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Theses and Dissertations

2014

A case study of preschool children exhibiting

prosocial and empathic behaviors during
sociodramatic play
Parvin Parsai
University of Toledo

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 A Dissertation

entitled

A Case Study of Preschool Children Exhibiting Prosocial and Empathic Behaviors

During Sociodramatic Play

by

Parvin Parsai

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Curriculum and Instruction

________________________________________
Dr. Susanna Hapgood, Committee Chair

________________________________________
Dr. Amy Allen, Committee Member

________________________________________
Dr. Laurie Dinnebeil, Committee Member

________________________________________
Dr. Rulan Slutsky, Committee Member

________________________________________
Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean
College of Graduate Studies

The University of Toledo

December 2014
 Copyright 2014, Parvin Parsai

This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no parts of this document
may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.
 An Abstract of

A Case Study of Preschool Children Exhibiting Prosocial and Empathic Behaviors

During Sociodramatic Play

by

Parvin Parsai

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy Degree in
Curriculum and Instruction

The University of Toledo

December 2014

This qualitative study examines the way in which preschoolers exhibit prosocial

and empathic behaviors during their sociodramatic play in a preschool classroom. Data

were collected every school morning over the course of one month in March 2014 by

observing and videotaping children engaged in sociodramatic play in a pre-k classroom

with 24 children and three teachers in a privately owned preschool. The sociodramatic

play area had two distinct set of props, one being for a home living theme and the second

being for veterinary clinic theme, each used for two weeks. Taking a sociocultural

perspective, analyses focused on children’s prosocial and empathic behaviors while

engaged in their play with peers as well as with their teachers. Analyses of the data

revealed examples of children exhibiting behaviors in all of the following 5 themes:

empathy/care; cooperation/compliance; respect/acceptance; problem solving/negotiation;

and sense of community/emotional wellbeing. Exemplary vignettes of extended play

interactions were included to provide contextualized understandings of the children’s

prosocial and empathic behaviors. It was also found that teachers played critical roles in

fostering and encouraging prosocial and empathic behaviors. Across data collection, I

iii
observed that the issues of gender and age were not necessarily contributing factors to the

way in which the children exhibited prosocial and empathic behaviors during their

sociodramatic play.

iv
Esmail, you taught me perseverance and enthusiasm to be a lifelong learner.

Shayan, you taught me the passion for compassion and empathy.

Shireen, you taught me inspiration and motivation.

It is my privilege to be a part of this family.

 Acknowledgements

This document would have seem incomplete without a statement of thanks to

teachers and children who made this study come alive. A special note of gratitude to the

students’ parents for allowing me to observe their children.

I would like to recognize my advisor, Dr. Hapgood. I truly appreciate you sharing

your wisdom with me. I would like to extend my appreciation and gratitude to you and my

committee members, Dr. Amy Allen, Dr. Ruslan Slutsky, and Dr. Laurie Dinnebeil. Your

insights and kindness are greatly appreciated.

 Table of Contents

Abstract iii

Acknowledgements vi

Table of Contents vii

List of Tables xi

I. Introduction 1

A. Rationale 1

B. Purpose Statement and Research Questions 5

C. Organization of the Dissertation 5

D. Definition of Terms 6

II. Literature Review 9

A. Caring Education and Its Role in Early Childhood 9

B. Prosocial Behavior 10

C. Empathy 12

D. Development of Empathy 13

E. Theory of Mind 16

F. Play 20

G. Sociodramatic Play 23

H. Environmental and Emotional Development 24

I. Theoretical and Philosophical Perspectives Guiding this Study 29

a. Cultural-Historical Theory 29

J. Creating Prosocial Environment 30

K. Teachers’ Intentional Teaching of Empathy 31

vii
 L. Developing Learning Communities 31

M. Conclusion 33

III. Methodology 33

A. Rationale for Research Design 35

B. Settings and Participants 38

C. Entry to the Site and Gaining Consent 44

D. Observation and Data Collection 44

E. Data Collection 45

F. The Role of a Qualitative Researcher 52

G. Data Sources 53

H. The Process of Data Analysis 54

I. Organization of Data 56

J. Interpretation of the Data 56

K. Identification of Patterns 57

L. Member Checking During the Process of Interpreting the Data 58

M. Ethics 59

N. Reciprocity 59

O. Limitations of the study 60

P. Triangulations 60

Q. Summery 61

IV. Results 63

A. Analysis of ALC Classroom Set-up, Daily Schedule and Procedures 65

B. Teachers Role and strategies at the ALC 70

viii
 C. Video-recording 72

D. Examples and Types of Prosocial and empathic Behaviors 73

a. Theme 1: Empathy/Care 74

b. Theme 2: Cooperation/Compliance 76

c. Theme 3: respect/Acceptance 78

d. Theme 4: Problem solving/Negotiation 78

e. Theme 5: Sense of Community/Emotional Well-being 79

E. The importance of Teachers’ Actions and Words 81

F. Analysis in the Form of Vignettes 84

G. The Big Family Vignette 85

H. The Cell Phone Vignette 94

I. The Baby in the Crib Vignette 95

J. The Baking the Cake Vignette 98

K. The Taking Turns Vignette 100

L. Veterinary Clinic 103

M. Exploring the Clinic Vignette 104

N. Help My Pet Vignette 111

O. Dog’s Broken Bone Vignette 118

P. Conclusion 121

V. Discussion 124

A. Explanation of the Attendance Frequency Table 126

B. Explanation of the Prosocial frequency Tables 131

C. Choosing Sociodramatic Play for Data Collection 135

ix
 D. Research on Children’s Prosocial and empathic Behavior 140

E. Limitations 149

F. Future Research 150

G. Implications for Practice 151

H. A Call to Action 153

I. Conclusion 154

VI. References 156

x
 List of Tables

Table 1 Description of participants. .............................................................................43

Table 2 Description of teachers. ..................................................................................43

Table 3 The list of play props for home living theme. .................................................48

Table 4 The list of play props for veterinary clinic. .....................................................51

Table 5 List of books on family/friendship. .................................................................69

Table 6 List of books on animal care. ..........................................................................69

Table 7 List of children participating in the Home Living. .......................................129

Table 8 List of children participating in the veterinary clinic. ...................................130

Table 9 Frequency theme occurrences during home living in sociodramatic play. ...134

Table 10 Frequency theme occurrences during veterinary clinic in sociodramatic

play.................................................................................................................134

xi
 Chapter One

Introduction

Rationale

As we move through the twenty-first century, the world our children will

inherit is becoming more and more of a global village, a village that requires its

members to have an understanding of each other, develop acceptance and become

tolerant. Today, more than ever before, the notion of a successful learner as

defined by B.F. Jones (1990) needs to be revisited, if the civilization is meant to

survive. Jones argues that successful learners are knowledgeable, self-determined,

strategic, and empathic. These students recognize that their success involves their

ability to communicate with others; and to view themselves and the world through

the eyes of the others. Jones further contends that successful students value

sharing experiences with persons of different background and consider these

experiences as enriching their lives.

The ability to empathize and take the perspective of others allows us to

interact in a socially appropriate manner. Such interactions include building

reciprocal relationships and developing communication skills that allow for the

exchange of ideas as well as the ability to understand and appreciate diverse

perspectives (Jingbo & Elicker, 2005; Pianta, 1999; Vygotsky, 1978). Empathy is

identified as an important construct for interpersonal communication (Decety,

2011). It helps one to understand others’ behavior, anticipate someone else’s

reaction, feel what others are feeling and then respond to them (Allison, Baron-

Cohen, Wheelwright, Stone, & Muncer, 2011; Wheelwright & Baron-Cohen,

1
2011). Empathy also allows one to understand and appreciate the behavior,

thoughts and beliefs of the others that may be different than one’s own

(Calloway-Thomas, 2010).

Fostering children’s empathic capacity is essential to children’s awareness of their

higher being, and building a global community for peace – one that can promote

the world’s democracies in a time when violence is a prevailing method of

responding to human crises and society is described as “empathy deficient”

(Obama, 2006). Empathy, Haynes and Avery argued, does not end with the

understanding and recognition of another’s perceptions and feelings, but it is the

ability to “accurately convey that understanding through an accepting response”

(1979, p. 527). It has been defined as understanding inner experiences and

perspectives of others, and communicating this understanding (Hojat, et.al, 2002).

Eisenberg and Fabes (1998) defined empathy as “an affective response that stems

from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or

condition, and that is identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling

or would be expected to feel” (p. 702). Empathy helps one connect with others,

understand their feelings and behavior, make predictions and react appropriately

(Allison, Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stone, & Muncer, 2011). The reaction then

may be demonstrated as a verbal confirmation, body language, and/or prosocial

behavior such as sharing goods or providing help. A concern, however, remains

for teachers to consider how to nurture children’s capacities to take the

perspectives of others and think about them before acting. By expanding

children’s worlds from their own to their families’ to peers’ and eventually, to

2
others’, teachers attempt to foster children’s empathic capacities starting as early

as in preschool settings.

When it comes to children and schooling, regardless of the conflicting

view about values education and/or character education, there is an agreement that

“developing this capacity to understand, appreciate, and communicate

meaningfully with others is an important and desirable goal” (Cotton, 2003, p. 2).

Nonetheless an array of issues are encountered: questions of classroom time,

content priority, and even teachers’ perceptions and qualifications become

problematic. Nel Noddings (2005) not only supported the idea of teaching caring

education, she argued that it must be the main purpose of education. Noddings

contended that schools must be organized around centers or themes of caring as a

response to social changes of the last decades, and the overemphasis placed on

achievement. Noddings defined caring as “a connection or encounter between two

human beings” (2005, p. 15), more specifically, she viewed classroom caring as

consisting not only a teacher caring about students, but also to be helping students

develop caring relationships with others and the environment around them.

Noddings insisted that students must learn to develop feelings about other people,

animals, objects and even ideas. Eisenberg (1995) identified this affective

capacity to share another's feelings; and the cognitive ability to understand

another's feelings and perspectives as empathic capacity. A major part empathic

capacity involves the ability to communicate one's empathic feelings and

understanding to another by verbal and/or nonverbal means.

3
 Some researchers believe that we are biologically programmed to be

sensitive to the distress of others (Eisenberg, 1988, 1989; Zahn-Waxler, Robinson

& Emde, 1992). That is to say that over time empathizing was recognized to

benefit the human race, therefore it became part of our biological inheritance.

Experiences however may enhance or interfere with emerging abilities to

empathize (Barnett, 1987; Hoffman, 1987). Children who experience a loving

relationship with their caregivers tend to be more secure and as a result their focus

will turn to others instead of to themselves (Kestenbaum et al, 1989). On the other

hand, children who experience physical punishment, threats and harsh treatment

may be less likely to develop the ability to empathize (Eisenberg, 1995). Michael

Tomasello (2008), co-director of the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary

Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, tackled the big debate of the Western

civilization, namely, the nature/nurture conundrum that questions “whether

humans are born cooperative and helpful, and society later corrupts them, or

whether they born selfish and unhelpful, and society teaches them better” (p. 75).

To enter the debate, Tomasello sided with Rousseau arguing that children from

around their first birthdays show their cooperative nature in many but not all

situations. After studying communication and behavior of both human children

and apes, Tomasello concluded that children are naturally helpful and

cooperative. This tendency is later modeled by whatever behavior and outlook

they are presented with in their surroundings. Tomasello’s findings may be able to

be supported by observing children’s empathic behavior in early childhood

4
settings in which educators are often attempting to nurture the development of

empathic capacities in young children.

My hypothesis in this study is that children develop prosocial behavior

and empathic capacities early in life. My study has been designed to allow me to

observe the ways in which children demonstrate their prosocial behavior and

empathic capacity during sociodramatic play in a preschool context.

Purpose Statement and Research Questions

The purpose of my research is to explore preschool children’s prosocial

and empathic behaviors while engaged in sociodramatic play. Sociodramatic play

is thought to foster role playing and perspective taking abilities in young children

(Bodrova, & Leong 2001). My focus is in looking for ways in which children’s

prosocial capacities are shown through their verbal and non-verbal expressions. I

want to learn how children’s prosocial behavior and empathic abilities are

expressed during their play and their interactions with peers. My goal is to enrich

the dialogue and broaden understandings relating to children’s prosocial

tendencies and empathic capacities. The following research question will be

addressed: How do children exhibit prosocial and empathic behaviors during

sociodramatic play?

Organization of the Dissertation

The focus of this dissertation incorporates the topic of prosocial behavior

and children’s capacity for empathy as it may be exhibited during their play. In

Chapter 2, I examine the related literature about prosocial behavior and empathy

5
in early childhood, how it is developed in, and demonstrated by young children.

The literature review involves operational definitions of the concepts, and a

working definition specifically chosen for the topic at hand.

In Chapter 3, I provide a background to the study including a rationale for

taking a qualitative case study approach and all the associated methods that have

been used. The primary data source were observations of children’s interactions in

the sociodramatic play area of a preschool classroom. I include information about

the participants, as well as information about how data were collected. The

process of data analysis and the methods of coding are also explained. The

chapter concludes with an explanation of the limitations of the study.

Chapter 4 focuses on the findings and the discussion of the research as it

emerges from the data. Chapter 5 includes a conclusion of the study as I explore

the implications of this research for practice in the field of early education, and

professional development.

Definition of Terms

For the purpose of clarifying the terms used in this manuscript, I will

allocate this section to defining the terms that I will encounter throughout my

research. For now, I will begin with the following terms:

Prosocial behavior: positive responses to others’ emotional distress (caring,

comforting), helping or aiding others, sharing or donating, and cooperation

(Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, & Chapman, 1983).

6
Empathy: the ability to feel what another person is feeling, understand what that

person is feeling, communicate that understanding to the person, and then act in a

way to help meet their needs.

Sympathy: “an emotional response, stemming from the apprehension of another’s

emotional state or condition, that is not the same as the other’s state or condition

but consists of feelings of sorrow or concern for the other” (Eisenberg & Eggum,

2009, pp.71-72).

Negative emotions: emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger that are subject to

different rules regarding their expression, depending on the social context as well

as the gender and age of the child expressing the emotion (Michalson, 1983).

Theory of Mind (TOM): the term theory of mind refers to children’s abilities to

attribute various mental states to themselves and to others (Astington, 1993).

TOM understanding is attributed to children who are able to use knowledge of

their own and others’ mental states to understand others’ behavior (Carlson,

Moses, & Claxton, 2004).

Self-regulation: self-regulation is defined as the control of emotion, attention, and

physiological responses to stimulation through cognitive and behavioral processes

and strategies that support goal-directed actions.

Sociodramatic Play: has been referred to by some researchers as imaginative play,

or pretend play, has been defined as, the “voluntary social role-taking involving

two or more children, an engagement where the children transform activities from

their real objective and objects from their real counterparts” (McCune-Nicolich,

1981, p.504). In this research, it is defined as a form of voluntary social play

7
activity in which the preschool children will engage, by taking on roles, and use

make believe transformation to act out situations and play episodes (Christie et

al., 2003).

8
 Chapter Two

Literature Review

Introduction

During the past decade, the role of emotion in teaching and learning has been on

the rise in educational research and literature, and has become more of a focal point in the

field of early childhood education (Hyson, 2004). However, the specific topic of my

research, children exhibiting prosocial behavior with peers in the classroom, has not been

the subject of an extensive body of research. For this reason, I will draw upon the related

literature in educational research that focuses on caring education and its role in early

childhood education. In addition, I will examine literature that discusses prosocial

behavior and empathy in young children in the context of a preschool environment and

within teacher-child interactions. In this chapter, I will discuss each of these topics,

analyzing their importance for my research.

Caring Education and Its Role in Early Childhood

One concept that is rarely mentioned in mainstream educational research is a

responsibility of educational institutions for developing caring as an affective aspect of

education. Nel Noddings (1984), grappled with the idea of caring in education. She

initially stated that caring-about involves a certain neglect. “One is attentive just so far.

One assents with just so much enthusiasm. One acknowledges. One affirms. One

contributes five dollars and goes on to other things” (p. 112). In her later works, she

contended that “caring-about” needs more attention. Children learn first what it means to

9
be cared for, and then gradually they learn to care about others. It is this caring-about that

she argued to be the foundation for our sense of justice. For Noddings, social relationship

plays an instrumental role in developing the caring-for and caring-about equation. She

claimed that ‘we are dependent on each other even in the quest for personal goodness.

How good I can be is partly a function of how you, the other, receive and respond to me.

This only reinforces the reciprocal notion of caring.

Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior has been described as “voluntary behavior intended to benefit

another” (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad 2006, p. 646). Those behaviors involve helping

others, showing compassion, and being understanding and fair toward others (Garner,

2006; Kidron & Fleischman, 2006). Prosocial behaviors may also include cooperation,

giving a complement, including another child in play, and comforting a child who is

upset (Honig 2004; Ramaswamy & Bergin 2009). Such behaviors are identified by there

being an element of obligation and duty towards others instead of them being personally

charged with pleasure and desires (Mussen & Eisenberg, 2001). Nelson and Crick (1999)

argued that children who are prosocial tend to view their world from a prosocial behavior

where they can better control their actions and feelings (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, &

Reiser, 2000). These children in contrast to neutral children (i.e., children who are neither

prosocial nor antisocial) will act in ways which will have a positive outcome for others.

They are less likely to attribute hostile intent to aggression by peers; instead they are

more likely to demonstrate a “benign attributional bias,” giving their peers the benefit of

the doubt in situations that can be considered provocative (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, &

10
Reiser, 2000). They will be more prone to develop and maintain relationships with peers,

and deal with them more effectively (Webster-Statton & Lindsey, 1999).

A body of research involves discussion of genetics’ contribution to the formation of

prosocial tendencies and empathic capacity in young children. Such analysis is beyond

the scope of this research. Instead, the focus of this literature review is on classroom-

related environmental factors and their attributes to the development and exhibition of

prosocial behavior and empathic capacity in young children.

Most children begin to exhibit their prosocial and empathic tendencies early in

life. The display of such tendencies becomes more elaborate and systematic as the

children grow in age and develop expressive language. Preschoolers’ emotional

wellbeing becomes a focus of attention since traditionally, teachers of this age group are

believed to be responsible for preparing students for school. This “school readiness” is

both academically and emotionally with the intention of constructing a positive mindset

toward academic learning (Hyson, 2008). It is through teachers fostering a sense of

community in their classrooms, that students exhibit prosocial orientation (cooperative,

helpful, concern for others), resulting in fewer disruptive behaviors (Battistich, Solomon,

Watson, & Schaps, 1997). This is highly salient in elementary school classrooms where

students and teachers constantly send and receive emotionally charged verbal and

nonverbal communication, creating a fluctuating range of engagement or disengagement,

and thus, a corresponding range of academic outcomes (Meyer & Turner, 2002; Shelton

& Stern, 2004).

11
Empathy

Human beings are members of a ‫بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند‬

whole, ‫که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند‬
In creation of one essence and soul. ‫چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار‬
If one member is afflicted with pain, ‫دگر عضو ها را نماند قرار‬
Other members uneasy will remain. ‫تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی‬
If you've no sympathy for human ‫نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی‬
pain,
The name of human you cannot
retain!
Rhyming translations by M. Aryanpoor

The above poem was written by the 13th century Persian poet Saadi. This poem is

now a motto on the entrance of the United Nations building for its eloquent manifestation

of oneness of the human race.

Although empathy as a construct is as old as time, as a term, its definition is one

that is relatively recent, somewhat complicated, and has been used in different disciplines

by many different scholars (Decety & Ickes, 2009). Empathy has been related to

exhibition of prosocial behavior (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Roberts & Stryer, 1996;

Strayer & Roberts, 2004) and increased social skills (Denham, et al, 2002a; Hoffman,

2000). It is defined as “an innate, hardwired response connecting us as social beings to

the emotional plights of others” (Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1990, p. 111). It is

known to be the emotion which joins the affective condition of one person with that of

another by experiencing similar or close to similar feelings as the other person

(Eisenberg, 2003; Eisenberg, Spinard, & Sadovsky, 2006; Hastings, Zahn-Waxler,

Robinson, Usher, & Bridges, 2000; Hoffman, 2000). Haynes and Avery's characterization

of empathy is, “the ability to recognize and understand another person's perceptions and

12
feelings, and to accurately convey that understanding through an accepting response” (p.

527). Such a response may involve verbal confirmation of understanding and/or

supportive looks and body language, and prosocial behavior such as sharing goods or

providing help. The ability to empathize is an important part of social and emotional

development which impacts the quality of individuals’ social relationships and their

behaviors toward others. In fact, reviewing the literature on prosocial behavior and

empathy showed that there is a reciprocal relationship between the two constructs.

