| Popis: |
This study was designed to explore parents' perceptions of their young children's school-organized social interest experiences. Interpretive description was selected for the methodology in this study, which is used when researchers want to gain a subjective understanding about an experience in efforts to inform practice. For the current study I sought to better understand parents' perceptions of their young children's social interest experiences in efforts to inform clinical mental health and school counseling practice. Fourteen parents from a university based early childhood education participated in this semi structured interview and a follow up focus group. During these interviews parents were asked questions regarding their thoughts about the social interest experiences in which their children were involved. Data analysis was completed using guidelines for interpretive description data analysis described by Thorne (2008) and Charmaz's (2014) suggestions for grounded theory analysis. Three themes developed through this process; parents perceived their children's involvement in school-organized social interest experiences as influencing: (a) their children's self-esteem, (b) their children's empathy, and (c) the parents' and their children's worldview and sense of citizenship. |
