Doctoral Dissertation Research: The influence of home and school experiences on preschool children's dispositions and behaviors

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation examines how 4-year-old children develop patterns of behavior. Almost half of U.S. children in this age group attend preschool, spending 4-8 hours a day away from their parents. To better understand how children, teachers, and peers influence early socialization, I will conduct 12 months of observations both in the classroom and in children?s homes. I ask: (1) How do children interpret the implicit and explicit socialization messages from adults and peers? (2) How do children respond to conflicting socialization messages? By addressing these questions, my work highlights the social and cultural implications of current policy proposals to extend access to preschool for low-income children. This research will build an account of the process of primary socialization. Primary socialization is a core process in the reproduction of culture and social inequalities. Yet despite acknowledging that children experience contact with multiple socializers, previous empirical work focuses in a single domain. Researchers either examine parents' messages to their children or examine peer culture as isolated from the adult world. In contrast, this project builds an empirical account of primary socialization as process happening across multiple domains and among multiple socializers.I examine the case of Head Start children at a childcare center in the Madison, Wisconsin area. My observations will be focused among the 17 children ages 3 and 4 in the Sunshine Room (a pseudonym). I have selected the Sunshine Room because of its demographic heterogeneity and because its extended childcare services allow most children spend more than 6 hours each weekday there. I will conduct ethnographic observations in order to trace the social interactions and the behaviors of individual children over time. I will conduct in-depth interviews to triangulate my observations with adults' narratives of their approach to socialization. Altogether this data collection and analysis will provide information to academics and policy-makers on the socialization mechanisms and messages communicated between parents and care providers for young children.