This article discusses the significance of researcher-teacher relationships in naturalistic classroom studies, presents observations related to those relationships, describes a continuum of such relationships, and considers implications designed to assist researchers in planning and implementing their studies. (Author/MT)

This naturalistic study provides a description and analysis of the processes through which 26 kindergarten students and a particular male student, called Lester, defined rules of social acceptability which stigmatized Lester as an "outsider." Findings are primarily based on 112 hours of recorded peer interaction and interviews conducted…

A systematic analysis was made of the communications of 5- and 6-year-old children in two kindergarten classrooms to discover whether children's face-to-face interactions with peers included "face work" components (rituals through which individuals manage impressions when it becomes difficult to maintain a social situation) and, if so,…

This paper reports findings from a naturalistic study of children's peer interactions in a kindergarten classroom. As the participant observation field-work of the study progressed, it became clear that much of children's interaction in their kindergarten classroom was covert in nature. That is, it took place in classroom contexts defined as…

This paper reports on a year-long study of two preschool children's patterns of social adjustment and peer response. The theoretical orientation of the paper is interactionist. Patterns of adjustment and group response are described as social constructions which stigmatized the two children studied. The 24 children in the group came from…

This paper represents an initial exploration of researcher-informant relationships which develop when naturalistic researchers spend long periods of time watching and recording the details of classroom activity for which a teacher has basic responsibility. The goals of this paper are to present a discussion of the significance of…

Addresses issues related to the conducting of qualitative studies in early childhood settings. Four problems that can threaten the quality of interviews with young children are noted; these are the adult-child; right-answer; preoperational thought; and self-as-social-object problems. Presents strategies for improving interviews with young…

Using a personal anecdotal style, this paper describes ethical conflicts that occurred during a study conducted in a kindergarten classroom in which the researcher was a passive observer. The paper is framed around an incident observed by the researcher in which a kindergarten student was stigmatized as an outsider and mistreated by his peer…

A detailed description and sociological analysis were made of peer interaction in a public school kindergarten located in a large urban school district. Data collected over a 5-month observation period included field note transcriptions of hundreds of interaction events, records of formal and informal interviews with classroom participants, and…

Two combined second and third grade classrooms were observed throughout the five weeks of a summer school program to determine what "reading instruction" was in the contextual reality of classroom life. Observers viewed approximately 20 hours of reading instruction per week. In addition, they interviewed the classroom teachers informally as the…