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There is limited research on the utility of specific assessment measures for cross-cultural psychological and research measurement within the South-African context. In addition limited knowledge exists on cross-cultural measurement of resilience in young children. This study analyses purposefully selected (existing) data from the Kgolo Mmogo project (which investigated psychological resilience in South African mothers and children affected by HIV/AIDS) with the aim of exploring the utility of a Düss fable as projective story-telling technique to measure resilience in young children. The primary research question that guided this study was: ‘What is the utility of a Düss fable as cross-cultural measure of resilience in young children?’ Using the ecological and social cross-cultural model as theoretical framework, the concurrent mixed method study compares inductively derived themes from the Düss fables (qualitative: content analysis) with quantitative scores obtained from secondary analysis of Child Behavior Checklist scores. Subsequent to the data analysis themes of resilience and non-resilience emerged from the Düss fables as well as from the CBCL. The themes of both resilience (protective resources) and non-resilience (risk factors) emerged and where significantly situated within the children’s environments. The core themes of resilience as expressed by the child-participants related to their coping strategies, their sense of belonging, the availability of material resources and their ability to navigate towards positive institutions. The most prominent themes of non-resilience that emerged from the participants’ Düss fables related to their coping strategies (maladaptive coping), their awareness of chronic risk, adversity and death. The CBCL was included in the study to provide insight into the perspective of the participants’ mothers with regards to their children’s functioning. Predominantly the mothers mostly perceived their children as well adjusted. The risk-related behaviours mostly reported by the mothers were externalising problems that manifested as rule-breaking and aggressive behaviour. The Düss fables provided meaningful insights into the life experiences of the children. There were instances where the participants’ responses were rich and detailed. The majority of the participants’ stories were age-appropriate and informative, while in some instances the participants gave limited responses. Nonetheless, the Düss fable provided valuable insights into the child-participants’ thoughts, emotions and life-experiences. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

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Title: Orienteering at 1st level of primary school Author: Bc. Barbora Příhodová Department: Department of Physical Education Supervisor: PaedDr. Ivan Přibyl Objectives: The aim of this work is to design an educational model of orienteering for young children of pre-scholar age in lenght of 20 hours and to find out how many percent of children of pre-scholar age are able to make the final orienteering race successfully after they pass the training in spare-time activities of orienteering. Another aim of this work is to find out if girls will be more successful than boys or how many children will have a problem with more difficult checkpoint in the race. And finaly, to find out the interest of children of pre-scholar age about this kind of sport. Methods: An educational model of orienteering was made out by learnt literature and own experiences. An affectivity of this model was evaluated by the results of final race. The next aims were answered by the questuonaire, watching children and talking with them. Results: The results of final race of orienteering showed that all pupils of fourth nad fifth class successfully finished this race in identified time limit. Girls were more successful than boys. Almost ¾ of children had troubles with more difficult checkpoint in the race. All children showed the...