Empathy is defined to be part of a range of prosocial behaviors for children and those

who show empathy are more likely to display prosocial behaviors when they reach the

school years.

Development of Empathy in Young Children

Although the works of early theorists such as Freud (1958) and Piaget (1965)

suggested that young children are too egocentric and/or cognitively unable to experience

empathy, a body of more recent research has provided evidence that children are, in fact,

capable of demonstrating sophisticated empathic behaviors (Zahn-Waxler et al. 1979;

Zahn-Waxler et al. 1992a; Zahn-Waxler et al. 1992b). Hoffman (1982, 2000) proposed a

theoretical model which defined the role of infants’ and children’s affect and cognitive

sense of self awareness and self-other differentiation in prosocial behavior. He argued

that there is a shift over time from self-concern to empathic concern for others that will

lead to other-oriented prosocial behavior. Hoffman further argued that infants have not

yet acquired a sense of self-other orientation and thus experience empathic distress

through simpler modes of empathy like reactive crying or mimicry. Early in the second

year of life however, toddlers begin to demonstrate prosocial behaviors such as patting,

13
touching, or hugging a victim of distress. According to Hoffman (2000), even though

toddlers do not distinguish well between their own and another’s internal state, they can

experience empathic concern for another, rather than solely seeking comfort for

themselves.

Hoffman proposes a four- stage theoretical model for the emergence of prosocial

behavior in young children. The model constitutes the role of infants’ and children’s

emotional and cognitive sense of self awareness and self-other awareness. He points out

the developmental phase that arose in time from self-concern to empathic concern in

children’s response to others’ distress. Hoffman argues that this developmental shift over

time results in other-oriented prosocial behavior in young children.

In the first stage, children show rudimentary empathic response to another child’s cry or

distress by mimicking or reactively crying. Hoffman calls this a precursor to “global

empathy.” The second stage-egocentric empathic distress- appears at the end of first year

of life Infants in this stage seek to comfort themselves when exposed to another’s

distress. Although immature, but at this stage the infants begins to separate their sense of

self from others; they are more likely to respond to empathic and real distressful situation

in the same manner.

During the second year of their life, toddlers react to the victim of distressful

situation by offering help, or kind gesture as their effort to alleviate distressful situation.

Their resolution, however, is based on their own perception of what they find comforting.

Toddlers at this stage show empathy that is different from the previous stage in that they

are not entirely egocentric and are more likely to react with appropriate empathic affect.

14
 The third stage in Hoffman’s model is “veridical empathic distress” which occurs

sometimes in the second year of children’s lives. In this stage, children are more likely to

be aware of others’ feelings, and their perspectives as different than their own. The

egocentric residue of previous empathic stage is less likely to contribute to the children’s

prosocial reactions to distressful situation in this stage. Toddlers at this stage have

developed language that can help them to more accurately convey their empathic

responses and a wider range of emotions than they previously experienced.

As children’s age progresses so will their perspective taking skills. They become

more sophisticated in their abstract thinking skills. The fourth stage is mid to late

childhood at which, the children can express their empathic response even in the absence

of the physical person or actual situation-that is when they hear or read a story. The last

stage for Hoffman’s model is during adolescent years when children can understand and

respond to the plight of a class or group of people. Hoffman concluded that as children

gain cognitive maturation, they are more capable of responding empathically to others’

distress.

Many researchers examining empathy focus on sympathy, which often may stem

from empathy. Sympathy is defined as an “other-oriented emotional reaction (such as

concern) to another’s emotional state or condition” (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Shea, 1989, p.

55). This responsiveness to another’s distress has often been identified as a measure of

empathy for young children due to their limited verbal expressiveness. Young infants

tend to show negative emotions and resort to self-comforting as a response to distress of

others. Infants’ reactions to others’ distress and negative emotion are thought to be

precursors to empathic behavior (Hoffman, 1975; Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1990).

15
During the second year of life, this concern for self, changes to a capability for concern

for the other (Knafo et al., 2008). Children between the ages of 14-24 months exhibit

empathic concerns and prosocial behavior such as helping, verbal comfort and sharing in

response to real or simulated distress (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992a). By the time children

are 3 years of age, they exhibit a variety of empathic behaviors including facial and

verbal expressions, and offering help out of concern to another’s distress.

Empathic concern exhibited by infants and toddlers, is identified as the emotional

component of empathy. Cognitive empathy, also known as theory of mind is another

component of empathy and is identified as the ability to imagine another’s feelings.

Preschool children demonstrate significant gains in the latter component as they grow

older and their language develops.

Theory of Mind (TOM)

A Theory of Mind (TOM) is developed when children begin to understand what

goes on in another’s mind, and why others behave the way they do. TOM allows the child

to comprehend another’s emotions, and to realize what another person may or may not

know. This realization of another person’s state of mind is understood to impact

children’s development of social skills and play behavior as they use mental clues to

guide their responses (Nguyen & Frye, 1999). The age at which this development takes

place has been a source of a great deal of research. Some researchers have contended that

TOM appears to be “an important intellectual change at about 4 years” (Perner, 2000, p.

396). Others have argued that it is not just the chronological age but an array of other

factors that influence the development of TOM. The classic experiment that was

16
performed by Astington and Gopnik (1988) sheds light on age-relatedness of this topic.

During this experiment an adult showed a 3-year-old a candy box and asked, “What is

inside?” The child said, “Candy.” Then the child was shown that despite it being a

candy box, it was filled with pencils. Subsequently, the researcher closed the box and

asked the child to recall what the child had thought was in the box before the box had

been opened. As was found to be typical of 3 year olds, the child answered “pencils.”

This response was interpreted to mean that the child was not yet able to hold onto their

previous thought and compare it with their current knowledge. When the researcher went

on to ask the child what a friend of the child who had not yet seen what was really inside

the box would say if that friend was asked to guess what was inside. The child, again, as

was found to be typical of 3 year olds, answered “pencils.” Here, the interpretation was

that the child was not yet able to separate their own knowledge – what is in their own

mind – from what someone else might know. This capacity to be able to imagine that

another person has a different set of knowledge and beliefs than one’s own has been

called a “theory of mind.” Generally, by the age of 4 or 5, children have been found to

remember and compare their thinking about the contents of the box over time and to be

able to realize their friend would probably think the box would contain candy, just as they

had at first.

Adult: Let’s open it and look inside.

Child: Oh… holy moly…pencils!

Adult: Now I’m going to put them back and close it up again. (Does so) Now…when you

first saw the box, before we opened it, what did you think was inside it?

Child: Pencils.

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Adult: Nicky [friend of the child] hasn’t seen inside this box. When Nicky comes in and

sees it…what will he think is inside it?

Child: Pencils

{adapted from Astington & Gopnick, 1988, p. 193}

In addition to maturation as factor in the development of TOM, language

development in children is also argued to be an influence. Children with expansive

vocabularies and greater fluency as result of verbal experience with their families have

been found to have theory of mind earlier (Ontai & Thompson, 2008). It has also been

suggested that language development leads to more verbal exchanges during interactions

with peer and/or sibling resulting in acquisition of TOM. Perner (2000) has discussed the

pivotal importance of having older siblings to the extent that “two older siblings are

worth about a year of chronological age” (p. 383). Young children in a household with

older siblings will try to argue, compete, and cooperate with the older siblings; while the

older siblings teasingly try to fool the young ones. It is through such exchanges that

young children can come to understand that not everyone thinks the same as they do; the

very seminal idea of a theory of mind.

The connecting point in all the discussions related to TOM, socialization, self-

regulation, and perspective taking is the notion of executive function. Executive function

skills are thought to involve the conscious control of thoughts and actions (Zelazo et al.,

2008). This concept refers to more “top-down” control of one’s thoughts, actions and

emotions (Zelazo, 2012). The skills include: maintaining focus on one’s current task,

inhibiting oneself from becoming distracted, flexibly shifting one’s attention during

multi-tasking. Without well-developed executive function, children may respond

18
reflexively, impulsively, or by habit and instead by intentionally selecting a course of

action (Davidson, Amso, Anderson, & Diamond, 2006). Executive function skills

influence children’s abilities to regulate their emotions and control their behaviors. As

children’s executive function develops, they begin to understand the perspectives of

others and reasoning in relation to thoughts and emotions (theory of mind). The

development of these skills will help reduce negative emotions and allow children to

become more productively engaged with age-appropriate paly and peace making tasks.

Such practices will help children develop behavioral regulation (Denham, et al., 2013).

It is worth mentioning that I acknowledge the existing tension between the

theoretical views of Piaget’s egocentrism, and Vygotsky’s constructivist approach to

children’s learning and development; particularly in terms of abstract notions like a

theory of mind. My contention is that there is likely a span of a child’s life when children

demonstrate a continuum of understanding of a theory of mind. It may be that at first they

mimic prosocial behaviors they see others do without necessarily thinking about the state

of mind of another person. But, from a Vygotskian point of view, learning can lead to

development, and by learning the prosocial behavior, it may accelerate the development

of more full-fledged theory of mind.

A lack of empathy regarding others’ negative emotions, as stated in the poem,

strips one of the title of human. In early childhood, the same lack is believed to contribute

to psychopathology later in life (Cohen & Strayer, 1996; Pardini, Lochman, & Frick,

2003). These findings are especially convincing when one considers the research findings

that humans are biologically programmed to be sensitive to the distress of others

(Eisenberg, 1988, 1989; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992). Empathy, as the ability to feel or

19
imagine another person’s emotional experience is an important part of social and

emotional development; affecting one’s quality of social relationships. Although,

empathy is identified as an essential component to the human condition (Hojat, 2007), it

is an element that varies from one person to other, and is displayed by verbal and non-

verbal measures, but when it is lacking, a person is severely impaired.

For the purpose of this research, I define empathy as the ability to take another’s

perspective by imagining what is like to be in the predicament of the other person. In this

dissertation I report on my investigation of children’s ability to communicate that

awareness to the other people so the other people feel understood. This has involved

planning sociodramatic play experiences which I thought would allow children to exhibit

empathy and prosocial behavior. I have investigated the ways in which children exhibited

empathy in their interactions with prosocial and empathy-promoting materials with their

peers, within an environment that encouraged role taking during play.

Play

In a quality early childhood program children’s work and play are used

interchangeably testifying to the notion that play is an integral part of any early childhood

classroom. Wilburn (1997) describes play as:

Behaviors that are creative, voluntary, flexible, pleasurable, self- motivated

concerned more with means than ends (Berg, 1994; Goldhaber, 1994). Play also refers to
the three types of play: solitary, parallel, and cooperative. Play is developmentally
appropriate for preschoolers to provide a means of self-expression. This expression can
incorporate roles and contexts the student has experienced previous to entering school.
Play provides an avenue for novel interpretations and expansions of those experiences.
(p. 25)

Sociodramatic play in particular has been the center of much research done to link

play to the development of social-emotional development; and literacy skills in preschool

20
and kindergarten classrooms, skills that are often recognized as important goals in early

childhood education. Berg (1994) offered his explanation for such a link since

“sociodramatic play, a form of symbolic play, has the clearest link to reading because it

involves both simple and complex uses of imagination and through it a child manipulates

reality and time” (p. 34).

Although the function of play for children’s development is undeniable through

much research, the increases in academic standards, threatens the early childhood field

for the direction that is ahead. “Educators have always considered play to be a staple in

early childhood classrooms. But the growing demands for teacher accountability and

measurable outcomes for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs are pushing play to

the periphery of the curriculum” (Bodrova & Leong, 2003, pp. 50-53). This is in large

part due to the misinterpretation of the role of play within the preschool setting and the

undeniable benefits it provides. “Teachers also tell us that they feel obligated to prove

that play not only facilitates the development of social competencies but also promotes

the learning of pre-academic skills and concepts” (Bodrova & Leong, 2003.pp. 50, 53).

As early childhood educators, we still occasionally find ourselves defending the role of

play to parents who believe the children’s time in preschool must be a mini version of

children in elementary school for them to be effectively learning. It is the hope of this

research that the function of play in general and sociodramtic play in particular, once

again be recognized for its role in children’s education and development. I will focus on

the children’s social competency through my observation of their play behavior as is

manifested through their prosocial behavior in a sociodramatic play as my unit of

analysis. Sociodramatic play is considered to be different than free play in that there is a

21
slightly structured environment. In most cases the toys or props used by children are

selected to promote play in that thematic orientation. Some curriculums encourage play

planning by the children to make the play more intentional. Children will have the

opportunity to discuss play with their peers and teachers to map out the play specific to

the chosen theme. I chose to observe the children in both ways. During the first week of

the data collection, the teachers read books in small group to those children who chose to

start their day in the sociodramatic play center. This particular theme was quite familiar

to the children since it replicated a home setting. The children were familiar with the play

props and the roles. They entered the play knowing what roles they are going to play and

what tasks necessitated the roles. The children’s knowledge of the role expectation in this

play kit helped them with their play. During the implementation of the second theme of

the veterinary clinic however, I realized that having the children entering the play without

play planning put some of them at a disadvantage. There were times that I observed

children engaged only with handling the props, and less of engaging in role-play.

Children seemed to engage in deeper play only when a teacher was present in the center

guiding, scaffolding or being part of the play. These were the children who needed more

guidance during other play events and activities as well. I will discuss these issues in

more detail in Chapter 5.

In my research, I expected to observe children exhibiting prosocial tendencies and

empathic behavior as they come into contact with the type of materials and themes that

promote prosocial tendencies and perspective taking opportunities provided to them in a

sociodramatic play setting. The objective of the research was to capture the

22
circumstances and conditions of an everyday situation in children’s play. Therefore, I

chose one hour of each day during which children were engaged in sociodramatic play.

Sociodramatic play

Sociodramatic play (also referred to as pretend play in this research) is an important

component of early childhood education as it supports an appropriate “context for

learning and development during the early childhood period” (Pellegrini, 1997, p. 488).

Both in research and in practice, a sociodramatic play area has been used as an important

part in: language and literacy acquisition; science and numeracy development;

socialization and negotiation skills; role playing, perspective taking, and self-regulation

skills. This important part of preschool and kindergarten learning appears to have

suffered as the result of push-down academics, specifically following the “No Child Left

Behind” era. The narrowing down the curriculum and high-stakes testing has caused

many preschool programs to forsake sociodramatic play (Neuman & Roskos, 2005). This

is despite findings that sociodramatic play within preschool settings fosters social and

emotional development of children. More specifically, the interactions children have with

those around them including teachers, parents, peers, and siblings while engaged in

sociodramatic play allow children to recognize their roles, as well as the roles others and

experience interactions within those roles. Sociodramatic play, through its inherent role

taking nature, provides opportunities for observation and practice of such social relations

for preschool children.

Sociodramatic play requires the ability to transform the objects and actions

symbolically; it is enhanced by social dialogue, involving role taking, improvisation,

negotiation, and problem solving to name a few. When children engage in pretend (or

23
dramatic) play, they are experimenting with the social and emotional roles of life, an

important element in emotional development, also known as emotional competence. That

is, children learning to be in tune to their own emotions, understand, and express their

own feelings to others; all precursors to developing empathy – the understanding the

emotions of others, and relating to others with greater sensitivity.

Research shows that “children who engage in dramatic play tend to demonstrate

more empathy toward others because they tried out being someone else for a while. They

have the skills to cooperate with peers, control impulses, and are less aggressive than

children who do not engage in this type of play (Dodge, Colker, Heroman, 2002, p. 271).

Environment and Emotional Development

One of the many issues related to prosocial behavior in early childhood setting

concern the classroom environment. In reviewing the literature on classroom

environment, one realizes that not only does environment affect those who occupy it, but

those who occupy an environment have an effect on it as well. The classroom

environment has a strong impact on the development of the attitudes of the children.

Fraser states, “the environment, climate, atmosphere, tone, ethos, or ambiance of a

classroom is believed to exert a powerful influence on student behavior, attitudes, and

achievement” (1995, p. 334). Fraser also reminds us that “in contrast to earlier

behaviorist views of students as passive recipients of information, twentieth century

theories of teaching and learning view students as actively involved in their own

learning” (1995, p.416). Therefore teachers whenever possible will allow students

opportunities to express their opinions about the functioning of their classroom

24
environments. This occurs when teachers involve students in making classroom rules at

the beginning of the year and then continually involve them in problem solving when the

classroom is not functioning as expected.

Emotional development refers to emotional competence also known as emotional

intelligence. It is children’s ability to be in tune with their own emotions as well as the

emotions of others. Children’s emotional development is strongly influenced by the

social emotional climate of the classroom in which the relationships are formed.

Relationships that are established during the preschool years and early primary years

appear to have a significant impact on children’s attitudes towards the remainder of their

educational journeys (Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Howes & Ritchie, 2002). The authors

identified the social-emotional climate as the relationship that is nurtured during teacher-

student interaction as well as peer interactions. It is a reciprocal relationship that engages

both the teacher and the students as they build relationships within the classroom;

relationships that support a positive physical environment as well as an environment of

empathy and understanding. The social-emotional climate incorporates the needs and

goals of members of the classroom. Teacher-student relationships influence the social and

emotional development of the students which in turn influences peer interactions and

confidence in academic abilities (Pianta & Walsh, 1996).

During the first half of the century, research focused on the natural development

of the young child where the teacher provided a positive and safe environment for

development and social interaction. Literature in the late 1940s and 1950s indicated that

researchers were beginning to examine the need for nursery schools to introduce

academic instruction. Over time this change from a social to an academic focus led to a

25
shift in the relationships between teachers and students (Braun & Edwards 1972). This

intensified most recently with the current standardization of content in 2001 and the No

Child Left Behind Act, resulting in the spread of academic expectations into younger

grade levels, pushing out the time for appropriate social interactions that support social-

emotional competency. This shift in expectations, which focused on the importance of an

academic curriculum at a younger age, also created a shift in teacher-student

relationships. The teacher’s role changed from nurturer to instructor and from supporting

social development to guiding academic learning. Walberg (1969; 1976; 1979) examined

the changes that occurred in the social and educational arenas of research during the

second half of the century, and more recently, the work completed by Pianta (1999, 2002)

examined that shift and focused on teacher-student relationships as they impact academic

outcomes.

Pianta (1999) has conducted many different studies with a variety of his

colleagues; most of his studies have investigated academic outcomes as an indicator of

the classroom environment. His focus has usually been on individual students and not the

class as a whole; often researching ways to support children who struggle with

relationships in the school setting. Pianta has explained that a stable, supportive,

structured relationship between a teacher and student can provide the necessary context

for development; especially if the child lacks experience with strong relationships at

home. Pianta has also explained that children must be understood within the context of

their situation; their behavior cannot be understood by itself. Teacher-student

relationships provide a context and focus for social and emotional development of the

student.

26
 Pianta, La Pero, Payne, and Bradley (2002) explored the relationship of the

kindergarten classroom environment as it relates to the teacher, school characteristics,

and child outcomes. In a quantitative study they examined teacher-child interactions in

223 schools. These researchers gathered data from teacher reports and observed child

outcomes in kindergarten. The most frequently observed forms of activities were teacher

directed activities and whole group instruction. Classrooms scoring high on instructional

quality were rated high on instructional conversations between teachers and students.

When focusing on improving outcomes, students were more likely to do well when there

was a high frequency and intensity of instructional interactions between teacher and

child. Positive interactions with children, classroom instructional climate, and classroom

child-centered climate were lower where the concentration of poverty in a school was

higher.

This study led to questions about class size issues, equity, and early school

experiences. Pianta et al. (2002) identified the teacher-child ratio as more important than

class size. The teacher-child ratio is probably a more effective barometer of the frequency

of meaningful contacts between teachers and children (Pianta et al., 2002).

La Paro, Pianta, and Stuhlman (2004) completed research on teacher-child

relationships, classroom environments, and teaching practices looking mostly at

classroom quality. These researchers constructed a system for observing and assessing

emotional and structural elements of early childhood environments. The dimensions

observed were emotional and instructional support that contributed to the quality of the

classroom settings from preschool through third grade. This research focused on 224 pre-

kindergarten classrooms in six states. Ratings compiled from questionnaires reflected a

27
generally positive impression of the classroom. The nature and quality of instruction was

found to be of paramount importance in a later study by Hamre and Pianta (2005). They

focused on the value of classroom experience intended to produce gains in learning

environment and teacher child interactions. Hamre and Pianta found that school failure

may have been moderated by strong support from teachers in first grade classrooms. By

offering strong instructional and emotional support, first grade teachers were able to

support teacher-student relationships within the classroom and with peers. Students at

risk placed in less supportive classrooms, had lower achievement and more conflict with

teachers. Children with a negative cycle of relationships, needed teachers who were

willing to support the child and help them shift to a more positive attitude (Hamre &

Pianta, 2005). Their conclusion noted that instructional and emotional support decreased

the risk of early school failure. Children who struggled through kindergarten were more

likely to succeed if they were able to develop a positive relationship with their teachers in

first grade (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). It was important for the first grade teachers to realize

that they had an important role in interrupting cycles of negative interactions; particularly

with those students who had social and intellectual challenges.

By establishing a positive social-emotional climate, teachers support the growth

and development of the children in their care (Birch & Ladd, 1997; DeVries & Zan,

1994; Pianta, 1999). Because there are many dynamics related to all children’s

interactions with those around them, academic development can also be enhanced by

providing an emotionally supportive classroom that fosters positive social interactions

(Pianta, 1999; Shore, 1997). Children need to learn how to interact in a positive, social

manner that incorporates beneficial and reciprocal interactions. These interactions may be

28
key to our children’s future success. Children also have a better chance of acquiring the

social behaviors believed necessary for effective adjustment in our increasingly complex

world (Miller & Pedro, 2006). It is recognized that children needing more assistance with

developing social skills (particularly in case of children in special education) need more

adult support, and therefore require more contact with teachers. In this case, the teacher is

considered a “critical factor” in the early childhood environment (Hestenes & Carroll,

2000). Teachers guide children’s development in the classroom setting, and play a role in

the overall social development of children (Gallagher, Dadisman, Farmer, Huss, &

Hutchins, 2007). They are responsible for arranging and organizing the environment for

the children and promoting positive social engagements among all children in the

classroom.

Theoretical and Philosophical Perspectives Guiding this Study

I am influenced and guided by several theories of learning and philosophies that

guide early childhood educators. In the next several sections, I will explore some of the

theoretical and philosophical ideas that relate to this study.

Cultural-Historical Theory

Cultural-Historical Theory is the idea that child development is the result of the

interactions between children and their social environment. These interactions include

those with parents and teachers, playmates and classmates, and brothers and sisters. They

also involve relationships with significant objects, such as books or toys, and culturally

specific practices that children engage in the classroom, at home, and on the playground.

29
Children are active partners in these interactions, constructing knowledge, skills, and

attitudes and not just mirroring the world around them Bodrova & (Leong, 2001).

Creating Prosocial Environments

Maria Montessori’s approach to education was based on a philosophy of

acceptance of individuals, peaceful interaction, and of interconnectedness of all living

things (Montessori, 1948). Montessori’s idea of educating young children was not like

those of her colleagues in the field of education. Montessori used math and language

materials developed by Itard and Seguin; the bricks and blocks of Froebel, and nature

lessons from Pestalozzi (Montessori, 1912). She did not use the borrowed materials in the

same way their developers did. Instead, she instructed a full time adult not to teach but

instead to let children choose their own activities and learn for themselves what could be

done with the materials. Dr. Montessori learned a great deal about how children learn by

observing the children. This observation led her to develop the Montessori Method which

grew out of children’s natural activity.

The pedagogy that stemmed from working with these children was based on

philosophy of deep respect for life in general and children in particular. This led into the

development of child-sized environment, including small furniture and low shelving, in

which children could construct their own personalities by following their developmental

needs through interaction with people and materials in a specially prepared environment.

The prepared environment was intended to allow child to grow independent of the adult.

This special place provided the children with opportunities where they can do things for

themselves without the immediate help of adults. In this environment the child will

30
initiate in directing his own life; and, in so doing, becomes empowered (Standing, 1957).

This prepared environment was to demonstrate six components in early childhood

education. The first and most well-known to the field is the Montessori materials,

followed by responsibility, freedom, order, beauty, nature, and lastly development of

community. The latter component is probably the least well known (Lillard, 1992), but

most instrumental to my area of interest and research. It is the prosocial behaviors that

will lead to developing a community of learners where children are expected to take

responsibility for making decisions and choices for themselves while considering taking

the well-being of their peers. It is through emotional competency that children are

expected to take care of their school environment, take perspective of others as they

develop a community based on mutual respect and cooperation.

Teachers’ Intentional Teaching of Empathy

In addition to the prosocial climate of the classroom, it is important for the

teachers to support their pedagogy with a solid philosophy that recognizes the needs for

developing the capacity for empathy and compassion. Many teachers are competent and

caring, but since the emphasis on academic outcomes has entered the field of early

education, the importance of these characteristics appears to be overlooked. Even if the

goal of preschool is for children to be academically ready, they must be ready

emotionally and socially as well (Denham, 2006, Zull, 2002).

Developing Learning Communities

The main paradigm shift in child development theory occurred with Lev

Vygotsky’s constructivist approach in which, in contrast to the Piagetian view of

31
individual child’s progress through the biologically determined learning stages, the social

environment is considered instrumental in young children’s learning. From a

constructivist perspective, learning is always “situated” in a social context; what is

learned is not separate from how it is learned and used (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989).

For Vygotsky, learning occurs when children interact with their peers and the adults in

their lives. Children’s learning from birth throughout their lives takes place in a social

context. Their first social context is known to be with their families and later with their

peers that will shape their understanding of the world. Children’s language also develops

from their social interactions from which their thinking is supported and their learning is

developed. Vygotsky regarded language as the essential tool that promotes thinking,

develops reasoning, and help transfer the culture. Children use language, in addition to

their eyes and hands to solve problems. Bodrova and Leong (2007) in Tools of the Mind,

a curriculum inspired by a Vygotskian approach to leaning, describe how children use

speech (self-talk) to guide their own thinking process. The authors argue that as children

grow, self-talk will become internalized as part of a strategy for problem solving. The use

of language will help children to move from being impulsive to become strategic, and

eventually to become skillful in self-regulation.

Preschool teachers, in particular are instrumental in building the foundation of

learning by creating an environment conducive to learning through ample opportunities

for teacher-child, and peer interactions, discussions and collaborations. Children’s

learning and development is facilitated through the teacher’s assessment of the learner’s

zone of proximal development (ZPD) where the learner needs assistance. The teacher

32
provides assistance by modeling, demonstrating, and asking probing questions and

supporting the next stage of learning (Bodrova & Leong, 2007).

As a researcher with a constructivist orientation, I take a holistic approach and in

this study seek to view children in their social context, and as agents of their own

learning. It is my contention that young are interested in the thoughts, feelings, and

beliefs of other people; as well as active interpreters of their own experiences. I intend to

observe children’s prosocial and empathic behaviors in the context of their play

environment.

Conclusion

In this chapter I have reviewed many key ideas and theories related to the

development of prosocial and empathic behaviors. In addition, I have examined the role

that social contexts and teacher-child interactions can play in the development of

emotional competence. In the next chapter I will go into detail regarding the methods I

used to examine prosocial behaviors of preschoolers with a sociodramatic play area.

33
 Chapter Three

Methodology

As we know, “purpose is the controlling force in research. Decisions about

design, measurement, analysis and reporting, all flow from purpose” (Patton, 2000,

p.213). The purpose of this case study is to explore the interactions of preschool children

with prosocial and empathy related materials, peers, and their environment as they

engage in sociodramatic play. The definitions of prosocial behavior and empathy

incorporated in the literature review for the purpose of this study, help explain the reason

for choosing a qualitative methodology. There are variations of definitions for qualitative

research, some highlight the research purpose and focus:

Qualitative researchers are interested in understanding the meaning people have

constructed, that is, how people make sense of their world and the experiences they have

in the world. (Merriam, 2009, p. 13)

Others use an epistemological orientation to define qualitative research such as how

Parkinson and Drislane (2011) describe qualitative research as: “research using methods

such as participant observation or case studies which result in a narrative, descriptive

account of a setting or practice” (http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl).

Still other definitions focus on the process of data collection and the position of the

researcher, for example:

Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It
consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that makes the world visible.
These practices transform the world. They turn the world into a series of
representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs,

34
 recordings, and memos to the self. At this level, qualitative research involves an
interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative
researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or
to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005, p. 3)

These definitions have been particularly useful in my observation of the children

as they attempt to make sense of the world, and interact with peers and their environment

during their play. The interactions that the children have with their peers and their

environment can contain prosocial behavior (e.g., hugs, “here you can have a turn”) as

well as empathic behavior (e.g., a sad look or saying “I’m sorry”). Children as young as

three years old are capable of a variety of empathy related behaviors, which include

verbal and facial expressions (Zahn-Waxler et al. 1992a). My goal is to enrich the

dialogue about the children’s prosocial behavior, and how it can be displayed when

interacting with peers and their environment during sociodramatic play.

Rationale for Research Design

I find it necessary to open the discussion of the research design by a reflection on

my research journey, one which delineates the filters and lenses through which one sees

the world (Mansfield, 2006). My personal history has shaped my interest in the field of

early childhood education. During the completion of my graduate work in sociology, I

started my family. The privilege of having two children sparked a new fascination with

the field of early childhood education. I started educating myself about the theories and

philosophies of education, and this turned into a desire to turn this interest into a new

career. I pursued my goal by assuming a directorship of an early childhood program, and

juxtaposed the practice and theory to my current situation. I chose to have my research

setting at the program that I am in charge of directing. My relationship to the research

35
setting requires a mention of research reflexivity – the process of examining the “self as

researcher” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000; Merriam, 2002). This was a more critical discussion

as I entered the data collection and data analysis phases of this research (Merriam, 2002;

Lincoln and Guba, 2000).

Malterud (2001) best described the notion of reflexivity in qualitative research:

"A researcher's background and position will affect what they choose to
investigate, the angle of investigation, the methods judged most adequate for this
purpose, the findings considered most appropriate, and the framing and
communication of conclusions" (p. 483-484).

I understand that reflexivity is an attitude present in the context of knowledge

construction, and that it will affect the researcher throughout the research process. To not

acknowledge the interests implicit in the research, or to assume value-free positions of

neutrality, is to assume “an obscene and dishonest position” (Shacklock & Smyth, 1998).

Throughout my work on this dissertation I have critically reflected on my association to

the research setting, and the participants and herein attempt to account for the interactions

that arises from this relationship.

This research is shaped by a constructivist perspective, and is informed by a body

of literature in early childhood education about the role of prosocial behavior, and

sociodramatic play in learning and teaching. I find it appropriate to employ a qualitative

methodology, that, as described by Charles C. Ragin (1994) in his book “Constructing

Social Research” yields:

“the kind of in-depth knowledge needed for a proper representation of the

research subject must be based on the perspectives of the people being studied- that their
lives and their worlds must be understood through their eye” (p. 92).

36
 Ragin contended that the methodology of qualitative research could be understood

when it was compared to quantitative methods. In quantitative research the researchers

are “data condensers”; they condense data in order to see the big picture. On the other

hand, qualitative researchers are “data enhancers.” They are like photograph enhancers

who are trying to see certain aspect of the picture (photograph) more clearly and when

qualitative methods are used to enhance data, researchers may see something about their

subjects that might be missed.

Early qualitative researchers felt compelled to relate traditional notions of validity

and reliability to the procedures in quantitative research. Maxwell (1992) responded to

this mindset as well as the proponents of the quantitative approach by stating that,

qualitative research is not positivistic and that therefore traditional (quantitative) notions

of validity do not apply.

An advantage of qualitative research is that it allows the researcher to observe the

phenomena in the natural setting (Merriam, 1998). This is particularly important for this

research since the focus is on understandings, feelings, and experiences that are context-

bound, and thus require adequate contextualization (Merriam, 1998).

A case study, in particular is appropriate since my focus is on the way children exhibit

their prosocial tendencies, allowing me to limit variables and illuminate the factors

contributing to exhibiting prosocial behavior (Merriam, 1998). Case study is defined by

Creswell (1998) as:

an exploration of a “bounded system’’ or a case (or multiple cases) over time

using detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information
rich in context. This bounded system is bounded by time and place, and it is the
case being studied--a program, an event, an activity, or individuals. (p. 61)

37
 The sociodramatic play is considered to be the bounded system chosen for this

research housing children’s social and emotional interactions that are “socially

constructed” (Hargreaves, 2000). According to Hatch (2002), “defining the boundaries or

specifying the unit of analysis is the key decision point in case study design” (p. 30). My

research is limited to one pre-kindergarten classroom in a privately owned preschool

program. In this research, the case or bounded system is preschool children engaged in

sociodramatic play in a pre-kindergarten classroom setting. The focus is placed on a

sociodramatic play setting in that classroom as I examine the interaction of children as

they enter and engage in that play environment. A qualitative method which lends itself

to research that seeks to describe complex interactions embedded in context, is the right

method for this study due to the complicated nature of social and emotional interaction in

the classroom (Merriam, 1998).

Setting and Participants

I purposely chose the preschool where I am very familiar with its program,

curriculum, philosophy and the staff. I chose the Advanced Learning Center-ALC (all

names and other identifying details have been changed to pseudonyms) as the site for my

work because I have worked in this preschool for 13 years as a director of the program,

ensuring the implementation of the preschool’s philosophy and curriculum, and at times

supporting professional development of the teachers. I have, therefore, built rapport with

the staff and the children involved in the classroom. These relationships helped me to

understand the preschool context and the environment.

The program was founded in 1992 based on Developmentally Appropriate Practices

(Bredekamp, 1987; Bredekamp. & Copple, 1997) by two teachers in a space rented from

38
a local church. In 2000, I bought the school and operated it in that same location. Shortly

after, I realized that the rough look of the building and other limitations were preventing

me from creating the homey environment I thought would be ideal for the program. I

consulted a parent who was a realtor, and with her help I was able to move the program

to its current location the following year. The single family dwelling with a large fenced

backyard in a wooded residential neighborhood was renovated to meet the needs of the

preschool program. The entrance to the school is from the parking lot through a narrow

stoned pathway through the landscaping. The entry door is a French style door that helps

children see the inside and outside at their eye level. The process of enrollment involves a

visit and observation period to ensure a good fit for the child, family and the Center.

Once the child is enrolled, the parents enter a contract with the Center knowing that there

will be a one month probationary period during which time either of the two parties can

end the contract if they find the program not beneficial to the child. The program enrolls

an average of 50 students per year, and has a population of 98% Anglo-American

families, and 2% other nationalities. Only 0.06% of the population is subsidized by state

funding who also have co-pay (that means the families’ income is larger than the state

allows for free childcare). Although the program has an inclusion policy, there are

currently no children with special needs who are enrolled. The preschool sought and has

been accredited by the National Association of Education for Young Children (NAEYC)

from its inception by and has been awarded the highest rating by the “Step up to Quality”

since the rating system started in 2003. “Step up to Quality” is a voluntary quality rating

improvement scale developed by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services and

the Ohio Department of Education. To achieve 3 stars (the highest possible rating at the

39
time of this research), programs must maintain a favorable teacher-child ratio, hire

teachers with degrees in early childhood education, have a research-based assessment

tool, and implement a research-based curriculum. The quality and the rating of the

program in addition to my long-term relationship with the program contributed to my

belief that the preschool was a good context in which to study children’s prosocial

tendencies as they interact with their peers and environment during play. By choosing an

award-winning program, I hoped to observe prosocial interactions promoted in an

environment conducive to peace, respect and kindness. During my previous observations

of the particular classroom I chose for this work, I had seen the environment to be

nurturing and supportive to individual children with few if any behavioral challenges. For

the purpose of my research, I needed to choose a classroom with a positive learning

environment that supports the whole child, thereby allowing for prosocial tendencies to

surface.

The Center’s philosophy and curriculum supports care and education of the whole

child. The program replicates a homey environment that is warm and accepting of all

children, as well as of all aspects of their development in body, mind and spirit. The

Center is known for its effort in raising peaceable children. Teachers are asked to use a

glossary that is common in every classroom, addressing children with kind and respectful

words, to show gestures of love and compassion, and lessen the unreasonable limitations

placed on the children. ALC encourages parents’ participation and involvement in

different committees and events. One of the recent and popular committees is the

“Sustainability Committee” in which parents lead activities that educate children and

families to advocate for a sustainable environment.

40
 The preschool program consists of one large pre-kindergarten classroom that runs

a morning and an afternoon session. The uniqueness of the classroom is the open view

provided by many large windows to the wooded backyard. Outside from the classroom is

a huge, fenced playground that includes a sandbox, climber with slides, a bicycle path,

and plenty of grassy areas for running and playing ball or climbing on the climber to get

to the slide. There is a greenhouse and a garden that the children created as part of their

outdoor activities. This study was conducted in an 1100 square feet classroom which

included a variety of centers including those for dramatic play, blocks, science, art,

writing, math, sensory table, music, and reading. Also included, was a large open carpet

area (14x16 feet) for shared manipulative toys, meeting time and large group instruction.

The classroom is divided by centers including a large area devoted to sociodramatic play.

I chose a corner of the sociodramatic play area to place the video camera. The video

camera recorded children when they were actively engaged in their sociodramatic play in

the classroom. In addition to the video recordings of the play events, I collected field

notes during my observations of the children while they interacted with peers, play props,

and their teachers.

Examples of children’s prosocial behaviors and empathic tendencies that were

exhibited during sociodramatic play were identified and coded. I created the classification

scheme through both inductive and deductive processes based on the literature I’ve

reviewed and the observations I’ve made of the participants. Selected examples from the

collected data are presented in the text in chapter 4. Equally important components to this

data collection and analysis, are the verbal and non-verbal interactions of the children,

they too are presented throughout the text.

41
 The study includes 24 children between 36 and 71 months of age (12 girls and 12

boys) who attended ALC part- or full-time. These children are from middle and upper-

middle class families. Most children’s parents are married and are in professional careers.

A number of the parents are in medical or educational careers. Only one family has a

stay-at-home parent, a father in this case. The families come from a variety of cultural

backgrounds with some families new to life in the United States. Home languages for

some children include, Arabic, Korean, and Telugu (Native to India).

There are up to 20 children per session (morning or afternoon) in the pre-k classroom

with 3 teachers in the classroom. These teachers circulate in the classroom as they see the

need to facilitate, engage in and/or scaffold children’s play activities. The children

participate in one hour of sociodramatic play activity in each of the morning and

afternoon on sessions. Data for this study were all collected during the morning sessions.

All children and teachers are identified with pseudonyms. Table 1 below includes

demographic information about the children such as the number of days attended per

week, age in months, age when child first enrolled at the Center, gender, and number of

siblings. Table 2 includes demographic information about the teachers.

42
Table 1
Description of Children Participating in Sociodramatic Play

Name Sessions Gender Age Age Number of

Attended (months) (months) Siblings
at
Enrollment
Rachel 5 F 36 30 1
Lilly 3 F 39 36 1
Victoria 5 F 44 25 1
William 3 M 47 36 0
Jonathan 5 M 47 18 1
Lewis 4 M 48 19 0
Lakshmi 5 F 52 45 1
Amy 5 F 54 47 0
Joyce 4 F 54 36 0
Mollie 4 F 54 36 1
Lamar 3 M 54 24 2
Lucas 5 M 56 18 2
Virginia 5 F 57 38 1
Allison 5 F 57 36 1
Rickie 3 M 58 36 1
Krishna 4 M 61 30 1
Nevin 5 F 63 18 1
Neely 5 F 63 18 1
James 3 M 63 40 1
Lauren 2 F 64 24 2
Ronnie 3 M 64 44 1
Rodney 3 M 64 59 1
Brad 3 M 66 24 2
Rudy 3 M 71 36 1

Table 2
Description of Teachers

Name Education Years of Experience Race

Stacey AA in ECE 12 White
Linda AA in ECE 8 White
Jessica MA in ECE 3 African-American

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Entry to the Site and Gaining Consent

Due to my relationship with the center as the program director, and my

professional working relationship with the teachers, there were no issues regarding entry

to the preschool. I met with the 3 teachers of the pre-k classroom early in the year. I

explained that I would be observing the children in the sociodramatic play area. I assured

them that this observation would not in any way be an assessment of their performance. I

did however mention that throughout my observation period I might share my findings to

enhance the level of play and general quality of the program. My presence in the

classroom was a common practice and the teachers were used to seeing me in different

capacities of evaluating the program in its entirety, assessing a child’s development, and

being engaged with the children. All three teachers consented to my presence in the

classroom.

Written details of the study along with a request for permission to videotape the children

were emailed to the parents and consents were obtained. I was available in person,

especially at arrival and dismissal time, so that I could speak with parents and address

their questions and concerns. One hundred percent of the parents gave me permission to

observe and video-record their children.

Observation and Data Collection

Observation in qualitative research focuses on more naturalistic observation (i.e.,

whatever is being observed is studied in its natural setting) and tends to concentrate on

the whole content including behaviors and the environmental setting. Most qualitative

studies rely on observations and interviews as types of data collection. Since my focus

44
was on young children and their interactions in a “play setting,” observation was a critical

aspect of my data collection. My prolonged relationship with the participants’ daily

practices allowed me to achieve “data saturation” (Glesne, 1998) and have collaborative

relationships so I could view “authentic” behavior, rather than running the risk of only

seeing participants trying to display themselves in what they may have believed to be a

favorable light (Merriam, 1998). I found my relationships with the center, staff and the

children advantageous in acquiring an authentic observation. I knew the children’s family

backgrounds, recent events in their lives and even their home settings as I had been in

some of their homes. I observed children engaged in sociodramatic play, recorded field

notes, and videorecorded the children’s play episodes. More details regarding my data

collection methods follow below.

Data Collection

The week before the actual data collection time, I set up the camera in the area

where I could see the most activities taking place. Due to the noise level from the

adjacent block area, I was not able to distinguish some of the conversations between the

children during their play. I asked the teachers to close this area temporarily and instead

moved a large Lego table to the classroom to compensate for the absence of blocks as a

center. I started my data collection for the 4 weeks from March 3-29, 2014. Monday

through Friday from 9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. I set up the camera the night before, and

came to the classroom around 8:30 as most children started arriving. I helped with arrival

procedures which included children signing in and putting their belongings away.

Children are each assigned a locker that has their names on the inside of the locker. The

children first enter the foyer right outside of their classroom. They sit on the bench in the

45
foyer, take off their shoes and take them over to their lockers. They place their

belongings and then pick up their indoor shoes to wear inside the school. The children are

required to wash their hands upon completion of their arrival tasks and then join in for a

short period of greeting time. The children then step in to another room and gather around

on the carpet. They meet for about 15 minutes in large group (meeting or circle time) in

which they read books, sing songs, and practice turn taking by participating in group

discussions on a variety of topics. The teachers talk about what centers are available to

the children and the children are asked to make their choices known to their teachers and

peers as they get called on. Those who chose to participate in the sociodramatic play

center meet with a teacher and often first read a book related to the sociodramatic play

area’s current set of props. The teacher often opens discussion about the possible roles in

the play, and the children choose the role they wanted to play in the sociodramatic play

center.

Sociodramatic play is usually one of the most popular centers and it continued to

be popular for most of the data collection period. Sociodramatic play is the medium

within which children think, communicate, and act. The children negotiate social

relationships, engage in emotional exchange, collaborate to include participants, and try

to resolve conflicts so their play can continue. In order to sustain the play, children

develop rules to determine space, props, and even roles generated by gender or activity.

Sociodramatic play provides children the opportunity to socialize, negotiate, assume roles

and take the perspective of the other while stepping into a world of possibilities (Bodrova

& Leong, 2006). Children’s play is a medium in which children mold private thoughts

and feelings as well as a vehicle for communicating these thoughts and feelings (Ariel,

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2002). I expected to see these relationships unfold during my observation, as it had been

in the past. I had seen children take on a role of a doctor, a shopkeeper, a cook, a

princess, and simply a mother or a father. They try roles familiar to them and roles that

are purely make believe, they however enjoy and engaged in both play equally. While

observing the children’s play, I expected to see their language of play, the rules they

negotiate, and the overall function of prosocial behavior in developing and sustaining

their play. I expected to see the creative aspect of the moves the children make (prosocial

or otherwise) within the complex network of play relationships in which they are

engaged. By choosing sociodramatic play as a case study for this research, I intended to

shed some insight in the area of prosocial behavior and how it is exhibited in the

sociodramatic play.

During the first two weeks of data collection, I set up the sociodramatic play area

to resemble a home with living room furnishings, dress up clothes, and a full kitchen.

Initially only two children visited the center and interacted with the materials while I was

present. I gradually added more props as time went on and even on occasions I brought

the props to the carpet for the children to see during their meeting time. This helped both

to create an interest and also ignite some ideas of how to play with the materials. A list of

the play props is in Table 3. The extras included a mobile phone, a sound making vacuum

cleaner and a couple of strollers. The novelty of these materials and their popularity

helped create more instances for observation of how the children negotiated turns to use

the props. I chose a home living for the sociodramatic play because almost every child is

familiar with this theme and it is considered to be popular among all children. The initial

relative lack of interest may have been due to my presence or perhaps having the camera

47
in that center. But, by the third day of data collection, the children had become

accustomed to my presence and to the camera being present, making the sociodramatic

play area as popular as usual.

Table 3
The List of Play Props for the Home Living Theme

Apron Family Themed Dress-up

Clothes
Baby Blanket Full Length Mirror
Baby Bottle Home Living Furniture
Baby Clothes Ironing Board
Baby Crib Kitchen Furniture
Baby Diaper Phone
Baby Dolls Plastic Food
Broom Dustpan Purses
Cell Phone Real Toaster Oven
Cookware Silverware
Cups Stroller
Dinnerware Table/Chairs
Dish Towel Trash Can
Egg Beater Vase and Flowers
Empty Food Boxes

The sociodramatic play area was often the first choice for many of the children.

As time went by and especially during the second phase of the data collection when the

area became a veterinary clinic, more and more children became interested in

participating in that center. Typically, there are four children allowed to play at the center

at a time, and it almost always works out well with children leaving the play and new

ones joining in. There were occasions at the beginning of the week that more children

were interested in choosing the sociodramatic play as the first activity of their choice.

The teachers recognized the issue and took it on as an opportunity to engage the children

in solving the problem at hand. After some discussions, the children came up with a turn

taking idea. Ms. Stacey assisted the children with making a “waiting list” where children

48
wrote their names down on a piece of paper and placed it on the shelf outside of the

center. This helped ease the tension for some of the children as they realized that they

would eventually have a chance to play in the center.

After two weeks of the home living theme, I introduced a veterinary clinic in the

dramatic play area. My goal was to provide an opportunity in which children can rely on

previous knowledge about the themes presented in the dramatic play so they can assign

and assume different roles to play. This provided opportunities to display caring

behavior by the children. The notion of an animal in need of medical care brought

children to demonstrate kindness and compassion not only toward their animal patients

but concerns toward the owners of the sick animals.

I thought that one of the best – and probably one of the most enjoyable – ways for

children to show prosocial behavior and empathy would be through the human-animal

relationship. Beginning at birth, we surround children with animals, sometimes real and

sometimes not. Their clothing is often decorated with animals. Stuffed animals are

cuddled, named, and become trusted confidants. Plastic animals accompany them in their

baths. Most children learn their numbers by counting animals and learn to read from

pages filled with pictures of animals. Of course, real animals also fill their lives:

companions at home, creatures encountered in nature, and those introduced to them in

school and in the media.

During week 3 and 4 of my data collection, I incorporated veterinary clinic play

props in the sociodramatic area. A list of the play props is presented in Table 4. One

corner of the play area was designed to be the waiting room. The office reception desk

was placed in the corner of that area with a telephone, a typewriter, memo pad, pencils,

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and a card holder with business cards that I had picked up from a local animal hospital.

Behind the desk was a chair for the secretary and across from it was another chair for the

person visiting the office. On the other side of the visitor’s chair was a red leather couch

and next to it was an end table with a plant and some magazine about animals on the top

of it. There was a table on the side covered with a blue tarp and with some supplies on the

top. In the middle of the area I placed a stack of gym mats and covered it with cloth to

resemble a hospital bed. I included a cage, a number of different stuffed animals, toys and

pretend food for the animals. A “Sunflower Veterinary Clinic” sign was made by the

children in addition to posters of animals, pictures of nurses and veterinarians were

posted all around the area. I had brought in an x-ray viewing light box and placed an x-

ray image of an animal’s vertebrae on it. Some of the children interacted with the cell

phone and pager to call for help, as others enacted the role of veterinarian and secretary

responding to the calls. Table 4 below shows the list of the play props available to the

children.

50
Table 4
The List of the Play Props for the Veterinary Clinic

Animal Cage Paper/Writing Utensils

Bandage Patient Information Form
Blankets Pet Picture Cards/Posters
Blood Pressure Cuff Phone
Cell Phone Prescription Pad
Clip Board Stethoscope
Doctor’s Bag Surgical Table
Dog Breed Chart Syringe/Needle
Dog Treat Table Covering
Hospital Bed Table/Chairs
Hours of Operation Sign Thermometer
Lots of Stuffed Animals Waiting Room Sign
One Vet Clinic Banner X-Ray Machine
Open and Closed Signs X-Ray Viewing Light Box
Pager

The main form of data collection during this play kit continued to be observation,

video recording and field notes. The field notes documented what actually happened

during children’s play, notes to myself, and also my interpretation of the events and

exchanges.

As I had done during the two weeks of home living theme, children’s play

episodes were video recorded every day during the veterinary clinic so that I could

repeatedly view them later and transcribe them. Each day after down loading the

recording to my laptop, I deleted the recording from the camera and positioned the

camera back in place for the next day’s recording. The purpose of the video recording

was to capture the children’s verbal interactions as well as non-verbal cues that were

indicative of presence or lack of prosocial and empathic behavior as they interacted with

their peers, play props and environment. A total of 10 video recordings were documented

amounting to more than 10 hours of play episodes of the veterinary clinic.

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The Role of a Qualitative Researcher

The researcher’s role in a qualitative study ranges from the non-participant

observer to participant observer. The non-participant observer takes an outsider’s

perspective, which has the advantage of detachment and considerable objectivity.

Participant observation refers to a form of research in which the researcher takes on a role

in the social situation under observation. The researcher is immersed in the research

setting, getting to know the participants with the aim of experiencing the activities from

the participants’ perspective. The participant observer is an insider, or a member of the

community being observed, who is trusted by the participants, and who has meaningful

contact with the participants in order to gain benefits, such as becoming privy to

information (Spradly, 1980). It is important to note that, as the director of the Center, the

teachers might have felt some power-dynamic at play and have thereby changed their

ways of working with the children to be more attentive. However, I attempted to

ameliorate this possible effect by doing the following. First, and this was not difficult

because it was already my usual practice, I made a point to be very present in the

classrooms and Center all the time, not just for these particular observations. The teachers

are very used to my presence. Second, I made myself as unobtrusive in the play area as

possible. I avoided directly interacting with the children or teachers. In fact, I stayed just

outside the sociodramatic play area, though close enough to observe and hear clearly

what was occurring. Additionally, I observed every day for quite a lengthy period.

Although teachers, and children, might have been on their “best behavior” initially, after

several days, it is unlikely that could be sustained. I feel I was able to observe authentic

interactions that were not substantially impacted by my presence.

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It was for the advantages of the participant observer role, however, that I decided to

select a research site with which I am closely involved and base my study primarily on

participant observation. I have in fact an advantage due to the nature of my relationship

with the children and the classroom environment. I am the first person they see and

interact when they first come to the center for a tour with their parents. I have the

opportunity to introduce our prospective students to the classroom teachers, and their

future peers. I direct my attention to the child, kneeling down at their level when

explaining where they can make their play choices and where to look for different play

and work items. All throughout the year, children find me an integrated part of their day,

as I greet them in the morning and at dismissal time. The children see me in their

classroom on the carpet during large group time, watching them, and sometimes engaged

in play at different centers. I conduct regular staff meetings and team meetings to discuss

issues related to specific children, and I am always available for consultations regarding

teaching strategies for particular children and/or any socio-emotional concerns that may

arise. I greatly benefitted from such an in-depth knowledge of the children during my

observation of their play behavior in my role as a participant observer. I was indeed

involved in the children’s activities while gaining perception of the reality they

constructed (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1996).

Data Sources

I chose a qualitative study to explore how two sociodramtic play kits (home living

and veterinarian office) and materials that I calculated could engage children in

demonstrating their prosocial and empathic behavior. The purpose of the study was to

explore the interaction of the children with peers and play props as they engaged in

53
pretend play. Participants were the children who would enter the sociodramatic play

center by choice during the time of study. I focused on 4 children at a time who entered

the sociodramatic play area during the morning session. The case study approach was

chosen to explore the relationship between the children and their environment in which

they played. The sources of information were video recordings of the children while

engaged in play, field notes and researcher’s memos. A case study by nature seeks to

produce an in-depth description of events under study. It is also suggested that the

researcher begins analyzing the data while the data collection is in progress (Leedy &

Ormrod, 2005). Emerson et al. (2001) contend that “descriptive writing embodies and

reflects particular purposes and commitments, and it also involves active processes of

interpretation and sense-making” (p. 353). During my data collection, therefore, I made

notes on the margin of my field notes as well as during the transcribing of the video

recordings. These notes included but were not limited to comments about codes or

background information about a child or event; notes to myself that included ideas for

professional development, or just ideas of adding to the play props to observe the

children’s reaction, all of which were tied directly to the data being collected.

The Process of Data Analysis

Data analysis in qualitative study can be done as the data are being collected

(Merriam, 1998). Qualitative research is emergent in nature (Gall et al., 1996) and I was

able to examine different behaviors at different points within the study. For example

when I observed a caring gesture from a child I attributed it to a prosocial behavior. I

incorporated the existing literature on prosocial behavior and empathic capacity in

conjunction with data analysis strategy of triangulation to analyze the data. Separate

54
pieces of information including, video recordings, observation, field notes, and

researcher’s memos were used in triangulation of the data. Video recordings were

recorded and saved to be viewed as many times as needed to include notes in longhand of

the children’s verbal exchanges, and more accurately the verbatim passages. There were

times that I could not decipher a child’s words. I would review that section of the video

repeatedly and if still not clear, I asked a teacher to view the clip with me to help clarify

the words, preferably verbatim. The transcription provided me with an accurate account

of children’s verbal exchanges in long hand. I also accounted for their gestures and was

descriptive in my field notes.

After compiling the field notes and the video transcriptions, I searched to identify

units of data. A unit of data refers to “any meaningful (or potentially meaningful)

segment of data” (Merriam, 1998, p. 179). I identified prosocial and empathic behaviors

as units of data and started the coding process by reading the transcripts line by line to

include emerging insights, tentative concepts, and possible questions in the margins. As

an attempt to verify that my interpretation of the data were appropriate, I sought feedback

from an objective colleague who reviewed the coded transcripts with me, and was able to

draw valid conclusions (Leedy and Omrod, 2005). I received an overwhelming

agreement with my choice of coding. I also realized that children’s sentences, and

nonverbal language were coded for more than one function in prosocial and empathic

behavior categories. This I attributed to the nature of the play kits, age of the children and

the activities in which they were engaged.

The analysis procedure constituted the organization of data, the interpretation of

vignettes, and single instances, identification of patterns, synthesis and generalization

55
(Leedy & Ormrod, 2005). In addition to analyzing single vignettes, I included thematic

examples based on the prosocial and empathic themes mentioned in the literature review

and those derived from codes that I categorized into the following 5 themes:

• empathy/care;

• cooperation/compliance;

• respect/acceptance;

• problem solving/negotiation;

• sense of community/emotional wellbeing

Organization of Data

A triangulation method was used to pull field notes, video recording and its

transcripts, and research memos together to establish the findings’ trustworthiness.

Specific strands of information were identified and related examples of children’s spoken

words, behaviors and gestures were extracted from the data. In addition, vignettes were

produced to explore the prosocial behaviors and empathic tendencies of the children

during play.

Interpretation of the Data

I examined the field notes, researcher’s memos, video recordings, and transcripts

for specific meanings they held in relation to the case study. Field notes included my

written accounts of what exactly happened during my observations. I included children’s

conversations almost verbatim going through a process to compare my field notes of the

conversations to the video recording transcripts for accuracy. I expanded on these field

56
notes during my observations (when possible writing a word or short sentence) and

immediately after the observations with more detailed accounts of my impressions. These

included notes on individual child’s home background, usual play behavior and possible

special circumstances that may have contributed to the child’s behavior that I observed.

The purpose of these detailed notes was to understand the child’s behavior viewing the

“whole” child and not an isolated single strand of behavior. I regarded observation as my

primary source of data, and field notes as a primary recording tool by which an accurate

account of participants, conversations, place and play events were described (Glesne,

2006).

Interpretation of data was a work in progress across the data collection period and

beyond. I included information that helped with answering the research question: How do

children exhibit prosocial and empathic behaviors during sociodramatic play?

Identification of Patterns

I studied the data and my interpretations for underlying themes. Based on what I

had observed in the classroom at this center, I expected to see themes of prosocial and

empathic behaviors as discussed in the literature review section of this study such as:

kindness, courtesy, and generosity. I used pattern coding (Miles & Huberman, 1994;

Saldaña, 2009) in order to develop the conceptual and thematic organization of the data

(Saldaña, 2009). For example, “cooperation” was a code that I wrote again and again and

it often coincided with the construct of care, and compliance. As more of the same

concepts became identifiable, I began to see a pattern of behavior that children

demonstrated as an important part of their socialization skills. In the course of the next

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chapters, I will also discuss instances of prosocial behavior as well as (occasional) lack

thereof. For example, the same child that demonstrated prosocial behavior one day, was

not as cordial on another day.

Member Checking During the Process of Interpreting the Data

In order to evaluate and verify the accuracy of the interpretations of my data I

used member checking throughout the study. After my daily observation session, during

the lunch break, I had informal conversations with the classroom teachers to ask for their

interpretations and share mine to ensure the interpretations of children’s behavior made

sense. This allowed me the opportunity to review the field notes for accuracy and

additional thoughts or comments (Stake, 1995). There were times that the voices of the

children were not clear in the video recordings, at these times, I made notations on the

transcript and later viewed the clip in question with a teacher for clarification.

Before proceeding with the writing of the analysis, it is important to mention that

throughout the process of data collection, coding, and the analysis, I had absolutely no

intention to label the children or the teachers. Instead, my primary focus was to make

interpretations of the children’s statements and actions, and not a classification of their

characters. During data interpretation, if there were situations that I questioned my

interpretation of a particular passage, I viewed the video again and this time looked for

the tone of voice or other non-verbal cues to help me reexamine my interpretation and the

intent of the statement. At other times, I consulted a colleague who agreed to view the

clip and share her findings with me. I sought the help of the same colleague to

incorporate intercoder agreement on codes and themes (Creswell, 1997) that I had

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identified during my data interpretation (Armstrong, Gosling, Weinman, & Marteau,

1997). I presented her with the transcripts of the video recordings and asked her to read

and code the transcripts. We then reviewed our selection of codes and themes and

discussed the underlying reason for our selection. The resulting set of agreed-upon codes

and themes are what I used to analyze the data.

Ethics

I was overt about my study to the teachers and parents. I informed the teachers

about my research and assured them that it would not be an evaluation of their

performance. I offered age appropriate explanations to the children regarding my

presence and observation of their activities. I wrote a letter to the parents about my

research and shared the letter of approval from the university’s Internal Review Board

(IRB). I used the IRB prescribed permission form and asked parents to sign, allowing me

to document my observations and the video recordings of their children, while assuring

them of the children’s anonymity in my research. I did not begin my data collection until

all permission forms were signed and returned to me. The permission forms, my field

notes, video recording and its transcription are stored in a locked cabinet and will be

destroyed later. The children and the teachers were assigned pseudonyms in this

manuscript.

Reciprocity

“Qualitative studies intrude into settings as people adjust to the researcher’s

presence” (Marshall, & Rossman, 2006, p. 81). I was grateful to the teachers for

accommodating my presence and the changes it brought to their classroom. To thank

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them, I offered them trainings about practices that can improve sociodramatic play in

their classroom. I was able to render my ideas and services for creating a classroom

environment that is conducive to teaching peaceable children in their classroom during

the data collection period. I also donated books to the teachers, and other resource

materials that they can use in their classroom.

Limitations of the Study

Historically, the Center has had a large population of middle and upper middle

class families. Although, the Center accepts state subsidized children, it is usually only a

very small percentage of that population who enroll at the center. This lack of diverse

SES backgrounds is a limitation to the study. Another limitation is the length of the

study, in that observations were made at only one time of year across just four weeks.

However, this study was not designed to consider possible longitudinal trends in

children’s prosocial behaviors. Likewise, given that observations were made only in the

sociodramatic play area, I cannot make claims about the pervasiveness of children’s

prosocial behaviors in other contexts.

Triangulation

A case study allows flexibility in data collection methods, which can be adjusted

to meet the needs of the study. A combination of data collection methods includes

observations, field notes, a review of documents and artifacts, and informal study notes

(Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2003). The attempt at collecting multiple forms of data allowed for

triangulation of information. Triangulation helps to eliminate bias that might result from

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relying exclusively on any one data collection method, source, analyst, or theory (Gall et

al., 1996). The process of triangulation strengthens the validity of the findings.

Summary

I collected data over a period of 4 weeks during the morning session in a pre-

kindergarten preschool classroom for a period of one hour each day, amounting to 20

hours of recordings. The purpose was to observe emergent prosocial behaviors in

preschool children as they interacted with peers, their environment and materials present

in the sociodramatic play area. I was engaged in participant observation of the children,

used a video camera to record the children at play, and recorded my observation in a

dated field notes which included verbal and non-verbal interactions between the children

during their pretend play. As part of my data collection, I recorded research memos on

daily basis immediately after completing my observation in order to maintain a sense of

organization in my data. I had the advantage of knowing the children, teachers and the

setting, which allowed me to start the data collection immediately upon receiving IRB

approval, without needing to spend time in the classroom to become acquainted with the

participants and the setting.

Data included extensive observations, records of children’s conversations with

their teachers and peers, field notes, and research memos. Areas of observation included

practices that indicated capacity for empathy, social responsibility, friendship, kindness,

and equity among the preschool children.

My hypothesis is that young children exhibit prosocial behavior when interacting

with their peers, and environment. The following question was the focus of this research:

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How do children exhibit prosocial behavior with their peers and their environment?

For this research, dramatic play was considered to be an open forum for exploration of

different roles, containing all aspects of children’s social emotional development. The

following are examples of prosocial behaviors and empathy that I anticipated to observe

from the children during their sociodramatic play: sharing, helping, comforting, making

reparations, turn taking, recognizing feelings of others and responding appropriately, turn

taking, respects and caring for classroom environment and materials by using it properly.

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 Chapter Four

Results

In this case study I explored preschool children’s prosocial and empathic

behaviors while engaged in sociodramatic play. In qualitative research, researchers need

to know both what constitutes their theoretical framework and how they are developed

throughout the analyses and writing (Golden-Bidle and Locke, 1997). Undergirding the

work in this manuscript is my belief, based on research evidence and many years of

experience with young children, that children are capable of displaying prosocial

behavior and empathy in their interactions with peers and objects. My research question

specifically targets these two constructs during the sociodramatic play in a pre-k

classroom of 3-5 year old participants. In this chapter I present findings from the analysis

of the study’s data through my interpretative lens. A brief introduction of my “lens”

through which I see the children will be appropriate for this descriptive qualitative

research.

As an educator and care provider for young children, my view of children first

and foremost influences the guidelines I place for selecting, recruiting, and training my

staff. The traditional view of children such as those of learning theory and the cognitive–

developmental view pioneered by Piaget and Kohlberg, portrayed young children as

egocentric thinkers whose self-interest is the basis for the choices they make. Children in

this view, respond to the incentives and sanctions provided by their peers and adults in

their lives; and their actions are guided by rewards and punishment. These beliefs still
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guide some parents’ child rearing methods, and early childhood care and education

providers’ practices. Inspired by the constructivist approach to education, I have a

different understanding from my interactions with young children. The re-examination of

the traditional view of children by the developmental scientists and the research

conducted by early childhood educators resulted in different findings, namely, that young

children have been found to be interested in the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of other

people; as well as active interpreters of experience. As the notion of egocentrism

dissipates from the most commonly held beliefs among early childhood educators,

opportunities for children’s socio-emotional learning surface. The function of rewards

and punishments in altering behavior, therefore is replaced by the relational incentives

that exist in a child’s life. This became evident during my observations of the children in

their sociodramatic play as suggested by Corsaro (2003) that “kids link or articulate local

features of the ongoing play to their developing conceptions of the adult world” (p.126).

The child becomes interested in maintaining an environment of cooperation as it is

perceived by the adult in his or her life. Children are also influenced by their peers

(Pellegrini & Galda, 2001). They develop friendships and become motivated to maintain

their relationships through application of their social skills. There are also occasions

when children demonstrate social skills without having an intention from which they

directly benefit; these I consider to be prosocial behavior. Throughout the analysis of my

data I considered my central question: “How do children demonstrate prosocial behavior

during their sociodramtaic play?” To best answer this question, it is important to include

an analysis of the environment in which the children spend a major part of their day.

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Equally noteworthy is the role of the teachers and their strategies in affection,

communication, and proactive efforts that are instrumental in the child’s social-emotional

well-being and development. The discussion below is aimed at analyzing both the

physical as well as the social emotional environment created by the teachers in the

classroom.

All data were collected from the participants during their usual play. Analyzing

across my observations, field notes and memos, I identified major concepts and behaviors

that addressed my research question. Children’s play episodes and events represented the

behaviors I interpreted as prosocial and/or empathic based on the definitions I described

in Chapter 2. Before launching into discussion of those episodes, I will set the stage with

some more description and analysis of the classroom context and more information about

the teachers.

Analysis of ALC Classroom Set-up, Daily Schedule and Procedures

After carefully analyzing the data, the classroom set-up and schedule appeared to

have provided many opportunities for children to interact with their peers in a socially

appropriate manner. A glance at a typical day of the preschoolers at ALC will provide an

inside view of the carefully designed environment and schedule. Most of the children

arrive between 8:30-8:40. Parents have the option of using the drive up lane to wait for a

staff member to go to the car, greet the child and the parent and help the child to walk

into school. Even with this convenience, there are still parents as well as children who

prefer to escort or be escorted to school by the parent. Whichever the choice, the idea
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behind this special arrival arrangement is that at any given time there will be a noticeable

interaction between a staff member and the child accompanied by his or her parent. There

had been occasions that parents came after the arrival time and had to wait at the door for

a staff member to respond to the doorbell to enter. A parent once suggested to me to

install a coded key pad so parents can just enter the code and walk in, to which I

answered, “and take the risk of missing a chance to greet you personally?” This

arrangement is in fact by design, as the school tries to uphold social standards that

promote sociability.

As the children arrive, they immediately sit on a bench in the foyer and remove

their shoes to change into a pair of “indoor shoes.” This policy came about several years

ago when the program actively took a “Going Green” approach to much of its practices at

school. As the director of the center, I had witnessed many families from a non-Western

culture enter the school and either attempt to or to actually remove their shoes upon

arrival. This was both a sign of respect and a confirmation that one is entering a sacred

space; this practice resonated well with me as I witnessed a similar practice while

growing up. In addition to the cultural aspect of this practice, I read research findings that

showed how this simple practice results in a cleaner, safer environment for the children.

The children then walk to their lockers that are individually assigned and labeled with

their names to place their belongings. After that they are guided to wash their hands, then

join in at the table where they engage in some table-top activities while socializing and

waiting for the rest of the children to arrive. After this “Greeting Time,” comes “Snack

Time”; immediately followed by the “Meeting Time.” For this segment of the day the

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children step down into another room. This room has an area of 1100 square feet with

large windows around the room inviting natural daylight and a pleasant view of the trees,

birds and squirrels running in the outdoor play area. The paint colors on the walls were

chosen after research was done on the effect of the colors on children. A light violet color

on one side of the room was chosen to complement a light gold color on the other side

while doors and windowsills remained in white. A typical pre-k classroom is often loaded

with poster signs, children’s art and pictures which adds to a sensory overload for some

children. The walls of this classroom are decorated with the conventional signs found in

pre-k classrooms, except that they are not “store bought,” but made by the children’s

work. For example, on the wall in the reading area where there is a child size couch and a

low book shelf, is decorated with a series of 3x5 index cards of the children’s works of

art representing the alphabet letters. Other walls include children’s art, writing samples,

pictures of the children while engaged in an activity with the caption. At the beginning of

the school year, teachers request a collage of family portraits to be sent from home; these

are also posted on the walls so children can make the connection from home to school.

During the meeting time all the children gather around on the carpet to sing,

dance and engage in storytelling. The children are rarely assigned to a seat, this allows

them to choose where on the carpet they want to sit. Occasionally, if a children

encounters a conflict regarding the seat arrangements, the teacher gently assists in finding

a resolution. The “Meeting Time” is designed to develop a sense of community and

companionship during which children have a chance to share with the whole group. The

area under the easel is reserved for placing the materials that are chosen by the teachers to

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be introduced to children during this time. The materials may include a new activity or a

new play prop that may be used in the sociodramatic play area that day. A selected

number of books are also present at the foot of the easel to be read to the children. At the

end of this time, each of the three teachers takes a group of the children and a few books

and moves to different corner of the classroom to begin their small group times. Those

children who choose sociodramatic play as their first choice meet with a teacher near the

sociodramatic play center for reading and discussing some stories before they start their

play. The books chosen are often related to the sociodramatic play theme that is set up for

that day. During my data collection, I left the choice of books to the teachers for both of

the sociodramatic play themes, but I made a collection of related books available to them.

A sample of the books that were made available is included in Table 5 and 6.

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Table 5
List of Books on Family/Friendship

Always and Forever by Debi Gliori

Because I Love You by David Bedfordmake
Family Forest by Kim Kane
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
I Love You All Day Long by Francesca Rusackas
I Love You More by Laura Duksta
Kindness Counts by Debby Anderson
Love you Forever by Robert Munsch
My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck
The Family Book by Todd Parr
The Thankful Book by Todd Parr
We are One by Jennifer Black
You by Stephen King

Table 6
List of Books on Animal Care

If you Give a Dog a Doughnut by Laura
Numeroff
Skippy Jones in the Doghouse by Judy
Schachner
Dog Biscuit by Helen Coupe
A Cat Called Penguin by Holly Webb
My Cat, My Dog by Katrina Streza
Matilda's Cat by Emily Graver
I Love My Cat by David Cruka
Mr. Waffles by David Wiesher
Up Cat by Hazel Hutchins
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise
Brown
Animals, Animals by Eric Carle
A Color of His Own by Leo Lioni
Out and About the Vet Clinic by Kitty
Shea
Bark, George by Jules Feiffer
Pets All Around by Sarah Schuette
My Humongous Hamster by Brue Hale
Pets by CT Wilton
Everything Pets by James Spears
Baby Animals by King Fisher
We work at the Vet’s by Angela Aylmore
Sally Goes to the Vet by Stephen Huneck
What Happens at Vet’s Office by Amy
Hutchings
At the Animal Hospital by Carol Greene
Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough

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Teachers’ Roles and Strategies at the ALC

Teachers have an important role in children’s acquisition of social skills. These

skills are best developed in an appropriate group care environment, and teachers are often

the guides for children’s first experiences with socialization skills required to interact

harmoniously in a fairly large group of children. The teacher is responsible for creating a

healthy socio-emotional environment where children can feel respected and cared for.

The ALC teachers planned activities to have parents stay connected to their children’s

life at school. They also provided activities and opportunities during which children

shared their home lives with their peers. For example, one activity designed to bridge

home and school was called “Take Home Turtle.” For this activity, a stuffed turtle in a

bag with a binder was sent home with each child and upon its return, a journal of events

along with pictures came back in the binder. This binder included the child’s pictures

often always holding the turtle while engaged in family activities such as going out to

dinner, visiting a park or getting ready for bed. The pictures and the journal were shared

with the children during the large group time. This activity helped children make

connections between home and school, and it helped them to be comfortable talking

about their families to their peers. As part of the daily routine, the teachers created a job

chart in which three children were selected to be snack helper, light helper and clean up

inspector. This activity was aimed at creating a sense of community and was particularly

beneficial to include socially reserved children. The conversations that took place

between the teachers and the children during group time were often indicative of a safe,

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supportive environment in which the children’s individuality was accepted and respected

by all.

The ALC’s teachers implemented a positive classroom culture that allowed

children to feel valued and validated. Teachers made every effort to give the children

their undivided attention as they engaged in long conversations during different segments

of the day. This type of communication was extended to the families also. Teachers were

available during arrival and dismissal as well as during intentionally scheduled occasions

and events that drew families to the school and to their classrooms. Systematic attention

to establishing and maintaining frequent communication started one week before school

officially started with an evening event called Summer Visitation. For this event, families

and children were invited to visit the classroom where they met their teachers and peers.

This was also intended for the families to meet and potentially initiate relationships with

other families which I have seen last beyond preschool years. ALC has an open door

policy for parents to visit at any given time. There were scheduled events such as Fairy

Tale Ball in October; Fall Feast in November; Cookie Exchange in December,

Grandparents and Special Friend’s day in February; Spring Festival in March; Pastry for

Parents in April; and the ever-favorite Annual Art Show in May that provided

opportunities for the families to volunteer and be recognized as stakeholders in their

children’s care and education. I am always amazed at the generosity of the parents in

their donation of time, talents and resources whenever the teachers mentioned a request.

As part of building relationship with the community, the teachers yearly ask for donations

for the Toledo Humane Society. During the collection week, I observed the children

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carrying bags of pet friendly goods to school. They read books and learned about animal

shelters and what shelter workers do to help animals; most children were well on their

way to becoming animal advocates in a short time. At the end of the collection period a

representative from the humane society came to school to speak with the children in the

classroom. Last time she brought a rescued dog that she had adopted and shared the story

of how she found the dog in poor health. Her talk with the children focused on the time

and effort she spent on caring for the dog. The children were very impressed and had lots

of questions for her. I particularly know of a child who took the story home to her parents

and came back with a generous cash donation for the society.

There is one more activity that is worth mentioning to illustrate the teachers’

efforts in creating a classroom environment that is conducive to prosocial behavior and

empathic tendencies. In the weeks preceding the winter break, when most families were

busy preparing for the holidays, the teachers requested a donation of toys for

underprivileged children. Once more, I witnessed young children walking to school with

brand new toys in their small hands and big smiles on their faces as they proudly

approached the box and parted ways with the toy. To get the children to reach this stage,

teachers in cooperation with parents, carefully designed lessons to plant the seeds of

empathy in our young children.

Video-recording

Using a video camera to capture play events in the sociodramatic play area was

vital to this study as the recordings constituted a key source of data along with
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observation field notes of the play events that provided additional information to help

address the research question. For example, the issue of gender and age were not of focus

in this study, but field notes findings showed that these two constructs were not

necessarily a contributing factor to the way in which the children interacted with peers

and their environment. There were numerous episodes that the children took on a role

that in the past would have been considered unconventional for their gender. Time after

time I observed Lucas and Lamar engaged in vacuuming the carpet, cooking meals, and

feeding the baby, all aspects of home life which at one point were considered to be

female tasks. The observation of these behaviors revealed much about the teaching

practices in the classroom and the teachers’ interactions with the children. Surely, the

children had engaged in similar roles in the past and had not received negative feedback

from teachers or peers.

What follows is a collection of children’s examples of socialization skills, verbal

and non-verbal expressions that are categorized by prosocial behaviors and empathic

behaviors. Following these examples, I will present some more extended vignettes that

allow readers to see the richness and complexity of how young children’s prosocial and

empathic capacities are manifested within a classroom context.

Examples and Types of Prosocial and Empathic Behaviors

In my effort to analyze the data, I identified/coded the concepts found in the data

by reading the transcripts and field notes line by line. These codes were then gathered

into 5 themes according to thematic similarities as presented below.

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 1- Empathy/Care

Showing affection, offering help, recognizing feelings of another, perspective taking

2- Cooperation/Compliance

Developing friendship, playing peacefully, turn taking, sharing, offering toys

3- Respect/Acceptance

Showing tolerance, sharing, turn taking, accepting, respecting others and their belonging,

respecting environment, play props and toys

4- Problem Solving/Negotiation

Finding resolution, recognizing disagreement, self- control/regulation, open/agreeable to

idea

5- Sense of Community/Emotional Wellbeing

Showing kindness/compassion, patience, peaceful play, self-control/regulations

Examples of each theme are provided below.

Theme 1: Empathy/Caring. The following excerpted examples illustrate that

children were demonstrating empathy and caring behavior towards peers and the

environment in which they were playing.

The following examples occurred with the children playing in the sociodramatic play area

when the props and set-up were like a home.

Example 1: Victoria very consciously was holding the baby doll, she reached to scratch

her foot. She leaned over very carefully not putting any pressure on the baby that would

cause the baby harm.

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Example 2: Lewis was engrossed in his role as the dad while making breakfast. He

promptly responded without any hesitation when he heard Victoria’s voice sighing, “Oh

no, I dropped the baby’s bottle.” Lewis quickly turned around to observe the scene and

rushed to pick up the bottle and handed it to Victoria.

Example 3: Mollie was holding the baby doll warmly in her arm and rocking her by

gently moving her knees while sitting on the chair. This action exhibited her awareness of

what makes a baby comfortable.

Example 4: Victoria has a young sister at home and therefore throughout her play she

was more conscious of caring about holding the baby.

Example 5: Ms. Stacey reminded Molly that her baby was hungry, and Molly spent

several minutes at the task of feeding the baby.

Example 6: Victoria chose to hold the baby while vacuuming. She did this while making

sure that the baby was safely positioned in her arm.

Example 7: Krishna suddenly remembered that Amy needed to eat breakfast before going

to school. He rushed to the kitchen and brought her scrambled eggs, Amy was

surprisingly impressed.

Example 8: Ms. Jessica gave the baby doll to Allison and watched her cuddle the baby

lovingly and moved the pillow under the baby’s head while wrapping her in the blanket

ensuring that the baby was well tucked and could breath.

Example 9: Amy ran to Krishna handing him the dress up jacket while reminding him

“You need to wear that before you go to work, it’s very cold today.”

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Example 10: Ms. Jessica looked at the baby in the crib and said, “oh, I think the baby is

crying,” at which point Lucas rushed over, picked up the baby and started rocking her in

his arm.

Example 11: A caring gesture was observed as Lucas put his hand on Lamar’s shoulder

reminding him that he needs to do his homework.

Example 12: Rachel brought the baby doll to Ms. Linda, then she handed her a blanket

and said, “It’s cold.” Ms. Linda accepted the baby and the blanket and gently wrapped the

baby in it. Rachel then took the baby and walked away with a smile.

Theme 2: Cooperation/Compliance. In this study, I observed compliance and

cooperation during children’s play regularly, both compliance and cooperation are

considered important aspects of prosocial behavior. A general consensus between

children was observed to be the backdrop of many play episodes. Disagreement about the

choice of roles to play or props occurred minimally, and when disagreements did occur,

they generally lasted only a short time and were resolved with both parties’ consent. The

children usually reached an agreement mostly on their own and were able to continue

with their play. This was in contrast to the common practice of eliminating the object of

disagreement by the teachers. Below are examples of children’s compliance and

cooperation during their play.

Example 1: Amy validated the role Rachel had chosen as a mom by giving her the apron

even though she had it on at the time and had wanted to be the mom. It was Amy’s first

response to offer Rachel the apron.

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Example 2: Rachel was very involved with her role as she was vacuuming the carpet

when Amy approached her with the idea that it is “time for dinner.” Rachel stopped

vacuuming (although it was a very popular activity) and joined in without any

reservation.

Example 3: Lauren chose to walk to Rickie and give him the beater (the play prop had

just been added to the kit and was very popular) realizing that it was his first time

entering the play.

Example 4: When Lucas realized that Neely was not able to move the heavy crib to

kitchen, he came and lifted one side as Neely held the other side.

Example 5: When Nevin saw Lauren had a hard time figuring out how to put the turtle’s

shed back on, she came to Lauren and showed her how she can use the Velcro to fasten

the shell in place.

Example 6: Lakshmi had a diaper in one hand and the baby doll in the other hand trying

very hard to put a diaper on her baby doll. Out of frustration, she yanked the diaper out

and said, “It won’t work.” Lucas playing in the block area, heard this and walked up to

her and said, “I know how to do it, let me show you.” In the meantime Rickie came to

Lucas to ask him to go back to the block area. Lucas with a serious look and without

lifting his head said, “I’m changing the baby.” He had placed the doll on the table and

was trying to adjust the diaper under the doll. He struggled with keeping the diaper in

place while trying to unfasten the velcro. All through this process, Lakshmi stood by him,

with a look of trust in his competence. After some hard work, Lucas completed the task.

Lakshmi took the doll and placed her on the stroller and started pushing the stroller away.
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 Theme 3: Respect/Acceptance. For this construct to be meaningful in my

observation, I adopted a definition that was beyond the traditional cultural, racial and

religious differences. The children demonstrated respect and acceptance as attitude of

openness and tolerance for the differences of opinion and choices made by their peers.

They were accepting of gender differences, and accommodated their peers holding

different ideas than their own, and respected the different choices made and ways that

was practiced by their peers.

Example 1: Lauren and Rachel persistently invited Lily to join them for pretend play

motioning by hand knowing that Lily does not speak English.

Example 2: Krishna returned Joyce’s stuffed animal that she had brought from home to

share. He recognized that she could not be parted with her toy.

Example 3: Alison and Rachel exchanged respectful language during their pretend play:

Allison: Thank you Rachel for bringing me the sandwich.

Rachel: You are welcome.

Example 4: Nevin was excited to see a stroller in the sociodramatic play area and said

“Thank you Ms. Parvin for bringing a stroller today.”

Example 5: when Ingrid told James that she didn’t want to play pretend, James agreed to

follow her to the carpet so they could play with the cubby toys.

Theme 4: Problem Solving/Negotiation. Negotiation skill can be an important

tool in resolving conflict, solving problems, and building relationships with peers for the

preschoolers. Children learn and practice this skill based on their experiences-by what

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worked in the past. I observed that children’s language was instrumental in in children’s

success in their effort to solve problems and negotiate with peers. As had been in other

areas, teachers’ mediation and modeling were also contributed to reaching the desired

goal.

Example 1: Joyce spent some time trying to open the latch on the animal cage. She

proudly showed Mollie how it was done the next day when Mollie encountered the same

situation.

Example 2: Lauren walked in to a loud quarrel between Lamar and Lucas both wanting to

be the dad. She simply suggested, “Why are you fighting, you both can be dads.”

Example 3: Rachel was busy in her own play, but aware of her surroundings and Lucas’s

need of a trashcan to which she suggested a solution, “Just pretend there is one right

here.”

Example 4: Allison walked up to Victoria who had the glasses and successfully requested

an exchange of the glasses for the hat she had.

Theme 5: Sense of Community/Emotional Well-being. I found this theme to be

inclusive of behaviors that demonstrated kindness and compassion; self-regulations and

patience.

Example 1: Lamar announced that “I’m gonna be the brother, and I will do the

vacuuming.” Lamar found himself as part of the community by offering to vacuum.

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Example 2: As soon as Lauren heard that the next group of children were coming to play

in the sociodramatic play center, she started cleaning up thereby providing an organized

environment for others. She saw herself as part of the classroom community.

Example 3: Joyce was standing in the sociodramatic play center crying. Joyce often

exhibited difficulty with expressing herself verbally and often resorted to crying. Victoria

approached her bringing a book to her. Joyce pushed the book away hard enough that it

fell down on the floor, and continued crying even louder. Victoria’s chin dropped, she did

not expect that reaction; she picked up the book and walked toward the bookshelf to put it

back. Ms. Stacey finished helping another child at the art table, and walked up to Joyce.

“What’s making you so upset Joyce?” Ms. Stacey’s choice of words was to help Joyce

identify her feelings. She then reminded her, “do you remember that I need to hear your

words so I can help you.”

This example illustrates Joyce’s lack of emotional well-being that despite the teachers’

effort in working with Joyce to control her emotions, it still surfaces at times. Victoria

was unpleasantly surprised by Joyce’s inappropriate and unexpected reaction in response

to her kind gesture. Victoria’s facial expression showed her disbelief in what she had

known to be a cause and effect – that your appropriate actions will result in appropriate

reaction. Ms. Stacey’s calm and collected response to Joyce’s behavior, however, is yet

another example of how teachers modeled behavior that they wanted to see in children.

Using a kind tone of voice, she relayed her empathic understanding of Joyce’s emotional

experience and followed up with a plan of action-“I need to hear your words so I can help

you.”

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Example 4: Mollie was crying quietly because Lauren did not want to “share” the dog.

Ms. Stacey suggested to Mollie to “talk to Lauren and see if she can give it to you when

she is done playing with it.” Ms. Stacey’s suggestion in addition to offering a solution to

Mollie’s situation can also be categorized under “Respect/ Acceptance Theme” for

showing Mollie to respect Lauren’s choice of not wanting to “share” the toy. This

example may also be categorized under “Sense of Community/Emotional Wellness”

since Mollie was showing a lack of emotional wellness as she wanted Lauren to disregard

her own wants and give up the toy. It could also be categorized under

“Cooperation/Compliance Theme” for lack thereof.

Example 5: Ms. Stacey asked the children to help in cleaning up the play area to get it

ready for the next group to come in. All children who were participating in the play

cooperatively became engaged in the cleaning activity. Nevin was not playing in this

center but as she was finished at the bock area, she joined the children in cleaning up by

holding up a baby bottle cap and asking, “Hey Rodney, do you know where the baby

bottle is, I have the lid.” Nevin’s offer to help was voluntary as she considered herself a

member of this community.

The Importance of Teachers’ Actions and Words

The sociodramatic play center provided opportunities for children to learn and

exhibit empathy and prosocial behaviors, but to enhance this learning the adult modeling

was undoubtedly an important aspect of developing these behaviors. Across data

collection, I noticed the way in which the teacher became co-player; asked open-ended
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questions; and injected ideas and challenges into play to keep it dynamic; allowing the

children to build social competence. Modeling respect is the most effective approach in

creating an environment that children recognize, accept and respect their peers and the

objects in their surroundings. I observed the teachers making deliberate efforts in

demonstrating respectful language when addressing the children and being responsive to

their needs. Their tone of voice was not threatening or intimidating. The teachers

addressed the children with developmentally appropriate language, using a comforting

and reassuring tone of voice while always being in physical proximity to the child to

imply differentiated attention. Below is a list of examples in which teachers exhibited the

various types/themes of prosocial and empathic behavior.

Example 1: Ms. Linda modeled respect by promptly providing a trash can to Lucas who

swept the room and was asking for a trash can to empty his pretend trash from the

dustpan.

Example 2: Ms. Linda modeled respect by allowing Jonathan to take his time finishing

his story about his sick pet without rushing him.

Example 3: Ms. Stacey reminded Joyce to wait her turn by stating, “Oh please wait, I am

listening to Rudy now.”

Example 5: When Mollie decided that she didn’t want Victoria to try on her necklace,

Ms. Linda helped her with choosing appropriate words to communicate that to Victoria.

Victoria cooperated and returned the necklace to Mollie.

Example 6: Ms. Linda models respect for others’ belonging when she suggests to

children, “Please don’t touch the camera, it’s very breakable.”

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Example 7: Ms. Stacey modeled respect of the children’s play time by warning them

ahead of time to for the upcoming transition by announcing “ 5 minutes and then we have

to clean up,” this was followed by Rodney walking around the classroom, going center to

center with a bell in his hand saying, “5 more minutes, 5 more minutes.”

Example 8: Ms. Stacey modeled respect for Lily, an English Language Learner by

engaging her in a conversation while she was play-pretending to serve Ms. Stacey lunch.

This also helped give Lily a sense of belonging as it appeared in her confirming smile.

Example 9: Ms. Stacey modeled respect for play props by asking James pick up the purse

from the floor so he wouldn’t step on it.

Example 10: Ms. Jessica modeled problem solving by allowing Lauren to figure out how

the beater worked. After many trials, Lauren was able to turn the handle to get the whisk

moving.

Example 11: After Ms. Jessica asked Lucas, “Dad, is my food ready?” she modeled self-

regulation by stating, “I will try to be patient,” in response to Lucas letting her know that

“it is not cooked yet.”

Example 12: Ms. Jessica modeled caring by asking Rachel if she needed help removing

the dress up clothes as she saw Rachel struggling to get it off.

Example 13: Nevin, dressed in a mink coat walked in and placed a dish on the table. Ms.

Linda turned her head toward her and affectionately stated, “Oh that’s very nice of you to

bring a dish to the party.” Ms. Linda modeled appreciation for Nevin’s thoughtfulness by

her words of acknowledgment.

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Analysis in the Form of Vignettes

To probe the play behavior of the children in the sociodramatic context, I focused

on the interactions of the children during their play. Readers may recall that as a general

practice in this classroom, at the end of the morning meeting large group time, children

were asked to make choices about the center or activity with which to start their day.

Those that chose to play in the sociodramatic play area met with a teacher to write/draw a

play plan which explained the roles they would take during the play. Teachers provided

more detailed information to the group typically by reading books related to the theme,

occasionally they watched a video clip, and engaged in related conversation with the

children who chose to play in the sociodramatic play area. On the first day one of my data

collection, Ms. Jessica read a book about a family during small group time and asked

questions such as: “what is the housekeeping area set up as?”; “what does a family

have?” When the children learned that the sociodramatic play has a home living theme,

they started talking about who lives in a house, and chose what role they were going to

play. Ms. Jessica told them “when you are in the housekeeping talk to your friend about

what you want to be”, Krishna immediately announced, “I am definitely glad I chose

housekeeping.”

The vignette below was observed with the following children whose brief history

is helpful in the analysis of the events.

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The Big Family Vignette

Krishna: I’m the dad

Joyce: I’m the sister

Virginia:I’m the sister too

Lakshmi: and I’m the mom

Virginia, Joyce, Krishna and Lakshmi entered the sociodramatic play area. Ms.

Jessica had already read a book to them about family and discussed what makes up a

family. The children had contributed to the discussion and now they were ready to take

up a role to conduct their play.

Krishna first came to the center 3 years ago when he was almost 2 years old. His

family consists of a father, a mother and an older school age sister. For the past few

years, Krishna has been consistently escorted to school by his father and his sister. His

sister takes the initiative in helping Krishna to change his shoes and help him place his

belongings in his locker. She sits down at the bench where Krishna sits as he stretches his

foot out to be helpful. He too has his routine down, as he expects the help and the sister is

ready to render her help as she seems to feel it is her responsibility. The father takes his

time watching the two of them engage in the process and is available to assist as needed.

Krishna is a very easy-going child and has a cooperative demeanor with his peers. He is

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very articulate in his thoughts and language, and shows a great consideration of his

surroundings.

The next person in the group is the 4 year old Joyce. Joyce too joined the program

when she was two years old at which time both parents were living with her. Her parents

were separated when Joyce was three years old and consequently she spends some days

during each week living with each of her parents. Most days Joyce is picked up by a sitter

and often shows her discontent with that arrangement by stalling her departure process.

The staff often make the remark that “Joyce isn’t finished with her play yet,” to help ease

the situation for the sitter as she appears to be embarrassed by the objections from Joyce.

The staff have worked very closely with Joyce, assisting her with separation issues during

arrival and issues related to dismissal. Joyce has also been closely guided to help her find

words to express her needs instead of crying or becoming frustrated as displayed in her

tone of voice. I have often observed the ALC teachers approach a child in distress with a

calming voice helping the child to identify his or her feelings and then making

suggestions about how to cope with them. In these instances their general practice has

been to provide the child with words to describe the feelings and to guide the child in

finding a way to cope with the unwanted feeling. Such self-regulation techniques are an

integrated part of the teachers’ daily planned activity. For example, they sing action

songs that are directive to certain motions like the Hokey Pokey song to more complex

games that require inhibitory skills such as those needed for playing Simon Says. These

activities develop listening skills as well as skills for following multi-step direction.

Other techniques to help children develop patience and focus include: reading books,
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telling stories, discussing “turn taking,” and teaching children to take long deep breaths

when coping with a frustrating situation. Joyce in particular, is reminded to use

techniques often and this has helped her make great progress in controlling her emotions.

The 5-year old Virginia, joined ALC when she was 3, one year after her brother

had joined the program. She used to come with her mother to pick up her older broth and

was elated to enter the school. Her mom told the staff that she often says she can hardly

wait to come to school herself, and it certainly proved to be the truth when she joined the

program at age 3. For the next two years Virginia entered the door with a wide smile on

her face and lots of stories to share with staff. Virginia’s mom, a teacher herself in a

public school, says, “she acts as if this is the best thing that has happened to her.” During

the time that the older brother was also attending the program with Virginia, she had a

nurturing relationship with him. Virginia would often check on him, and made sure his

needs were met. I am not sure if was in the way that she did it or perhaps how her brother

accepted his role in relation to her; but there were never any disagreement between the

two of them. Virginia continued to be verbally expressive in large group time, extremely

friendly to her peers and a child who followed directions very closely.

Lakshmi joined the program this year as she turned 4 years old. Both of her

parents are professionals and initially she was raised by her grandparents away from her

parents. They had just reunited as she joined the program. Lakshmi is a big sister to a

toddler brother and attends school full time even though her mother works part time.

Initially, Lakshmi showed some separation issues at arrival and cried when her mom

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came to pick her up. That did fade away quickly as she became oriented to the classroom

routine and very interested in play. Lakshmi possesses a broad vocabulary and has a

strong sense of imagination, which is often evident in her sociodramatic play. One

usually finds Lakshmi making a choice to play at that sociodramatic play center and is

very comfortable with any role that is pertinent to the play kit.

On this day, the children’s play started with no objections from anyone with

regards to the roles adopted by each of the children, almost as if it was rehearsed. Krishna

was the only boy in the group and it seemed obvious to him to assume the role of the

father in their play. Krishna pointed to two of the girls in the group: “you’re the little

sister and you’re the big sister.” The two girls accepted the suggestion with no apparent

objection. The atmosphere of cooperation throughout the play events was noticeable to

the teacher as well. Ms. Linda confirmed: 2 sisters, a mom, and a dad and said, “Wow,

that works.”

Virginia: 2 sisters? We don’t have any brothers!

Ms. Linda: Oh you’re quite a big family; what would you like to do together?

Virginia: We like to go to the park.

Ms. Linda: Oh yah? That’s a great idea!

Krishna: It’s too cold.

Ms. Linda: Ok, so what do you do when it’s too cold to go outside?

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 One can see in this excerpt how Ms. Linda was careful not to make any

assumptions when she engaged in the conversation with the children. At most, she

rephrased what information they provided in an open ended format to extend the

conversation by the children. This was intended to encourage the children to reflect and

respond, opening a doorway to a deeper conversation and a higher level of thinking.

Krishna had a pondering look on his face encountering the question from Ms.

Linda. Virginia jumped in: “I wish it was summer so we could go swimming in the pool.”

Virginia continued, “We go swimming next to my brother’s school.”

Ms. Linda: and you go there during the summer then?

Virginia: nods her head

Krishna: (adding to the conversation with excitement) and I went swimming in

our hotel pool last year when we were on our vacation.

Joyce: (excitedly) I’m gonna go on vacation too.

The shared experiences of the children regarding the notion of taking a vacation,

illustrated that their sociocultural backgrounds also contributed to the children’s play

patterns (Dyson, 1996). But this particular group of children had more in common than

their sociocultural backgrounds; their personalities were also a reason they seemed to like

to play together. They often played in a cooperative manner and were considerate of each

other’s needs. Three of them have siblings, which has perhaps helped in their developing

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a sense of cooperation in group play. Joyce on the other hand is an only child, and often

showed less patience when playing with peers. It is apparent that when she was in the

company of these peers her play behavior was also influenced positively.

The children’s conversation about swimming and going on vacation continued.

Virginia was busy putting the dress up clothes on, while Lakshmi was working in the

kitchen preparing food. Krishna was talking to Ms. Linda when Joyce came up to him

calling his attention, “Dad, Dad” with an urgent voice while directing him toward the

stove. This showed that even in the midst of a conversation about a real life experience,

Joyce was still immersed in her role as the “sister” calling on “Dad” to show him

something. The children’s play continued as they pretended it was nighttime and they

even suggested that Ms. Linda go to sleep too. Krishna remembered what he does before

sleeping every night and shared his ritual:

Krishna: Do you know what my dad says before I go to bed?

Ms. Linda: What?

Krishna: He says touch your head and touch your knee and touch your toes

Ms. Linda: Oh really? And then you do all that and then you fall asleep?

Krishna: Yes

Virginia: My mom always sings me a couple of lullabies.

Ms. Linda: Oh really? What lullabies does she sing to you?

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 As one can see, the conversation switched back and forth from real life

experiences and the play theme across my observations; a practice that we encouraged to

promote children’s deeper learning as they tie the two experiences together.

The nature of play has been described as the creation of imaginary situations

(Franklin, 1983; Vygotsky, 1978). In this vignette, children acted “free” from the

constraints of concrete objects, real situations, and indeed from the limitations of seasons

and temperatures. The children pretending to go swimming or going on a vacation came

about as they infused their own intentions and what they wanted to occur in their play.

When they adopted the role of the mother, father or the sisters, their roles both declared

and denied themselves. When Krishna said “I’m the dad,” and acted accordingly, he was

making a conscious choice to rise above the situational constraints. I was able to observe

that even though Krishna rose above the situational constraints of his play, he still

subjected himself to what being a ‘daddy’ culturally meant to him. The children’s pretend

play revealed their knowledge of “classes of individuals and their relations, of categories

and types of goals, of the possible actions and consequences of actions that can be

employed to accomplish these goals” (Garvey, 1990, p. 81). Perhaps the acceptance of

each role by the children without the objection was due to this shared knowledge granting

them the ability to negotiate a world that was known to them.

Children often reenacted what was familiar to them, the roles they chose tended to

be mom, dad and siblings. They were, however more excited to take a role that wasn’t

one of their current experience. Even when they chose to act as children they pretended to

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be older or younger than their own ages. Krishna brought up the issue of age and

determined which sister was to be older and which younger and everyone was in

agreement about his classification. Throughout this vignette, both Virginia and Joyce

were comfortable with sharing the role as sisters, and played in a cooperative manner.

The direction that their play took appeared to be about the issues that were familiar to

them. The children often stayed with their roles and presented a sense of empowerment

within their adopted role.

Ms. Linda took on the role of the facilitator as she engaged in a dialogue with the

children while providing probing prompts. She openly participated in their play giving

them confirmation and acceptance. The children welcomed Ms. Linda within their

pretend play by suggesting she should go to sleep because it was nighttime. The sense of

comfort and belonging felt by Krishna was surfaced as he shared a very intimate piece of

information about his own bedtime routine with the group displaying his deep level of

trust.

Ms. Linda exhibited care when she engaged in the conversation with Virginia

asking her which lullabies she sings with her mom. Noddings (2005) considered caring in

the classroom to be not only when a teacher cares about a student, but also when helping

a student learn to develop caring for others and the environment around them. The

relationship that Ms. Linda established with the children was one of respect and

acceptance. She was honoring what each child was able to express as well as not able to

express. Ms. Linda gave the children time to think by rephrasing their words into a

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question. This encouraged the child to share more authentically, while feeling safe

because the teacher was able to allow for that exchange to take place. Ms. Linda was

affirming what each child had stated, allowing the children to feel that they had been

heard, and thereby also provided an opportunity to add clarity. I was able to observe this

practice from Ms. Linda throughout the different parts of classroom time and place. For

example, in her comment about how the children’s enactment of having a father, a

mother and two sisters made up for a big family, she followed-up with a value-loaded

question of “What would you like to do together?” This started the conversation between

the children about making arrangements to pursue the fun activity of going to the park.

During her conversation with Krishna, Ms. Linda chose to ask about the impact of

his bedtime ritual assisting in his falling asleep. She provided a caring approach to her

conversation allowing Krishna to share stories from his real life with her as well as his

peers. That exchange was an open invitation for other children to join in the conversation.

Ms. Linda continued her probing by rephrasing and asking open-ended questions. When

Krishna said that, “It was too cold to go outside,” Ms. Linda asked “What do you do

when it’s too cold?” I attributed Krishna’s pondering expression to wanting to figure out

how to do something that was incorporating his friends and their needs.

We will next examine a vignette in which 3-year old Jonathan makes strides

toward exhibiting prosocial behaviors

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The Cell Phone Vignette

On the next day, the home living sociodramatic play kit remained the same as the

previous session with the addition of a cell phone. Some children showed interest at the

level of investigating the prop and not necessarily including it in their play. There were

also a few children who became quite occupied with the new prop to an extent of

fascination and showed a harder time being able to depart from it.

In this vignette, we meet Jonathan and Lucas and see Victoria and Joyce again.

The 3-year old Jonathan typically spends the bulk of his time with his buddy Lewis who

he knew from last year when they both were in the toddlers’ classroom. When they both

started this year in the pre-k classroom, they were joining a new group of children. It

seemed like they discovered each other in the new classroom having relied on their

shared history. So when Jonathan decided to choose to play in sociodramatic play area

despite of his buddy’s choice of blocks, I welcomed the opportunity to observe him.

Jonathan has made huge progress with expressive language although at times a teacher

may have to clarify his words to another peer. Jonathan entered the play area and

immediately reached for the cell phone. Victoria entered holding the baby doll to her

chest indicating the role of mom, while Lucas declared, “I’m a dad.” Lakshmi chose to

play at this center almost every day since it was turned into a “house.” She walked in and

was happy to find the second baby doll. Having seen the cell phone in Jonathan’s hand,

Lucas came to me asking “Ms. Parvin, can a 6 year old have a cell phone?” I know his 6

year old brother by name, so I asked him if his brother wanted to have a cell phone. He

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nodded with a grin on his face. Lucas took a half glance at the cell phone and made a

quick attempt at grabbing it from Jonathan. But soon he relinquished the idea and moved

on with his play. Jonathan however, followed him trying to convince him to take a

landline phone instead. Lucas showed indifference and ignored Jonathan’s effort.

Realizing that Lucas was not interested in the phone receiver, Jonathan walked up to him

and said, “You can have the cell phone if you ask nicely.” It almost seemed as if Jonathan

was looking for a way to convince himself why he should hold on to the cell phone, or

perhaps this was a way for him to seek Lucas’s friendship. Whatever the intention,

Jonathan had recognized that for Lucas to receive the phone he must ask “nicely.” This

may not be identified as a prosocial behavior since it lacked volunteering and had a

condition (i.e., ask nicely) attached to it, but certainly it was an indication that Jonathan

recognized what was socially appropriate. Jonathan’s long-term relationship with his

buddy Lewis was one of negotiation and cooperation. They knew how to work together

though occasionally, when they faced disagreements, Lewis would give in when he found

Jonathan crying. The suggestion by Jonathan that Lucas could have the cell phone only

when he asks nicely had proven effective with different play partners in the past.

