UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.early childhood education

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    Teachers' Beliefs and Practices Toward Children with Disabilities in Ethiopia
    (2014) Abera, Nicole Taylor; Beckman, Paula J; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to examine the beliefs and practices of teachers toward students with disabilities at one early childhood school in Ethiopia. I conducted a case study that included ethnographic features in order to examine teachers' beliefs about children with disabilities, factors that influence their beliefs and ways in which teachers' beliefs are evidenced by their daily classroom practices. I used the bioecological systems theory as a framework to consider data for this study. I conducted a series of classroom observations and interviews with 12 teachers at Addis Early Childhood School (AECS) for this study. I also gathered extensive background and contextual data interviews with other Ethiopian education professionals in order to gather additional data on this topic and to triangulate data I gathered from primary sources. Findings of the study indicate that, although AECS teachers acknowledged that Ethiopian traditional beliefs linking disabilities to supernatural causes persist in Ethiopia, most AECS teachers rejected those beliefs and believed children with disabilities could learn with appropriate support. Teachers' prior training and experience related to teaching children with disabilities influenced their beliefs about children with disabilities. They held similar expectations for all of their students regardless of their abilities, and they often provided assistance and differentiation to students in order to help them meet participatory, behavioral and academic standards. Findings from this study provide valuable information for Ethiopian teachers, education policy makers, and international organizations as they continue to reform Ethiopia's education system and attempt to improve education for all children.
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    Learning How to Navigate U.S. Society with Young Children: Experiences of Immigrant Mothers Utilizing Early Childhood Care and Education
    (2011) Vesely, Colleen Kirkwood; Roy, Kevin M; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Nearly one in four children in the United States are children of immigrants (Fortuny, Hernandez, & Chaudry, 2010), and these children are the fastest growing segment of children in the country (U.S. Census, 2000 as cited in Matthews & Ewen, 2006b). Given this growth, grounded in Berry's (1997) acculturation framework and ecocultural theory (Weisner, 1997) , this study investigated the lived experiences of immigrant mothers with young children as these mothers adjusted to being parents in the U.S. An ethnographic approach was utilized to explore the experiences of 41 immigrant mothers living in Washington, DC and Virginia who were engaged with the ECCE system. Consequently, in-depth interviews as well as observations were conducted with immigrant mothers living in northern Virginia and Washington, DC, hailing from both Latin America (n= 22) and Africa (n=19). Data were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach in which three waves of coding were conducted: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The findings from this study indicate that mothers' immigration stories, including, their reasons for coming to a new host society, their journey and finally, adjustment to life in the new country, shaped their expectations of parenting in the U.S. Mothers' in this study negotiated parenting ideas and practices from the U.S. and their home countries to create a new social framework for parenting in the U.S. that was distinct from parenting in their COOs and the U.S. Finally, a process model emerged from the data reflecting these immigrant mothers' navigation of the ECCE system. It illustrated that mothers drew upon a variety of social, organizational, and geographic connections to find ECCE, sometimes faced obstacles to securing ECCE, and ultimately were able to develop important social capital as a result of utilizing ECCE. The findings from this study will provide practitioners, policy makers, and researchers with a greater understanding of how immigrant families with young children adjust to life in the U.S., experience parenting, and how they navigate the U.S. ECCE system. This knowledge will contribute to creating the most effective programs, policies, and studies to support immigrant families.
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    Korean child care classroom practices and children's stress behaviors
    (2007-04-25) kim, bodlemam; Klein, Elisa; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between classroom practices of child care and children's stress behaviors in Korea. The classification of the type of classroom is based on the Guidelines for Developmentally Appropriate Practices of the National Association for the Education of Young children (NAEYC, 1997), which defines classroom programs in terms of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) and developmentally inappropriate practices (DIP), based on the way in which the program accounts for normative development, individual development, and cultural context. Stress behavior was observed for 145 four-year-olds in 5 DAP and 5 DIP classrooms. To control the effect of overall quality of the classroom on stress behaviors, classrooms of high quality were selected, and then were classified into DAP and DIP classroom practices. Temperament and gender of the children and parenting stress of mother were examined to understand their relationship to children's stress behaviors. Child and family variables were also controlled to clarify the independent effect of classroom practices on children's stress behaviors. To examine the relationship between each variable and children's stress behaviors, MANOVA and linear regression analyses were used. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were also used to verify the independent effects of classroom practices on children's stress behaviors after controlling child and family variables. A significant relationship between classroom practices and children's stress behaviors was found, with more stress behaviors for children in DIP than children in DAP classrooms. Gender and temperament, and maternal parenting stress were also related to children's stress behaviors. Gender, parenting stress, and classroom practice were significant predictors of children's stress behaviors, and classroom practice added significantly to the prediction once other variables had been controlled. These results suggest that family variables, in addition to classroom practices, impact children's stress, implying that the effects of classroom practices should be examined in consideration of other variables outside school. Most studies on DAP and children's development have explored the effects of DAP in isolation. The results of this study demonstrate the independent effects of several variables on children's stress behaviors. Future studies should expand on these findings and focus on the effects both of classrooms and of other variables outside school in theoretical framework of ecological theory.