Publishing Web for Students' Final Papers
Publishing Web for Students' Final Papers |
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From: Blanca Navarro
Email: delia@cats.ucsc.edu
Course: Psych100G:Issues of Diversity in Developmental
Psychology
College: University of California, Santa Cruz
Instructor: Eugene Matusov
ClassWeb: http://www.ematusov.com/psych100G
ChildrenObservations: Yes
Date: 13 Dec 1996
Time: 15:07:18
Remote Name: mingong-mac-06.ucsc.edu
Increased time spent among peers poses challenges to children's sense of themselves. Peer relationships as described in this paper are important because if children are not involved in these relationships they may not learn social skills which are important throughout their lives. Two proposed solutions to help children overcome peer relationship problems are the involvement of children in cooperative classroom projects and non-threatening social experiences to children. Since diversity occurs in different cultures this phenomena may not be universal across cultures. I wish to acknowledge the contributions of my peers, Alison, Nancy, Kathy, Pamela and Melany for ideas proposed in writing this paper. I also want to thank the teachers in the Elementary School (which will remain nameless for confidential purposes) for giving me the opportunity to attend their classrooms in order for me to do my observations.
In this paper I will mention reasons why peer relationships are important, factors that contribute to peer relationship problems and the way children can be helped to overcome these problems.
Middle childhood, is a time when children begin to spend significant amounts of time in the company of children roughly their own age and are spending less time with direct control from adults. For many adolescents, the move towards a peer social orientation does not necessarily involve a rejection of parent's opinions an values (Sabetelli and Anderson, 1991). They learn to create a special place for themselves within the social group when they start appreciating social rules and are increasing their ability to consider other people's points of view even though at times there is no guarantee that children will be accepted by their peers. In seeking friends, all children must come to terms with the possibility that they may not be liked, learn to compete for social status, and deal with the conflicts that inevitably arise (Cole, Cole, 1993).
This fall quarter I had the opportunity to work in an elementary school as my field study placement. I worked in a fourth and fifth grade classroom doing individual tutoring and also small group instruction in reading and math. While attending to these two classrooms and observing the same children in the playground, I was able to notice how their friendships had inevitable ups and downs. However, the feelings of satisfaction and security that most children accomplished from interacting with peers outweighed the problems. For several children peer relationships were often problematic. As some children were admired and followed by their peers others were actively rejected by peers while others were ignored, or neglected.
Children often find themselves unable to form a close relationship with peers, for example in my placement some children would not interact with peers during free time (socializing time) even though they knew their peers from previous years, they would isolate themselves. When this occurs too often it should be a concern to parents, teachers or any adult responsible for the child. According to (Burton, C. 1993) two reasons why it is important for children to be involved in peer relationships are: because if they are not involved, these children miss out on opportunities to learn social skills that will be important throughout their lives. In addition children who lack ongoing peer involvement may also miss opportunities to build a sense of social self-confidence. Social self-confidence according to (Burton, C. 1993) is when a child develops little faith in their own abilities to achieve interpersonal goals and are easily overwhelmed by the normal conflicts of social interaction. Especially critical are the skills needed to initiate and maintain social relationships and to resolve social conflicts, including communication, compromise, and tact (Asher and others 1982). In a study about peer interaction and problem solving (Azmitia, 1988), 80 5-yr-olds participated in 4 sessions in which children’s solitary and collaborative performances on a construction task that involved reproducing a Lego model were compared to address three questions about the contribution of peer interaction to problem solving in preschool children. Collaboration in peer interactions was more conductive to learning than independent work was, because children were able to generalize their skills. Yet in this study learning was mediated by several factors which included: children's expertise and that of their partners, acquisition of task strategies, the quality of verbal discussion, and expert's tendency to provide guidance.
