“Will school feel like home?”: A pandemic study on temperament and peer engagement in preschool with a focus on South Asian American children

This dissertation aims to explore how South Asian American (SAA) children’s temperament affects their engagement with peers. It also investigates their parent’s perceptions about how acculturation may be affecting their children’s peer engagement. Existing literature on SAA children ages three through five, particularly their temperamental traits or peer interactions, is not easily available, and this study attempts to help fill this gap. Using a mixed-methods design, this research explores three main questions – 1) how do teachers’ and parents’ ratings for child temperament differ for children of different ethnicities? 2) what kind of peer engagement styles do SAA children exhibit, and how do these styles differ based on temperamental differences? and 3) what are SAA parents’ perceptions about their children’s cultural socialization and how it affects their peer engagement? Data for the study comes from a sample of six children ages three to five from a preschool center in a large mid-western state in the United States (66% female; 50% South Asian American, 33% White, 16% Multiple Races). The collected data included demographic information from the parent about the child and their family, temperament data from teachers and parents, observational data on children’s peer interactions in the classroom, and interviews with parents asking them about their home culture and their children’s peer interactions. Findings showed that parents of all children whose home culture could be categorized as collectivistic scored their children higher on negative affect than teachers. This trend was not present for the two White (individualistic culture) children in the sample. This underlines the cultural nature of temperament. Parents and teachers may view the same behavior differently based on their cultural background. Children’s temperamental traits did have effects on their peer engagement processes, but observations showed that in some cases, the children also learned how to deal with those issues constructively. Parent interviews discussed how native language and the concept of respect for elders affected children’s overall peer interactions. Additionally, the effect of the pandemic on children’s peer engagement is examined. The possibilities of utilizing the findings for practical applications are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Banerjee, Sanchari

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ruedas-Gracia, Nidia
• Bub, Kristen L
• Hopson, Rodney K
• McElwain, Nancy L
• Napolitano, Christopher M
• Corr, Catherine P

• Temperament
• Peer Engagement
• Mixed Methods
• Culture
• Pandemic
• Preschool
• Early Childhood
• South Asian American

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Sanchari Banerjee

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120278

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120278