PSY 620P
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Parent-child
relationships
Peer
relationships
School and
community
influences
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At most schools, if a child is
flailing academically, it is
treated as a private matter. But
at Success Academy Harlem 4,
one boy’s struggles were there
for all to see: On two colored
charts in the hallway, where the
students’ performance on
weekly spelling and math
quizzes was tracked, his name
was at the bottom, in a red KATE TAYLOR. APRIL 6, 2015, NYT
zone denoting that he was
below grade level.
Though it serves primarily poor, mostly black and
Hispanic students, Success is a testing dynamo,
outscoring schools in many wealthy suburbs.
 In New York City last year, 29% of public school
students passed the state reading tests, and 35%
passed the math tests.
 At Success schools, the
corresponding percentages
were 64 and 94 percent.
 Charter schools are publicly
funded but privately operated.
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School
•Curriculum Policies
•Demographics
•Organization
External Relations
•School, home,
community linkages
Classroom Practices
•Curriculum Content
•Instructional Design
Child
•Classroom Engagement
•Motivation
•Self-Esteem
•Achievement
•Goals
Teacher Characteristics
•Beliefs
•Instruction Techniques
•Relationships with
students
direct and indirect effects
on child…
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Curriculum Content
 Work must be relevant to optimally engage students
▪ Historical reality of all students
▪ Developmental interests
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Design of Instruction
 Materials and activities allowing for scaffolded learning
▪
▪
▪
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Appropriately challenging
Integration of many cognitive operations
Multiple modes of representing a problem
Successive but integrated lessons
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Instructional Formats
 Whole Group Instruction
 Small Group Instruction
▪ Ability-based groups
vs.
▪ Collaborative/cooperative groups
 Individualized Instruction
Teachers’ sense of efficacy declines between elementary and middle school
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Role of teacher
 Weeder vs. cultivator
 Beliefs about intelligence and goal orientation
Self-efficacy
 Expectations for students’ performance
Differential treatment of students within same
classroom based on
 ability level (high rec’d preferential treatment)
 Gender, race, ethnic groups, social class
Nature of Ability
 Entity vs. incremental views of intelligence
▪ How do these relate to goals?
Teachers’ sense of efficacy declines between elementary and middle school
Math
Science
Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS)
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Instructional Practices
 Classroom climate optimal when teacher is high in
▪ Supportiveness
▪ Control
 Balance of Control and Autonomy Granting
▪ Promotes intrinsic motivation styles vs. learned helplessness
▪ Why?
 Middle and high school teachers use of more control-
oriented strategies
▪ Counter to the developmental quest for autonomy
▪ why?
 Goodness-of-fit between student and instructional
environment
▪ E.g., boys  reading; girls  science/math
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Trusting, caring, respectful teachers
associated with optimal learning
 Why?
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 Feelings of security
 allow children to approach, take initiative,
engage, persist and take risk to develop positive
achievement related self-perceptions
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Parallels to attachment security
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Within-class versus between-class groupings
 Direct and indirect effects on child
 Mixed effects depending on outcome measure
and grouping characteristic
▪ Negative academic outcomes for low-ability groups
▪ Why?
▪ Negative ability self-concepts for high-ability groups
▪ Why?
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School size
School resources
 Associated with race and class
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Academic and social climate
 Educational policies and practices
▪ School ability orientation vs. school task orientation
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Daily Schedule– Start / End Times
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Protective effects of school-home linkage
 Why?
 Reasons teachers and/or parents wouldn’t solicit
connection?
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School-Community linkage
 Ways to do this?
▪ Service learning
 Beneficial?
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Negative effects upon entry into middle school:
 Declines in academic motivation,
▪ interest in school,
▪ achievement across early adolescent years (11-14);
 Increases in test anxiety;
▪ focus on self-evaluation rather than task mastery
 Increased school truancy and dropout
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Middle school misfit developmental stage
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levels of teacher control and reduced student autonomy
affective relationships between students and teachers
teacher efficacy
organization of instruction
▪ whole class instruction & between class ability groupings
 grading practices (stricter grades)
 motivational goals (emphasis on performance rather than mastery goals
T indicates
children who
have just
transition from
junior high
school
Alfieri et al.,
1996
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Mechanism?
 Stage-environment fit theory
 In what way do practices misfit with
developmental stage in
▪ Middle school?
▪ High school?
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How to optimize stage-environment fit
theory in middle school?
 In high school?
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Direct and indirect effects of neighborhoods
 Mediating variables?
▪ family, school, peer networks
 Mechanisms (Jencks & Mayer, 1990)
▪ Contagion
▪ Collective Socialization
▪ Resource Exposure
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Developmental changes in effects
 more exposure and effect of direct influences
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School
 Cross-age peer tutoring
 Early maturing girls at high risk for school dropout
▪ Even after controlling for previous motivation and
academic performance
▪ Why?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl3_4D6
c8Io
kid_mobility_class_selected_2016.pptx
Schaefer
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
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Social networks important, but little is known about how they form.
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It’s rare that strangers come together to form new relationships,
especially when a researcher is observing.
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Preschool presents new social opportunities for children reaching the
developmental level that supports enduring peer relationships.
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Hypothesis: Well-known principles of network formation, namely
reciprocity, popularity, and triadic closure will vary in importance
throughout the network formation period as the structure itself
evolves.
 Structural Cascading: More complex structures evolve from simpler ones.
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
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Reciprocity: Responding to others’
gestures of friendship with like
gestures (Blau, 1964).
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Popularity: When individuals with
more incoming relations, or ‘ties,’
receive additional friendship
initiations at higher rates than
others through preferential attachment (Barabási and Albert, 1999)
or prefer one another at greater
rates (van den Oord et al., 2000).
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Triadic Closure: Tendency toward
closure, or ‘transitivity,’ whereby
an individual’s friends are also
friends with one another (Davis,
1970; Hallinan, 1974).
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Participants: 195 children
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11 Head Start preschool classrooms, 15-21 children each
Age: 3-5 years (M=4 years)
Race/Ethnicity: Predominantly Hispanic
SES: Low-income
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Timeframe: 1 school-year
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Design: Observational
 Schedule: 2–3 days per week, several hours each day
 Structure minimized order effects
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Analysis: SIENA modeling framework
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
1)
‘Reciprocity effects peak early, when children first enter the school and form
new relationships. As children form relationships, reciprocity effects remain
constant, other network processes became relatively more important.
2)
As relationships strengthen, children become more likely to seek and
maintain relationships with popular peers. Popularity peaks in importance
midway through the school year after which children increasingly likely to
form relationships with the most socially involved peers in the classroom.
3)
Unlike popularity, triadic closure increases in importance over the year,
peaking in the final period. Children increasingly exposed to children with
whom their friends are playing. This selective exposure provides children the
opportunity to infer relationships between other children. Both processes
increase the likelihood of children playing with the friends of their friends at
higher rates than other children. Moreover, children become increasingly
likely to form strong, closed triads composed of mutual friendships.”
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010
1)
Why are these findings important?
2)
Would you expect these patterns of social network
formation to hold in the population you work with?
3)
Do these results change how you would design an
intervention to build social support?
1)
Other applications of these results?
1)
Limitations?
Jutagir | Schaefer et al., 2010