There are factors contributing to peer relationship problems. In the fourth grade class my role was that of a teacher’s assistant working with Migrant Children ages varying from 9-13. I tutored students individually or in groups in academic subjects such as English, reading and math when children had trouble understanding these subjects. My attendance to this elementary school was regularly (3 days per week for 6 hours each day). The majority of the class was composed of Mexican-American children and all spoke Spanish and English at different levels. In the classroom I noticed that one child in particular was not liked by most of his classmates, as I observed his behavior, he was aggressive and disruptive, if someone bumped into him accidentally he would want to pick a fight. He usually got other's attention by screaming and putting his classmates on the spot which for the children in this class was embarrassing. The reactions to this student from his classmates were to ignore his comments and not to pay attention to him at all. This reaction occurred from most of his classmates. Lack of attention pushes children to withdraw from peer interactions and, in this way , limit their ability to gain acceptance and friendship (Coie and Kupersmidt, 1983; Dodge 1983). There are possible causes why ineffective social behavioral patterns occur. This could be because the child does not know effective interaction strategies or it could also be caused by children's emotional states. For example, it was noticeable in the classroom that children who couldn't engage with classroom work assignments often disrupted and irritated their peers. The classroom physical setting was a factor which contributed to the easiness for the distraction of students peers. Classroom arrangement consisted of desks in groups of four (pairs facing each other) which encouraged discussion among children. A negative view to this arrangement is that students spoke at times when they had other tasks to complete.
Ways children can overcome peer relationship problems: Young children many times get frustrated at the inability to solve problems with their peers on their own. They may require help form adults to overcome serious peer relationship problems. I believe that every child involved in a problem has specific needs to solving problems therefore, specific strategies should be matched by teachers or parents to best fit their needs in order to be successful in solving these problems. Several Suggested strategies to help children overcome peer relationship problems are, non-threatening social experiences and the involvement of children in cooperative classroom projects (Burton, C. 1993).
First, large groups can be threatening to children who often have conflict with peers. These children may therefore benefit from opportunities to interact with peers in small groups, they can be encouraged to develop outside interests, like sports or music, that will provide a natural basis for interacting with other children. This approach can boost children's self-confidence and may help them start friendships in the process. Secondly, cooperative group projects can foster peer acceptance of children who are trying to improve their social reputation, including children who are seen as different by their classmates. Under this scheme, teachers would assign interesting tasks to small work groups. The group members must work cooperatively to achieve the tasks. In so doing, they must interact with peers they would typically avoid and often discover new bases for liking them (Bierman and Furman 1984).
Increased time spent among peers poses challenges to children's sense of themselves. Even though peer relationships have conflicts, these are important contributors to the quality of both children's current lives and their future development in an American society. In wondering if this phenomena is universal I came to the conclusion, that peer relationships do occur in different cultures and that peers do have problems in coping with other people within their culture while development occurs. The environmental context might be different but difficulties in adjusting to life may occur.
The suggestions proposed in this paper would not work with other cultures because not everyone has the same ideals and not everyone concentrates in the ideal of fitting in to social groups. In thinking about education, Tharp accounted the default hypothesis, in that the unreflective proceed as though there are no significant differences between cultures, and that effective pedagogy will follow the same course from members of all communities. Tharp also mentioned the compatibility hypothesis of teaching and learning, where teacher and individual practices are not effective for students of must cultures. For many it produces a low level of child attention to teaching and classwork, which is disturbing to teachers, who attribute the problem to low academic motivation, rather that to an alien social organization. (Tharp, 1996).
References
Asher, S. R., P. D. Renshaw, and S. Hymel "Peer Relations and the Development of Social Skills." In the Young Child: Reviews of Research. Volume 3, edited by S G. Moore and C. R. Cooper. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1982.
Bierman, K.L., and W. Furman (1984). "The Effects of Social Skills Training and Peer involvement on the Social Adjustment of Preadolescent. Child Development, 55:151-162.
Burton, C. B. (1993). "Problems in Children's Peer Relations: A Broadening Perspective." Current Topics in Early Childhood Education. Norwood, NJ.
Azmitia, M. (1988). Peer interaction and problem solving: When are two heads better than one? Child Development, Feb., 59: 87-96.
Coie, J. B. & Kupersmidt (1983). "A Behavioral Analysis of Emerging Social Status in Boy's Groups." Child Development, 54: 1400-1416.
Cole, M. & Cole S.R. (1993). The Development of Children 2nd edition. Scientific American books. New York, NY :93.
Dodge, K. (1983). Behavioral Antecedents of Peer Social Status. Child Development, 54:1386-1399.
Sabetelli, R.M. and Anderson, S.A. (1991). "Family System Dynamics, Peer Relationships, and Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment", Family Relations 362-369.
Tharp, R.(1996). Are There Forms of Education That are Specifically Suited for the Education of Different Cultures?. (http://inet.ed.gov./pubs/EdreformStudy/SysReforms/tharp3.html).
