Reports research attempting to move beyond the discussion of the cultural gap hypothesis based on secondary data analysis and subject it to a scrutiny based on direct observation of classroom interaction within an urban black school. (Author/JM)

Twenty dyads--ten middle-class mothers and ten lower-class mothers and their two-year-old children--were videotaped in a play situation. Variables in speech and utterance production were examined for change across condition (awareness or ignorance of being observed) and across socioeconomic class within condition. The number of utterances was…

Investigated interactions among 18 African American mother-infant pairs participating in an early intervention program for infants with developmental delays or at risk for developmental disabilities. The hypothesis that mothers would become less responsive to infants over time as a function of drug addiction, poverty, or serious developmental…

This study details three methods developed during the course of an investigation for describing adult-child interaction: (1) the "VINEX" category system for coding the actual language of the adult and the child; (2) a coding system for describing nonverbal behavior; and, (3) "Interaction Language," for the use of an observer in…

The purpose of this study was to determine how status was indicated by the use of directives in homogeneous groups of adolescent females and whether differences in status designation existed which could be attributed to either class or ethnicity. Three groups of ten to twelve-year-olds (middle-class white, working-class white, and working-class…

This research investigated the development of interracial interaction patterns among peers in a new open enrollment desegregated middle school. The student interaction analysis conducted for the study attempted to answer the following questions: Is race a significant determinant of the amount of student interaction? Does grade level or sex…

This monograph presents a detailed description of the background, design, methods, and subjects of a study of sex-role socialization in the nursery school. The objectives of the study were to (1) define sex-role differentiation, (2) examine the relation between age and sex-role differentiation,, (3) describe and explain the influences of the…

This project was designed to study the process of parents teaching preschool age children using a direct observational method. Six mothers and their own three-year-old sons from seven ethnic groups participated: middle-class Anglo, lower-class Anglo, English-speaking Mexican-American, bilingual Mexican-American; Spanish-Speaking Mexican-American,…