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Les difficultés psychologiques sont parfois difficiles à évaluer au cours d'une consultation médicale par un non professionnel (psychologue, psychiatre). Ceci est d'autant plus vrai dans le cas particulier des jeunes enfants lors d'interventions humanitaires, ce qui conduit souvent à une réponse insuffisante aux besoins de soins psychiques. Le manque d'outils validés de manière transculturelle qui répondent aux exigences d'intervention, rapide et simple pour identifier les besoins combinés à un manque de professionnels impliquent des difficultés voire l'impossibilité de mettre en place les prises charges adéquates. Dans ce travail, nous avons réalisé la validation transculturelle d'un outil de dépistage des difficultés psychologiques en contexte humanitaire destiné aux enfants âgés de 3 à 6 ans, le PSYCa 3-6 (Psychological Screening tool for Young Children aged 3 to 6). Cet outil a été initialement créé et développé en 1999 lors d'une intervention humanitaire, son contenu a été affiné et modifié au fur et à mesure de son utilisation. La validation principale a eu lieu au Niger, et deux validations complémentaires ont été mises en place en Colombie et au Kenya. Au total, 888 enfants âgés de 3 à 6 ans ont été inclus entre Octobre 2009 et Février 2012. Une recherche qualitative a été mise en place en amont de la validation pour collecter des informations concernant la perception des difficultés psychologiques localement au Niger. La recherche quantitative s'est intéressée aux qualités psychométriques et cliniques de l'outil. Les trois versions haoussa, espagnole et swahili ont montré des qualités psychométriques et cliniques adéquates incluant une bonne validité concurrente, les scores obtenus à l'outil étant corrélés au gold standard. La recherche qualitative a permis d'affiner et de renforcer les résultats. A notre connaissance, il s'agit de la première validation d'un outil de dépistage pour des enfants d'âge préscolaire incluant un volet transculturel pour usage dans des contextes humanitaires variés. De tels outils validés pour des contextes différents sont indispensables pour promouvoir l'accès aux soins psychiques pour les enfants, souvent non prioritaires dans ces interventions. / Psychological difficulties are sometimes difficult to assess during a medical consultation by a non-specialist (psychologist, psychiatrist). This is especially the case when it comes to young children, in humanitarian intervention contexts, entailing an insufficient answer to the needs of mental health care. The lack of cross culturally validated tools that meet the requirement of such intervention, fast and simple to identify the needs combined with a lack of professional involve difficulties even impossibility of implementing appropriate care. In this study, we implemented a cross cultural validation of a screening tool for psychological difficulties in humanitarian context for children aged 3 to 6 years old, the PSYCa 3-6 (Psychological Screening tool for Young Children aged 3 to 6 years old). This tool was originally created and developed during a humanitarian intervention; its content has been refined and modified along its use. The main validation took place in Niger, and two additional validations have been implemented in Colombia and Kenya. In total, 888 children aged 3 to 6 years were recruited between October 2009 and February 2012. Qualitative research has been also implemented to collect information regarding the local perception of psychological difficulties, prior to the validation. Quantitative research has focused on the psychometric and clinical properties of the tool. The three versions, Hausa, Spanish and Swahili showed adequate psychometric and clinical qualities including a good concurrent validity, scores being correlated with the gold standard. Qualitative research was used to refine and to strengthen the results. To our knowledge, this is the first validation of a screening tool for preschool children including a cross cultural component for use in several humanitarian contexts. Such tools, cross culturally validated in several contexts, are a key component to promote access to mental health care for children, often not on the list of priorities during the interventions.

Bullying is a major concern for school-age children. This study compares the use of bibliotherapy and didactic instruction techniques for teaching anti-bullying strategies to young children. The study explores 36 first graders' perceptions of bullying and their perceptions of their roles and responsibilities in bullying situations. In comparison to the control group, students who were taught specific bully intervention skills, both through didactic instruction and bibliotherapy, reflected an increased understanding of bullying, used a larger bully vocabulary, and demonstrated more specific and varied actions in response to bullying from pre-test to post-test conditions. Participants in the group who received didactic instruction demonstrated more positive change in both describing the concept of bullying (77.2%) and providing adaptive responses to a hypothetical bullying situation (144%) than the bibliotherapy (33.3%, 44%) and control groups (13.4%, -15%), possibly due to the explicit instruction and repetition of concepts students received in the didactic group. These data suggest that children benefit from explicit instruction and rehearsal about how to combat bullying. Recommendations for practice are to schedule more time when planning to use bibliotherapy, to simplify concepts and use repetition, and to integrate social/emotional concepts into regular class activities.

Principals are considered the educational leaders of their schools and face pressure to improve the quality of education across all levels and disciplines. Principals were interviewed to understand their beliefs, knowledge, and dispositions on staffing teachers in the primary grades. A purposive sample of elementary school principals was drawn from one mid-size suburban district in Florida. Data were analyzed using Bolman and Deal's four-frame organizational theory framework, Cohen's cognitive frame, and Boote's theory of professional discretion. The data strongly suggest that principals do not understand the foundations of early childhood practice. In addition, they do not understand the differences between Early Childhood Education (ECE) and Elementary Education (EE). The principals tend to hire teachers with EE certification as opposed to ECE training. This is partially due to their lack of understanding of ECE and to the perceived advantage of being able to place teachers in a wide range of grade levels. Although all principals stated that primary teaching requires specialized knowledge, most principals consider flexibility to move teachers into the upper grades more important. Three main implications for practice are suggested based on recommendations for advocacy and public education for young children within PreK-3rd continuum initiatives. (1) Professional development in ECE should be implemented at the district level for principals to learn and understand the differences in preparation between ECE and EE teacher preparation and to demonstrate the importance of the early years of child development and education. (2) Curriculum enrichment in ECE needs to be added to higher education, graduate teacher leadership programs to demonstrate the importance of the early years of child development and education. (3) The policy for hiring should be centralized at the district level and require teachers with training in ECE for the primary grades. The limitations of the study and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

