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Publication
Specifying social structures in preschool classrooms: descriptive and functional distinctions between affiliative subgroups
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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Preschool children attending Head Start programs
(N=586, 296 boys and 290 girls, between 3 and
5 years of age, over 95% African–American) were observed
to determine physical proximity to peers as well as rates of
visual attention given and received. Sociometric data were
used to derive peer acceptance scores, peer friendships, and
sociometric status classifications. Three subgroup types
(high mutual proximity (HMP), lower mutual proximity
(LMP), and ungrouped children) were identified through
complete linkage hierarchical clustering and chi-square
procedures from the proximity data. HMP subgroups
tended to be larger, to have higher sociometric acceptance
scores, and children in these subgroups had more reciprocated
friendships than was true for the other subgroup
types. Significant within-group preferences and out-group
biases were observed for both HMP and LMP subgroups
using measures of visual attention and sociometric choice
data, but these were more marked for HMP subgroups.
Results are consistent with previous ethological studies of
affiliative structures in preschool classrooms and also show
that methods of data collection and analysis from social
ethology and child psychology research traditions are
mutually informing.
Description
Keywords
Peer relation Affiliative structure Stratification
Citation
Acta Ethologica, 11(2), 101-113
Publisher
Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada