A comparison of the play of aggressive and non-aggressive kindergartners.
Item
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Title
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A comparison of the play of aggressive and non-aggressive kindergartners.
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Identifier
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AAI9530935
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identifier
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9530935
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Creator
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Young, Barbara Ann.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Roger Hart
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Date
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1995
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental
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Abstract
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This study sought to examine the naturally occurring social and symbolic play of aggressive and non-aggressive children, particularly sociodramatic play. The subjects were 38 Hispanic and 8 African-American kindergarten children attending an inner-city elementary school in East Harlem. There were 20 children who scored one standard deviation above the mean on the parent version of the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist aggression scale and 20 who scored below this cutoff. A sequential focal sampling procedure was used to observe the subjects during free-play sessions.;Both aggressive and non-aggressive children spent approximately 20% of their total play engaged in symbolic play. The prediction that there would be differences in the complexity of symbolic play between aggressive and non-aggressive children was not supported. The hypothesis that there would be differences in the types of social participation during symbolic play was also not supported. For both groups, there was a non-significant tendency for their symbolic play to be cooperative. Methodological problems and the nature of the sample are discussed as possible reasons for the lack of results. Results are compared to Smilansky's (1968) study of the sociodramatic play of advantaged and disadvantaged Israeli children. Future research on the communication and negotiation during symbolic play is suggested as beneficial to the understanding of the play of both aggressive and disadvantaged children.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
