sports at school level. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Self-report recall questions are commonly used to measure physical activity, energy expenditure (EE) and time use in children and adolescents. However, self-report questionnaires show low to moderate validity, mainly due to inaccuracies in recalling activity in terms of duration and intensity. Aside from recall errors, inaccuracies in estimating energy expenditure from self-report questionnaires are compounded by a lack of data on the energy cost of everyday activities in children and adolescents. This thesis describes the development of the Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adolescents (MARCA), a use-of-time instrument designed to address both the limitations of self-report recall questionnaires in children, and the lack of energy cost data in children. / The thesis begins by investigating the energy cost of everyday activities in children and adolescents. An extensive literature search was undertaken to identify as many studies as possible where the energy cost of child and adolescent everyday activities were measured. Data were available from 52 studies totalling 5982 measures made on 43 activities. The data collated in the literature search was used to identify significant gaps in the literature and evaluate existing techniques of assigning energy cost values to child and adolescent activities when measured values are not available. The results suggest that using adult METs is the most accurate technique to assign energy cost values when child-specific measures are not available. / After identifying areas of missing energy cost data, the energy cost of three types of child and adolescent activities were measured: playing video centre games; performing household chores; and “new locomotions”, i.e. riding non-motorised scooters and rollerblading. A total of 131 measures were undertaken on 11-13 year old children using indirect calorimetry. Energy costs ranged from 1.3 to 6.4 METs for video centre games; 1.9 to 3.6 METs for household chores; and 6.5 to 6.6 for the new locomotions. / Next, the development, validity and reliability of the MARCA are discussed. The MARCA is described in terms of its three components: the 1-d recall; the compendium of child-specific energy costs and the analytical module. In particular, the advantages of the multimedia features of the MARCA over traditional pen and paper questionnaires are highlighted. The MARCA was then validated by comparing accelerometer counts with MARC recall data collected on a sample of sixty six 10-13 year olds. The MARCA showed validity comparable to other self-report instruments with Spearman coeffiecients ranging from 0.88 to 0.94. Finally, the thesis demonstrates the unique analytical capabilities of the MARCA via a variety of analyses conducted on the MARCA self-report recall profiles of 1429 children and adolescents aged 9 to 15 years. / Thesis (PhDHumanMovement)--University of South Australia, 2005.

The research reported in this thesis investigated the reputational orientations and aggressive behaviour of primary school aged bullies. It also sought to determine whether the reputational orientations of bullies who were loners differed to those who had established friendship networks. To achieve the research aims four separate yet inter-related studies were conducted. Study One explored the construct of reputation and its relevance to the bullying behaviours of 23 male and 23 female Grade 5 (10 year old) children from eight separate primary schools. All of these children had been suspended from school because of their bullying. Semi structured interviews revealed that reputation was an important construct to bullies, primarily because of the feelings of strength, power, and social status attributed to them by others as a result of their bullying. They also reported that the type of image and status they attained from bullying others was what they were actively seeking. To achieve their desired image different types of overt and covert bullying acts were perpetrated. The bullies also revealed that they carefully selected the physical locations where they bullied others so as to maximize the visibility of their actions to others. The school oval, playground and toilets were the most popular locations, but the use of new media such as mobile phones and the internet allowed them to bully others without the presence of an audience. The bullies also reported that their victims communicated what had happened to them to others, which disseminated their actions to a wider audience. It was clearly evident from Study One that the construct of reputation was important to bullies and was worthy of further investigation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on Sept. 9, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.