The Baby in the Crib Vignette

The next vignette again found Victoria and Lucas along with Lakshmi in the

housekeeping area. Victoria’s manner in which she held her baby doll resembled an

adult’s handling of a real baby. Gently holding the baby to her chest, Victoria sat on the

red couch with one leg crossing the other. She held the bottle close to the baby’s mouth

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and began feeding her, while propping the baby’s head to position it just right. The

professional handling of the baby by Victoria was likely achieved as a result of watching

her parents care for her new baby sister. The children were playing cooperatively until

Lakshmi walked up to the crib hastily and shouted in distress, “Lucas, Noo!” “Don’t push

it Lucas!” Lucas in reply repeated twice firmly, “I’m not doing anything.” Ms. Linda

heard the exchange and walked up to the children and sat by the crib with the baby doll

inside, all covered up with a blanket. Lakshmi complained to Ms. Linda:

Lakshmi: Lucas is pushing this.

Lucas: I’m just rocking it.

Ms. Linda: You’re just rocking it?

Lucas: Yes (with a incredulity in his voice)

Ms. Linda: So why are my friends yelling at each other?

Ms. Linda paused as she expected the children to answer her question. When no

reply was offered she turned to Lucas and continued, “Are you rocking her to

asleep?” Lucas nodded his head with a look of relief merged with a look of

triumph on his face for having been understood by his teacher. Lucas’s caring

attitude as well as the acceptance from his peers allowed him to transcend the

traditional gender roles (playing with a doll) and display a deep level of patience

and care for the baby. I attributed the disagreement stemming from Lakshmi’s

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 unwillingness to share the baby with Lucas, because she had created a play plan

and did not want Lucas to interrupt the plan (I have previously observed Lakshmi

in similar situations). However, since she did not give any reason, I will never

know if the objection from Lakshmi had anything to do with Lucas being a boy

and wanting to take care of the baby. In any case, Lakshmi was assured of the

baby’s safety by Ms. Linda and the play continued. Ms. Linda’s intervention was

an opportune moment to shed light on the incident and help Lakshmi see the

situation from Lucas’s perspective. Ms. Linda explained to Lakshmi that, “We

take care of baby, we rock her to sleep; feed her and change her.” She continued,

“When you shouted at Lucas, you surprised him, he couldn’t tell you that he was

only trying to rock the crib with baby in it.” This explanation not only helped

Lakshmi in her understanding of the situation and her realization that what

appeared to her was not what was happening. It also helped Lucas realize that

how one can sometimes be misunderstood. Ms. Linda’s explanation in defense of

Lucas showed both Lucas and Lakshmi the appropriate behavior; Lucas to know

babies need rocking and for Lakshmi to learn to ask question when not sure.

In this vignette we see the influence of home experiences on Victoria’s handling

of the baby and the important role preschool teachers can have in subtly guiding

children’s deeper understandings of each other with coaching about effective ways to

communicate. Ms. Linda could have simply told Lakshmi not to yell at Lucas, but that

response would have missed the opportunity to allow Lakshmi more time to consider that

her perception of what Lucas was doing might not have been his actual intent. Lucas also
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had a chance to hear how he might have expressed his intentions more clearly to

Lakshmi, and the fact that sometimes intentions maybe misunderstood if not clarified by

words. As discussed in the literature, being able to realize that another person may not

understand what you are thinking as well as understanding that another person can have

intentions different than one’s own are ideas related to development of a theory of mind.

In the next vignette, still from the home living play theme, we again see how

important teacher facilitation can be in promoting prosocial behaviors.

The Baking a Cake Vignette

The next day, Lakshmi and Rachel entered the sociodramatic play area discussing

how they wanted to bake a cake. I have observed both girls in play pretend at an

advanced level. They would probably be able to hold a play episode all day if no one

interrupted them. There were numerous occasions that I observed these two girls in

particular, walk around this play environment and investigate the area very closely. These

girls knew exactly what play props were in this area, how to use them and they were

often a source of information to other children. These two girls appeared very natural in

their roles during play as if they had come to terms with their worlds (Greenman, 1988).

The expansive knowledge of the play sometimes created a rivalry where one had to

convince the other to accept her lead. On this particular day, Lakshmi and Rachel started

their play with a disagreement about the baking of the cake. Holding an empty bottle of

syrup, Rachel pretended to pouring it over the batter that they both had worked on

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preparing. Lakshmi taking this more seriously was trying to convince Rachel that the

recipe did not call for syrup. At first she tried to calmly reason with Rachel:

Lakshmi: Look, Rachel, it doesn’t need any syrup…

Rachel pretended that she did not hear anything and continued to squirt the

pretend syrup on the cake.

Lakshmi: It doesn’t even have syrup in the recipe.

Rachel still ignored her and continued with the squirting movements over the

pretend cake. Despite Rachel’s lack of overt response, Lakshmi peacefully, yet

persistently continued to persuade Rachel by reasoning with her.

Lakshmi: My mom doesn’t use syrup in her cake.

As children look up to adults, they often feel that whatever their parents do cannot

be wrong. In this situation, Lakshmi was referring to her knowledge that her mother’s

cakes are tasty and do not contain syrup. Realizing that even her logic didn’t seem to

convince Rachel finally frustrated Lakshmi, who then yelled in a loud voice “No

Rachel!” while holding the beater in her hand, she followed Rachel to stop her.

At this point, Ms. Linda intervened, trying to help resolve the situation:

Ms. Linda: How about if we make one cake with syrup and one without any syrup

and see how they taste.

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 This suggestion worked like water on a flame of fire. The girls calmed down and

reunited by the stove in the kitchen. I had witnessed Ms. Linda in similar situations

inviting children to resolve their issue by simply stating, “What do you think we should

do?” In many cases the children were the ones thinking of a solution. This time, however,

she identified the need for a more immediate intervention and proposed a solution. The

one she suggested managed to honor both children’s right to choose. By suggesting the

baking of two cakes, Ms. Linda validated both children’s expansive knowledge of their

play and provided them with a feeling of empowerment.

In the “taking turns” vignette below, we see another way that teachers in

interaction with the children can take advantage of opportunities to model and inculcate

prosocial and empathic ways of being in a preschool classroom.

The Taking Turns Vignette

The sociodramatic play center continued to be popular. The children learned how

the “waiting list” worked and used it properly. This system allowed the children to

recognize a sense of fairness in the system. They knew that it might feel a long time

while they had to wait to enter, but also realized that their interest in choosing this center

was both recognized and respected. They often reminded a peer wanting to enter the

center to either check for the next name on the list or write their name down for a turn. I

also witnessed children offering markers to peers or helping them with writing their

names on the list. This waiting list itself became a source of cooperation and self-

regulation. But, we still encountered instances of a child who eagerly wanted a turn in the
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center. On the fourth day of the housekeeping theme, Lauren was reminded by Ms.

Stacey for the third time that four friends were playing in the sociodramatic play and that

she needed to make another choice until her turn came up on the waiting list. Having

realized Lauren’s impatience with waiting, Ms. Stacey held Lauren in her arms and

whispered into her ear, “I know you really want to be here, and that you were here before,

but we have to wait till one friend leaves before you can go in.” Lauren showed signs of

relief hearing Ms. Stacey’s calming voice and the acknowledgement that her teacher

knew how much Lauren wanted to play at this center. She got off from Ms. Stacey’s lap

and moaned, “But, it’s fun here.” Ms. Stacey put her hand on Lauren’s shoulder leaning

down to see her face said, “I know, but please make another choice to give our friends a

chance to be here too.” Lauren nodded in agreement while taking the long way out of the

center as she went to the writing center. Not much later she was able to replace a child

who left the sociodramatic play for another activity.

Ms. Stacey, through kind gestures and calming words, was able to persuade

Lauren to extend her patience for a turn to play. Teachers modeling of love, empathy and

empowerment is vital for children. When teachers respect children with the courtesy of

acknowledging that children’s desires and wishes are important to them, the children are

more likely to cooperate. Ms. Stacey’ reference to the fact that Lauren had been in the

sociodramatic play center before, and that she needed to give her friends a chance too,

strengthened a sense of empathy in Lauren. Lauren was indirectly instructed to see the

situation from the perspective of her friends. She was encouraged to relate to what others

are feeling (“give our friends a chance to be here too”). Ms. Stacey validated Lauren’s
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desire, while showing a gesture of affection (holding her in her arms) and appealing to

her sense of fairness. When Lauren shared her reason for wanting to stay – “it’s fun

here,” – Ms. Stacey first acknowledged Lauren’s emotions, thereby helping her feel

validated and heard, and then shared ideas about fairness and giving everyone a chance.

This was done from a space of empowerment, allowing Lauren to know that she can

make a choice, versus telling her she must do something.

The concept of choice is crucial for children, as it allows them to develop self-

confidence, self-esteem and a feeling of empowerment that they do have some control

over their own decisions and choices. Opportunities for making choices teaches children

to look inside themselves for problem solving and ultimately self-regulation techniques

and skills. If the children are told what they have to do, they are likely to become

followers not leaders; they may become less interested in thinking for themselves and

wait for others to make their decisions or tell them what to do; and they are more likely to

seek for others’ approval. Lauren’s understanding and agreement to the present situation

will likely later be demonstrated in her prosocial behavior towards her peers. Lauren’s

understanding that her needs are recognized and valued will help her in developing her

self-calming skills as well as her sense of caring, fairness, and empathy for others. By

allowing Lauren to take the long way out of the center, Ms. Linda gave her freedom, time

and space to process her feelings in her own way. If Ms. Linda had interrupted Lauren

and told her to leave quickly, she possibly would have gotten upset and then started

operating from a self-centered space versus an empathic space.

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 Even though the teachers had to limit the children’s time in the center so that

other interested children could have a chance to participate, but throughout their

playtime, the children attained a level of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) in their

sociodramatic play narratives. They were able to sustain enjoyable play scenarios and the

pleasure of play merged with developing appropriate social interactions, harvested a

display of prosocial behavior and empathic tendencies.

I next turn to several vignettes of episodes that occurred during the days when the

sociodramatic center was set-up like a veterinarian’s clinic.

Veterinary Clinic

During the second part of my data collection, I switched the home living theme in

the sociodramatic play to represent a veterinarian’s clinic. I began to set up the play kit

on Sunday evening to have it ready for when the children walked in on Monday morning.

When the children gathered on the carpet for group meeting, Ms. Stacey told the children

that “Ms. Parvin has turned the housekeeping into a veterinarian’s office for you to play

in.” She then added that I would be watching them play as I have done in the past couple

of weeks. She also reminded them that the camera will be there too, so I would be able to

watch them at play later. This explanation worked to satisfy the curiosity of the children

who were surprisingly excited to see the new set up in the sociodramatic play.

As discussed in chapter two and three, children enjoy participating in play and

activities that involve animals in general and their care in particular. Each year, the

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teachers involve the children in collecting donations of goods for an animal shelter. I had

seen children’s dedication and immense engagement during this activity, which prompted

me to consider this play kit. I anticipated that the children would demonstrate their

prosocial and empathic behaviors through exploring the human-animal relationship.

Cheng and Monroe (2012) have suggested that witnessing a damaged animal or plant

may foster empathy and the motivation to take care of the creature and nature. I

anticipated that children’s involvement in running a clinic to care for the damaged

animals would bring many episodes of care and empathy to their play. The vignettes

below are examples of my observations of their play in this context.

Exploring the Clinic Vignette

Nevin, Joyce, Lewis, Rachel and Mollie entered the center excitedly. They were

the first group that had the chance to make their choices for this center. Due to the

overwhelming interest from the children, and since this was the first day of the new kit,

the teachers decided to allow 5 children to enter the center to decrease the number of

children on the waiting list.

Unlike the home living theme that included play props with which most children

were familiar, this play kit included items that demanded initial exploration from the

children. They first began to manipulate the tools and toys in the play kit that were laid

out on the table covered by a surgical cover to resemble an operating table. Some of the

children (many of whose parents were physicians) knew the names for some of the tools

and started explaining them to the other children. The demeanor of the children offering
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the information and of those who were receiving the information suggested a relationship

of friendship and trust, such as in the example below:

Joyce: What is this?

Nevin: It’s a pager, my mom has one of those.

Joyce: What’s a pager?

Nevin: It beeps a funny sound and then she calls the office.

After this episode, Joyce picked up the stethoscope and placed it around her

shoulder just like the picture on the poster hanging on wall. She told Ms. Stacey that she

was making a special treat for her snake. Ms. Stacey had brought her snake to the clinic

to get examined; the snake had not been moving according to its owner. Ms. Stacey

responded to Joyce, “Oh you’re making a special treat for my snake, that’s so nice of

you.” Mollie brought the surgical mask to Ms. Stacey so she could help her put it on.

Children were moving around the table, looking inside the doctor’s bag and taking out

different tools of the trade. Nevin had put on one pair of gloves and offered the other pair

to Rachel, saying, “Here, you need these too.” Lewis was holding a bear (stuffed animal)

and moving around the table wondering where to start. In the meantime, Joyce brought

the snake to Ms. Linda.

Ms. Stacey: So is the snake all done today?

Joyce: Yeah!

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 Ms. Stacey: What do I need to do to care for him at home?

Ms. Stacey handled the snake very delicately that demonstrated sensitivity and

care. Ms. Stacey did not receive a reply from Joyce who was trying to keep her

gloves on, so she rephrased and continued, “So what do I need to do so I make

sure he stays well at home?”

Joyce: You have to give him medicine

Ms. Stacey: Can I buy some for him today?

Joyce: Oh, yes.

Ms. Stacey: Now, how many times should I give it to him?

Joyce: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Ms. Stacey: Oh, three days? Ok, thank you

Ms. Stacy held her snake carefully in her arms and motioned to leave the clinic.

At that point, Lewis holding a dental mirror, walked up to Nevin and asked “What is this

for?” Nevin was talking to Rachel and did not answer him, so Lewis went to Ms. Stacey,

“What is this for?” Ms. Stacey crouched down to Lewis’s eye level and replied, “Let me

see.” She took it from Lewis so she could see it closely, and continued, “It’s a mirror to

look inside the animal’s mouth.” Lewis then took the device and walked away holding

the bear in his arm.

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 Ms. Stacey gave the children a warning that, “my friends in this area you have

about 5 more minutes.” Joyce, who still had the stethoscope around her neck, objected

with a moaning voice, “But I just got here.” Ms. Stacey replied, “I know but I have a lot

of friends who want to try this area today, and then if you want to come back here you

can add your name to the list again, but you have 5 minutes, so you are good for a little

longer.” Ms. Stacey’s gentle motion of touching Joyce on the shoulder and assuring her

that she still had time remaining, eased Joyce’s eagerness. Knowing that there was

system in place that could assure her return (the waiting list) also contributed to her

acquiescence to the situation. Joyce had had the stethoscope since they arrived at the

center, Nevin gently approached her pointing to the stethoscope and asked:

Nevin: Ok, can I have a turn when you’re done?

Joyce: Hey, you knnnnow (with a convincing tone) here (giving her the doctor’s

bag and looking around to find another possible interesting thing to offer her.)

Since Joyce couldn’t find anything of interest in her immediate vicinity, she took

off the stethoscope and handed it to Nevin. Nevin happily accepted it and put the

stethoscope in her ears while holding the end with one hand and the bag in the other

hand. Joyce with Nevin at her side stood near the table, picked up a Dalmatian puppy and

placed the thermometer in the puppy’s ear. Lewis started picking stuffed animals off the

floor and placing them on the couch. In a somewhat complaining tone, he said, “There

are too many animals on the ground.” Ms. Stacey heard his comment and turned around

and added, “I know, I’m gonna have to find a basket to put some of them in there.”
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 Although, the program has done away with having “show and tell,” teachers

sometimes ask children to bring things from home as their way of making a home-school

connection. This time they had asked the children to bring their favorite stuffed animal to

the clinic. That resulted in a busy clinic. At the surgical table, Nevin and Rachel

continued their examination of the animals on the bed while giving them injections and

medicine. Ms. Stacey announced, “My friends in this area, let’s go ahead and pick up

everything, and then we’re going to allow the next group to come in.” Joyce started

jumping up and down saying “I wanna stay here,” as the other children started to put the

toys away promptly. Ms. Stacey continued with her past argument, “Oh Joyce, I have a

big list, and I want all my friends to have a turn today.” She brought the waiting list to

Joyce, leaned over the table and gave her the pencil and said, “Add your name and you

will have another turn here.” Joyce took the pencil and started writing her name down on

the list. Ms. Stacey had realized that Joyce needed a tangible assurance about her return

to this center. Ms. Stacey’s sensitively offered a solution to situation that could have

escalated. This was more than half way through the school year, and the teachers had

learned that Joyce often required their undivided attention and additional support to

control her impulses. They had devised a system, and developed a glossary that they used

for supporting Joyce to control her impulsivity and emotions during different parts of the

day including transitions.

The concept of self-regulation has received a great deal of attention in the recent

research in the field of early childhood education. It has been recognized as a stronger

indicator of school success than IQ. This concept is deserving of its fame now more than
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ever before as modern lifestyles do nothing but speed up. Children today witness their

families’ busy schedule and consequently they feel the impact on their daily lives. We

live in a time and a place that “fast’ is the golden word (fast food, fast cars, fast healing,

fast weight loss, etc.), and its counterpart, waiting is an undesirable concept. The skills to

learn to wait, to delay gratification, to allow the present moment, and to be tolerant of

events, people and ideas are of great value that need to be rooted early on in life. The

notion of a “waiting list” was created to give waiting a positive connotation; one that

helped children become “accepting” of the concept of “waiting” as an integral part of the

classroom routine. The children initially showed minor discontent with the procedure of

the waiting list, but they soon came to understand it as a way to reach their goal. The

waiting list became a self-regulation tool for those who needed the support. Joyce, for

example, benefitted greatly from this design and teachers hoped that these small steps

would work to help her develop patience and more self-regulation. While Joyce was busy

adding her name to the waiting list, Lewis voluntarily started picking up the stuffed

animals from the floor and lined them up on the couch; making the center look orderly

for the next group of friends to enter. Lewis’s action can be attributed to his sense of

belonging and being part of the classroom community.

Mollie who had anxiously waited for a turn into the sociodramatic play area

entered with Lucas, Jonathan and William. Mollie, holding a bunny in her arm, walked in

and went straight to the reception desk. She must have had that planned while she was

waiting for her turn at the nearby writing center. Jonathan was interested in examining

the stethoscope, while Lucas walked in announcing that, “I’m the doctor.” William, who
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was not a frequent visitor to the sociodramatic play center, showed some hesitancy as he

entered the center. He stood at the surgical table calmly and inspected the props one by

one. At the other corner, Ms. Jessica brought a dog to the reception desk and addressed

Mollie, “Mam, my dog hasn’t been feeling good, can I see the doctor about my dog?”

Mollie holding her rabbit closely with one arm, reached out to the keyboard with the

other hand and started typing the information that she received. Lucas having a

stethoscope in his ears and a pair of gloves on his hand, walked up to Ms. Jessica.

Ms. Jessica: Hello, what’s your name?

Lucas: Lucas (with a smile)

Ms. Jessica: You’re Dr. Lucas?

Lucas nodded with approval while smiling and took the dog from Ms. Jessica.

Lucas held the dog with two arms close to his chest with much care and walked to the

surgical table. Ms. Jessica followed him. On the way, Jonathan holding a stethoscope

close to his ears told Ms. Jessica “I wanna be doctor too,” to which she replied, “Oh sure,

that’s ok, we have a lot of patients today.”

Ms. Jessica followed Lucas to the table where Lucas had laid down the dog and

was listening to his heart.

Lucas: What’s wrong with your dog?

Ms. Jessica: He has a bellyache.

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 Lucas: I can help him

Ms. Jessica: Oh good, thank you.

For the following several minutes, Lucas took his time examining the dog,

listening to his heart, giving him a shot, and offering him a bone. All through the

examination time, he kept the dog on the table, moving him side to side with extreme

caution. Lucas had immersed himself in his role as the veterinary doctor and took his task

of caring for the animal very seriously.

What happened in this vignette, demonstrated how as time went by children

became more in control of their play events, their imagination rose higher, and their play

language expanded. There were still occasions of play at its “functional” level observed

with some children engaged with the play props, as it was the case with William. Overall,

children exhibited care and cooperation during their play; they showed a sense of

community by taking on tasks that benefitted others; and practiced self-regulation skills

through intentional planning by the teachers.