This study is a phenomenological investigation of children's emotional development and experience focusing on the secondary emotion of pride. The purposes of this study were: (1) to examine the phenomenon of the development of pride in six- and seven-year-old children's socioemotional interactions, (2) to understand how and when young children experience, live, and display emotion, and (3) to develop insight about a child's perspective of their experience of emotion by entering into their field of perception. Respondents included six children, the two parents of each child, and the children's teachers. Theory-based sampling was used. The data were collected through the use of interviews with children, their parents and their teachers. The respondents described their emotion experiences, their interactions with others, and elaborated on their stories. What emerged from the data was consistent with existing literature in that at around the age of six, the components which allow for the construct of pride: perception, cognitive abilities, verbal skills, and socioemotional capacities, are present but not necessarily connected. By seven years of age, the component pieces are generally beginning to coalesce into a describable phenomenon. Second, pride was communicated between children and others often deliberately and purposefully, as well as indirectly and unconsciously. Third, the extracted meaning revealed that the essence of the phenomenon of pride was a positive, desirable feeling, the experience of pride for children and adults was about having a relationship with another person and pride can be related to either one's own accomplishments, another person's accomplishments, or an individual's qualities. Additionally, when pride is overemphasized it can be experienced as a negative feeling, and pride appeared to be interconnected with one's sense of humility. Recommendations are provided for parents, educators, and therapists. Studies which may investigate more fully the various aspects of socioemotional development are offered.

Syftet med denna studie är att belysa högläsningens förekomst hemma hos förskolebarn i åldern 1–3 år, varav deras förskola är en del i ett bokprojekt. Bokprojektet är en satsning från Region Värmland, där bibliotek, Barnavårdscentralen och förskolor samverkar för att öka högläsningen i de yngre barnens hem. Forskning tyder på att tidiga läsinsatser i barns liv gynnar den språkliga utvecklingen (Taube, 1993). Men på svenska förskolor förekommer högläsningen i varierad grad menar (Dahlström m.fl., 2023). Således kan vårdnadshavares insatser med högläsningen i hemmen uppfattas inneha en väsentlig roll för de yngre barnens möjligheter till språkutveckling.  Denna studie har utformats genom en kvantitativ metod med kvalitativa inslag. Studien intar en deduktiv ansats då den har sin utgångspunkt i den sociokulturella teorin. Teorin och teoretiska begrepp används i analysarbetet av studiens resultat, vilket skapar en förståelse av det som har undersökts (Larsen, 2018). För att samla in data har kvantitativ metod med kvalitativa inslag använts i undersökningen. Data har samlats in via en elektronisk enkät och lämnades ut på 13 olika förskoleavdelningar i en mellanstor kommun i Värmland. Enkäten besvarades av vårdnadshavarna, för att undersöka deras upplevelser om högläsningen och dess förekomst i hemmen.  Då antalet respondenter som deltog i denna undersökning var 20, bör denna studies resultat inte ses som statistiskt representativ. Resultatet i denna studie kan endast bidra med en insikt i att högläsningen kan se väldigt olika ut, och sker i stor variation i hemmen. Resultatet visar även att det kan finnas ett eventuellt samband mellan förskolornas utdelning av information till vårdnadshavarna om högläsning, och att högläsningen förekommer till större grad i de hemmen. / The purpose of this study is to shed light on the occurrence of reading aloud at home with preschool children aged 1–3 years, of which their preschool is part of a book project. The book project is an initiative from Region Värmland, where libraries, the Child Welfare Center (Barnavårdscentralen) and preschools work together to increase reading aloud in the younger children's homes. Research indicates that early reading interventions in children's lives favor language development (Taube, 1993). But in Swedish preschools, reading aloud occurs to varying degrees (Dahlström et al., 2023). Thus, the custodians of the children’s efforts with reading aloud in the home can be perceived as having an essential role for the younger children's opportunities for language development. This study has been designed through a quantitative method with qualitative elements. The study takes a deductive approach as it has its starting point in the socio-cultural theory. The theory and theoretical concepts are used in the analysis work of the study's results, which creates an understanding of what has been investigated (Larsen, 2018). To collect data, a quantitative method with qualitative elements has been used in the survey. Data has been collected via an electronic survey and handed out at 13 different preschool departments in a medium-sized municipality in Värmland. The questionnaire was answered by the custodians of the children, to investigate their experiences of reading aloud and its occurrence in the homes. As the number of respondents who participated in this survey was 20, the results of this study should not be considered statistically representative. The results of this study can only contribute with an insight into the fact that reading aloud can look very different and takes place in great variation in the children’s homes. The results also show that there may be a possible connection between the preschools' distribution of information to the custodians of the children about reading aloud, and that reading aloud occurs to a greater extent in those homes.