The effect of a high-opportunity (HO) versus a low-opportunity (LO) play environment on the aggression of preschool children was investigated, hypothesizing that the LO play environment will elicit significantly more aggression than the HO play environment. The two environments were presented randomly to one group of 10 4-year-olds, five of each…

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)

The relationships between aspects of mother-infant interaction and both communication and cognitive skills at 1 year of age were examined in 92 African American dyads, of whom 64 were poor. The overall quality of the home environment and maternal ratings of stimulation and elaborativeness were the most consistent correlates of infant communication…

This study investigated infant crying as a form of communication, with fear considered only one of many possible motivating emotions. Crying, along with fretting and withdrawal, are the major ways infants have to indicate that they desire to change the present situation. Subjects were 91 white, middle class infants whose mothers wete their primary…

In this study, twenty 3-day-old Caucasian neonates were observed before and during feeding in an attempt to demonstrate that individual characteristics of infants, such as alertness and social behaviors, are related to the interaction of mothers and infants during feeding situations. Ten of the infants were males, 10 were females; approximately 70…

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 intensive longitudinal study of mother-infant interaction during the first year of life focuses on the development of attachment. Data on 26 middle-class families were collected by five methods: (1) naturalistic observation of each mother-infant pair during 4-hour home visits, which occurred at 3-week intervals from the infants' 3rd to 54th…

This paper reports on an analysis of some manifest, surface and verbal characteristics of the classroom behaviors of students and teachers in the first, sixth, and eleventh grades of urban Missouri schools selected for their composition relative to black and white population. Findings indicate that: (1) on the average verbal participation by…

This paper describes a family laboratory project designed to provide young children with opportunities to participate in learning experiences with babies, school age children, adolescents, adults who were single or married, parents and grand parents. A review of the literature focuses on the need for communication between children, parents,…

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…

A study on child day care is presented. The primary function of the research strategy was to pretest and develop an independent sample measurement scales to use in a panel study. The focus of the research is on family day care arrangements made by working mothers for children under six years of age. The sample used was a fairly successful one of…

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…