Social Interactions in Preschool Classrooms and the Development of Young Children's Conceptions of the Personal

Abstract

Two studies examined preschool teacher and child interactions regarding personal, moral, and social‐conventional issues in the classroom and the development of personal concepts in young children. In Study 1, 20 preschool classrooms, 10 with 3‐year‐olds and 10 with 4‐year‐olds, were observed to assess children's and teachers' interactions regarding personal, moral, social‐conventional, and mixed events. Teachers used more direct messages regarding moral and social‐conventional events than personal and mixed events. Teachers offered children choices, but they rarely negotiated personal events with children. Children responded with personal choice assertions when adults offered them choices, but adults did not differ in the frequency that they negated or affirmed children's assertions of personal choice. In Study 2, 120 preschool children, nearly evenly divided between males and females at 3, 4, and 5 years of age, were interviewed regarding their conceptions of personal events in the classroom and home. With age, children judged that they should retain control over personal decisions in both contexts. In both judgments and social interactions, teachers and children identified a personal domain in which children can and should make choices about how to structure their activities and assert their independence in the classroom.