The leavetakings and reunions of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their parents were observed as 56 children were dropped off and picked up at nursery school. During the pilot phase of the study, shorthand running records were made of the behaviors of each child and his or her parent for all of their leavetaking and reunion episodes. From 100…

The faculty lounge of a junior high school was chosen as the site for observation of teachers in this study of social interactions and attitudes. The study focused on the effect of the segregation or isolation of the individual teacher (who functions as an autonomous unit in the classroom) upon the school as an organization and upon attempts to…

Recently, a surge of interest in the development of a general theory to coordinate the volume of literature dealing with the family has developed. Systems theory suggests that: (1) human systems experience constant interaction with other systems; (2) component parts of systems are valuable and influential; and (3) living systems operate to acquire…

A comparative analysis of the findings of three studies involving widely varying ethnic groupings of rural youth was conducted in order to evolve a speculative frame of propositions about religion as a variable attribute of the life situation of rural youth, and to speculate about the possible significance of patterned variability in religious…

The expressed individual and cultural values of two groups of urban, lower socioeconomic status black American women are contrasted, using a situational forced-choice Expressed Values scale developed especially for this purpose. Group 1 (n=67) at the time of the study was enrolled in a high school equivalency degree program at a junior college.…

This paper is based on 42 unstructured, tape-recorded interviews, conducted over a period of three months, with teachers who frequented a teacher bar. It was hypothesized that conversations teachers have with each other in an ambience of informal collegiality serve a cathartic function. Through their interactions, teachers helped one another by…

A study to analyze individual differences in interpersonal styles of students and to identify behavioral differences in student interactions with adults and peers is reported. The sample consisted of 18 high school males who were observed during two normal school days. Students were observed according to interactions with other students, adults,…

This study examined ability grouping of students in relationship to the amount of time they received from teachers, the effects of grouping on students' self concept, and grouping students according to their social behavior as perceived by the teacher. Information was obtained on the criteria teachers used for placing students in various groups,…

This study compared the psychosocial adjustment and social behavior of children from divorced or separated single-parent families with that of children from two-parent families. The theory of attachment was adopted as the conceptual framework for the study because of similarities between the behavioral response of children to parental separation…

The way that factors in the social environment regulate both the rates and differential modes of deviance among various groups within the school is examined. Using Mertonian analysis, three premises are central to the study including: (1) pressures to deviate occur when people are deprived of access to legitimate means to attain a desired goal;…

Three studies examine the impact of different types of television content on the social behavior of children at various ages. The studies represent research into the interrelated problem of the processes involved in media effects and age-related differences. In the first study an action-adventure program, in which a character's reputation and…

Psychosocial adaptations are sometimes affected by experiences that are ordinarily considered to be amusements. In 1974, a field study was undertaken by the Program on Psychosocial Adaptation and the Future to determine if it is possible to measure the effect of television on adult viewers. A sample of 260 couples, controlled for demographic…

This study investigated the response behavior of nine infants, aged 13-15 weeks, to a recurrent pattern of visual and verbal stimuli presented by their own mothers and by female strangers. The infants were presented with the following 2-minute sequence (repeated 3 times): (1) one-half minute of an unknown female leaning over the crib with a…

This paper focuses on the theory and rationale of assessing the social behavior of children. It is asserted that child social behavior must be assessed accurately in order to do research on socialization. Socialization is defined as the process by which an individual learns to interact with others. It is proposed that it is possible to design a…

Settings influence children's behavior. There are three relevant aspects of a setting, the space and contents of the space, as in the set of a play, the cast of characters who are present on the set, and the activities which occur on the set involving the cast of characters. The author and her associates have studied children in Okinawa, the…