Help My Pet Vignette

It was the second day of using the veterinary clinic and a pretend hospital bed had

been added to the props. This bed was in the middle of the area and was covered with

new stuffed animals. The children had been asked to bring their favorite stuffed animal to

school to include in the clinic. Almost every child came to school with a stuffed animal

and some brought more than one, but were asked to keep the extras in their lockers and

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swap them with the one they had in the play when they wanted to control the crowded

clinic. Pointing to the stuffed animal on the hospital bed, Lakshmi said, “Rachel, pick a

pet.” Rachel while picking up a dog said, “I will take this one.” In the meantime, Victoria

reached and picked a pig from the group. Joyce, hastily charged at Victoria with a

complaining voice, “That’s mine, Victoriaaaa.” Victoria’s first impulse was to hand

Joyce the pig and with a clam, quiet voice she said, “We’re supposed to share these toys.”

Victoria must have assumed that the toy she picked up was the toy that Joyce brought

from home. She showed no resistance and gave it up. Surprised and somewhat

embarrassed, Joyce tried to make up for her unfriendly gesture and picked up the biggest

animal from the pack and offered it to Victoria, “You can have this one.” Her voice was

very convincing as she made it sound like she was giving Victoria a better deal. Victoria,

as is her usual demeanor of leading her own play, showed no interest and walked further

to take another animal from the other corner of the hospital bed. Victoria was happy with

her choice of a bunny and she held her closely and smiled. From outside of the range of

the camera I heard Lamar’s voice counting the number of children in the sociodramatic

play area, “There is only one, two, three, four friends in there.” Lamar was talking to Ms.

Jessica about joining in the group. Ms. Jessica said, “Oh four people? I will try to start a

waiting list.” She must have found the waiting list close by as I heard her say, “Oh there

is a waiting list over here.” Ms. Jessica brought the paper to the table and helped Lamar

write down his name on the waiting list. She continued, “Ok, I’m setting the timer for 15

minutes today, since we have a lot of friends who want to play here today.” Jonathan and

William asked to be on the waiting list too. Lamar carried the frog he had brought from

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home and added it to the animals already on the hospital bed. He then left to make

another choice.

Lakshmi, holding the doctor’s bag walked to the surgical table while talking to

Joyce who was telling her that her pet was sick and she had brought her to the clinic.

Lakshmi guided her to have a seat on the chair next to the surgical table and asked her to

leave her pet on the table for examination. Joyce put the pet down and picked up a

magazine turning the pages, while Lakshmi put on her gloves and took out a needle from

her bag:

Lakshmi: What happened to your pet today?

Joyce: She broke her bone!

Lakshmi: I will give her a vaccination.

Lakshmi took out a syringe from the bag and placed it on the dog’s leg. Rachel

and Jonathan approached the table where Lakshmi was working. Rachel was holding a

cage and Jonathan had a bunny in his hand. Lakshmi pointed to the corner of the room

and said, “That is the waiting room, you need to wait there for your turn.” They both

rushed to get there, Rachel sat on the red chair holding the cage on her lap, while

Jonathan moved behind the reception desk and sat on the chair. Lakshmi walked up to the

table and proceeded to speak to Jonathan, “Hello, do you have a patient for me?”

Jonathan got up, picked up the bunny from the table and followed Lakshmi to the surgical

table where she had laid out the syringe, thermometer, gloves, mask and the doctor’s bag.

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Lakshmi put the thermometer on bunny, and said, “It’s 3, 3, 8! He has a high fever.” Ms.

Linda joined in the play, “Hi friends.” Lakshmi announced, “I am the doctor.”

Ms. Linda: Is there something wrong with the bunny?

Lakshmi: Yea

Ms. Linda: Yea? What happened to him?

Lakshmi got distracted by the conversation outside of the play area, after a short

pause, she responded, “the bunny got a high fever.” Ms. Linda continued, “Oh, that isn’t

sounding fun. What are you going to do for him?”

Lakshmi: I will do a check up

Ms. Linda: A checkup? Are you giving him a shot? (As she saw Lakshmi picking

up a syringe)

Lakshmi: Yea.

Ms. Linda: For the fever to go down?

Lakshmi continued with the action while nodding to confirm.

Krishna walked in holding a big monkey wearing a t-shirt and a pair of sneakers.

Earlier that morning, Krishna had showed the monkey to his friends as they were all

sharing what they had brought from home. Ms. Linda addressed Krishna, “Is he coming

for a checkup?” Krishna looked perplexed and Ms. Linda rephrased her question, “Or is
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there something that doesn’t feel right about him?” Krishna paused and replied,

“Something that doesn’t feel right about him.” Ms. Linda then repeated Krishna’s

sentence back to him as a question and added, “What would that be?” Ms. Linda had to

turn to Lakshmi as she wanted to follow up with the conversation they had earlier.

Jonathan was still patiently waiting by the surgical table while Lakshmi was getting

medicine for his bunny.

Lakshmi: I’m making medicine for the bunny

Ms. Linda: How many times a day should we give it to the bunny?

Lakshmi: 11 or 12

Ms. Linda: 11 or 12 times a day? That is a lot of medicine.

By this time Krishna had some time to hear the conversation and perhaps think

about what could be wrong with his monkey. He came to Ms. Linda holding his monkey

and showed her the monkey’s hand.

Krishna: Feel this.

Ms. Linda: You’re right, there is something that doesn’t feel right about him.

Krishna: Yea.

Ms. Linda: Maybe the veterinarian can check on his hand to make sure everything

is ok.

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 Krishna turned around and tried to get Lakshmi’s attention, Ms. Linda continued,

“After she’s done with the bunny.”

Children’s play during the housekeeping theme appeared to be more readily

sustained from the very first day, probably as it offered them a setting about which they

had a greater familiarity (Shapiro, 2004). Their prior knowledge about the home living

theme offered them an advantage in which their language and practices enhanced their

play. They knew what it takes to run a home, how the play props worked and what

defined the roles. In the veterinarian’s clinic theme, some children were more engaged

than others. This was partly due the individual child’s developmental level and his or her

pretend play ability; and partly due to child’s prior experiences with the language and the

real props used for the treatment of a patient. Ms. Linda made that realization when she

rephrased her sentence when asking Krishna about his monkey. Krishna’s pause to

respond was an indication that she needed to be more descriptive in her question. Perhaps

Krishna did not have the schema for “a checkup.” Ms. Linda provided the children who

seemed to need direction medical related information in forms of suggestions or

questions such as: “So what should I do for him to make him feel better” and “Are you

gonna get a different medicine for him, now that the other medicine didn’t help him” as

well as “What do you think this is used for?’ and “Should I sit in the waiting room while

you take care of my dog?”

When Nevin entered the play, I anticipated that the play might go deeper than it

had for a while. The children were mostly engaged in playing with the props, handling,

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exploring and investigating them instead of using the props to create a story episodes.

Nevin was usually very interested in books and I would always see her in the reading area

either looking at books or having gotten a teacher to read a book to her. She had a broad

vocabulary, articulate language, and a strong sense of imagination. Her parents (both

trained in medicine) read to her regularly, and engaged her in conversation often. She was

also visited by her grandparents who stay at her house regularly. The conversation below

is between Nevin and Lauren when she picked up the phone and called the doctor:

Nevin: Hi doctor

Lauren: Oh, hi!

Nevin: My froggy, my froggy just doesn’t feel good today, I think he’ll need a

checkup today.

Lauren: Oh ok, you can come right here and I will help you.

They both hung up the phone and got together. Nevin had a frog in her arm, while

Lauren was trying to keep her loosely fit nylon gloves on, and manage the stethoscope in

her ears.

Lauren: Is your doggie sick?

Nevin: My froggy is sick.

Nevin’s voice was sad and somewhat distressed as she handed Lauren the frog.

Lauren took the frog, brought it to her eye level and said, “Hi Froggy” with a loving
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voice. She then put the frog down and started searching in the doctor’s bag. Lily

continued, “He’s having some trouble, he’s been really really sick.” Nevin paused as

she looked to see what Lauren is taking out of the bag, and then added, “He’s been,…

he’s been having like diarrhea and stuff.” Nevin saw that Lauren did not show any

reaction to her statement so she repeated herself as though she wanted to make sure that

Lauren understood her, “He’s been having diarrhea and stuff, ok?” Clearly Nevin was

interested in developing a story in her play, Lauren on the other hand was more immersed

in playing with the props and as a result did not jump into the story with Nevin. At this

instant, I described in my field notes that Nevin was enacting the character in the book

she had read earlier about the veterinarian office visit by a pet owner. She was trying to

convey the symptoms of her pet to the veterinarian during her visit. It was clear that her

narrative was adapted from the story and she had put it to use with a real experience she

had in real life (she herself had been ill the week before with diarrhea).

During my observation of this plat kit, I noticed that novelty of materials and a

really empathy-conducive setup may not necessarily translate into very many

opportunities for exhibiting prosocial and empathic behavior beyond the general “care of

animals.”

Dog’s Broken Bone Vignette

On the 8th day of this play kit in practice, Lakshmi walked in to join Jonathan and

Lauren already in the center. Lauren announced that she was the doctor, Jonathan was

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sitting at the reception desk writing on a piece of paper while holding a telephone

receiver to his ear. The children asked Ms. Linda to come join their play.

Ms. Linda: I’d love to join you, who’s the patient?

Lauren: She is the patient, I’m the doctor (pointing to Lakshmi)

Lakshmi: I’m the owner.

Ms. Linda: So, you may want to wait in the waiting room (pointing to Lakshmi

who was standing by the surgical table, and directing her to the red chair).

Ms. Linda turned to Jonathan and asked if he had the patient information

(assuming he is the receptionist). Jonathan gave her the clipboard. Ms. Linda said, “Oh,

looks like you’ve already taken the information.” She handed Lakshmi the clipboard, and

continued, “Can you make sure all the information is correct?” Lakshmi held her dog in

one arm close to her chest and placed the clipboard on her lap. Lakshmi stared at the

clipboard for a few seconds, then lifted her head up and told Ms. Linda, “It’s all correct.”

To her response Ms. Linda said, “The doctor will be with you shortly.” Lauren heard that

from the other side of the play area and walked up to Lakshmi, saying “Coming.” She put

her hand on Lakshmi’s shoulder and directed her towards the surgical table where all the

examining tools were placed neatly.

Lauren: What’s wrong with your dog? (While putting on the vinyl gloves)

Lakshmi: He can’t walk, I think he broke a bone. (Ms. Linda started writing)

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 Ms. Linda: I am taking down all these information so that way we have it on the

record (while writing)

Lakshmi: And he also has a high fever.

Lauren: Ok, I’m gonna give him a shot.

Lauren, while struggling to keep her gloves on, pulled out the syringe to get it

ready for the injection. She placed the dog on the table, asked Lakshmi to place her hand

on the dog and then gently proceeded with the injection. She then took out a bone and

offered it to Lakshmi to give it to her dog. I watched Lauren’s play behavior improving

significantly from the week before when she was playing with the animals in isolated

instances. On this day, Lauren’s play had a narrative with action and language that were

contextual to the play. Lakshmi, who grew up in a household of physicians and seemed to

be not only drawn to such play but also leading the play and directing her peers,

graciously took the role of the pet owner. She accepted Lauren as the doctor, a role that

she had masterfully performed every time she participated in this play area until this

instance. The teachers’ effort to include more books related to the play theme, and

discussion with the children about their experiences with the care of their pets may have

helped make the connections to real life experiences and facilitated the children’s play

narratives. This became more obvious, when Ms. Linda asked Jonathan if he had a name

for his bunny that he brought into the clinic. Jonathan while waiting in the waiting room

for his turn, started jumping up and down and said, “Hoppie!” Ms. Linda asked,

“Hoppie? You know what does that reminds me of?” Jonathan with incredulity in his
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voice answered “Noo…” She continued by reminding him about the bunny that the

children used to watch from the window as it hopped around the playground. Ms. Linda’s

reference to an event that Jonathan remembered provided him a conversation opportunity

in which he actively participated. Jonathan continued the story by saying that he

remembered how the bunny had eaten a lot of the vegetables that they had planted in the

garden, and when they didn’t see him coming back, they thought that he must have gotten

sick from eating too much.

Toward the end of the second week of veterinary clinic play kit, I noticed the

children became more fluent with the enactment of their roles, and the appropriate use of

terminology relevant to the veterinary clinic. As time progressed, the children’s pretend

play became more mature. I noticed the teachers spending less time identifying play

props and their functions, as well as less explanation of what might be entailed in the play

roles. The children’s narratives and play became more complex and lengthier. What

remained the same however, was that the children were as cordial if not more so, when it

came to respecting their peers’ taking turns, sharing props, and agreeing to the role

enactment by their peers. These were essential components for peaceful, and cooperative

interactions that guided the children’s play through which they demonstrated prosocial

and empathic behaviors.

Conclusion

I selected a classroom for collecting data for this study inside of a program that I

knew for the last 13 years. I informed the families about my study and had numerous
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discussions with the teachers about my research design. I discussed with the teachers the

two play themes of home living and veterinary clinic to be implemented in the

sociodramatic play area. I gathered a list of the play props and ask them to choose the

related books to be available to the children during the data collection period.

I video recorded the play themes, wrote observation field notes and added memos

to clarify what I had observed. I did not engage in the children’s play but I answered their

questions mostly about the play props and how it was used. During the first two weeks of

data collection, children were engaged in the play as they took on the roles of parents

and/or siblings. They were comfortable in their roles and mostly reflected their past

experiences in their play. The language, the play props and the relationships were all

familiar to the children and required minimal explanation or assistance from the teachers.

During the second phase of the data collection using a veterinary clinic, I found that the

children required more guidance as how to use the play props and the language needed to

maintain their play.

I had the advantage of knowing the teachers in the classroom, some more than

others. This helped me in recognizing their approaches to supporting the children’s

learning. When a question came from the children to each teacher, I could usually predict

what the responses would be and most often I was proven right. All three of the teachers

had similar theoretical perspectives and that helped with the continuity and consistency of

their teaching. The teachers were attentive to children’s physical and emotional needs and

the environment was designed to promote prosocial skills. The general ethos of the

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classroom was positive and loving which doubtless helped the children reflect these

attitudes in their behaviors. I found that the sociocultural context of the children’s home

environment and their classroom generally aligned resulting in children’s display of

prosocial and empathic behaviors during their play. The notion of caring and cooperation

repeatedly surfaced as children interacted with each other. The display of empathy

through tone of voice, gestures, looks and attitudes was most salient in children as they

negotiated play plans, solved problems and worked at maintaining peaceful play events.

In this chapter, I discussed findings from participants, environment and the classroom

settings in which the data were collected. In the final chapter, I will discuss the overall

study, what I learned during my observations, limitations and implications of this

research, and suggestions for future research.

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 Chapter Five

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore children’ prosocial and empathic

behaviors exhibited during their sociodramatic play. The sociodramatic play center was

selected not for its known ability in developing prosocial behavior, but as a vehicle by

which prosocial behavior becomes salient to the observer. Sociodramatic play provided

the opportunity for this study to explore prosocial interactions between preschool

children and their peers and teachers as well as the environment in which they played.

The prosocial behaviors explored in this study included-but were not limited to acts of

cooperation, compliance, kindness, assistance, and sharing. The children’s capacity for

empathy was demonstrated through their ability to connect to their peers, understand their

feelings and behaviors and communicate that understanding through their appropriate

reactions (Allison et al., 2011). Children’s reactions were displayed through an array of

verbal and nonverbal means; their body language and gestures, in particular, often

depicted their empathic understanding of their peers and environment.

Prosocial behavior is defined as “actions that are intended to aid or benefit

another person or group of people without the actor’s anticipation of external rewards”

(Mussen & Eisenberg-Berg, 1977, p. 3). Such actions are identified by some researchers

as empathy, sharing, caring, helping, comforting, and cooperation. From this perspective

empathy is considered a type of prosocial behavior. From other perspectives, empathy is

thought to encourage prosocial behavior. Regardless of the different views about the
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exact relationship between prosocial behaviors and empathy, in this study I observed

children display prosocial and empathic behaviors during their pretend play with their

peers, teachers and environment. In my observations during this study, I learned that

prosocial behavior and empathy are closely interrelated; while their relationships varied

from one context to another.

Although this study did not examine the process by which prosocial behavior and

empathy are developed in young children; there were many factors that contributed to the

situation being particularly conducive for seeing prosocial and empathic behaviors. These

included that many of the children had been at the Center for one to two years and

therefore quite well-enculturated into the norms of Center. Also, there has been

continuity in the staff for a number of years, allowing them to build strong relationships

with each other and with the families. Additionally, the size of the Center, being limited

to 3 classrooms with a total of a maximum of 45 children at any time and a teacher-child

ratio of 3 teachers to 20 children (in the classroom observed) fosters close relationships.

Of course, prosocial and empathic behaviors could be observed in many different

contexts, but this particular set of factors likely enhanced the chances. The classroom’s

environment–both physical and emotional–was described briefly to illustrate an inside

view of the daily routine and operation of a classroom in which there was concerted

effort to promote such behaviors. Teachers’ interactions with children, their efforts to

engage in timely and appropriate responses, and their developmentally appropriate

practices, helped meet each child’s emotional needs. A general feeling of trust, respect

and care dominated the social emotional atmosphere of the classroom.

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 The findings in Chapter 4 showed that children demonstrated increasing levels of

helping, sharing and other prosocial behaviors with their peers (Eisenberg, Fabes, &

Spinrad, 2006). I provided vignettes and examples in Chapter 4 of instances when

prosocial behaviors and empathic tendencies were lacking and were present. The impact

of teachers’ modeling caring and empathic language, as well as actions were highlighted

in this study to demonstrate that prosocial and empathic behavior are skills to be

acquired. When adults model the desired value-loaded behaviors, children are more likely

to adopt these than if they are merely exhorted to behave in a certain way (Kohn 1991;

Kremer & Dietzen 1991).

Explanation of the Attendance Frequency Table

Tables 7 and 8 represent the frequency of children attending the home living and

the veterinary clinic in sociodramatic play on a daily basis. The number of children

fluctuated day to day with the second day of the first week of the home living theme

having had the highest number of children choosing sociodramatic play. This was the day

that I brought in the baby dolls and the strollers and perhaps the novelty of the new play

props added the attraction for the children. On the third day the number of participants

decreased as I observed less children interested in choosing this center. The day before,

children who played at the center experienced less sharing and this may have contributed

to fewer children interested in going back to that center. On the fourth day, I added a cell

phone which brought a new interest for some to choose the sociodramatic play area as

their choice. Two children, Rickie and Neely that participated in this center, I later

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observed did not show repeated interest in this center as did their other peers. This may

have been due to their curiosity about the new props. Rickie came back to this center at

the beginning of the veterinary clinic as if he wanted to see what the play props were;

particularly, since I observed him less engaged in the narrative and more in handling the

play props. I sometimes found him playing at the close by center, sometimes just

stopping his activity and watching the children who were playing at the sociodramatic

play area, and sometimes talking to them from afar. Rickie returned to this center the

very last day of data collection, but I was able to see him playing in the sociodramatic

play area at other times after my data collection was completed. Neely came back to the

sociodramatic play area the last two days of the veterinary clinic and was interested in the

actual pretend play. Ronnie came to this play area once during the second week of the

home living theme. His first choice often was the writing center, and later on he would

move to math and puzzle center. Even when he was in the sociodramatic play area he

listened to what others would suggest for him to take on as a role and was not interested

in initiating a role. Interestingly however, when the teacher asked for a volunteer to leave

the area so another child can have a turn, Ronnie voiced out, “I just got here”, even

though it had been 20 minutes since he was playing in the center. This leads me to

believe he was growing an interest in playing at this center.

Several children chose sociodramatic play almost regularly, when teachers asked

children to plan their activities for the day, these included children like Lucas, Lakshmi,

Rachel and Victoria confidently chose sociodramatic play area. While another few were

more interested to follow a friend’s lead. For example, Amy seemed to wanting to follow
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Victoria and her choice; Lewis seemed to sometimes base his choice following

Jonathan’s lead and choose the center because Jonathan was going to play there. I

observed the same situation at times was true for Lamar as he seemed to be interested in

where Lucas chose to play. The general overview of the table, demonstrates that a

number of children regularly chose the sociodramatic play area, a few showed interest

only a few times and one (Brad) never chose to be in the sociodramatic play center. One

reason for Brad not making it to the sociodramatic play area may have been due to his

late arrival to school. Brad attended school three days a week, and was dropped off after

his sibling were able to get on the bus, that caused him to arrive after circle time and

planning had ended.

Contrary to the first day of home living theme with only 2 children at a time

showing interest in choosing sociodramatic play as their choice; the first day of the

veterinary clinic started with a bang, as a large number of children showed interest in

participating in this play center. The waiting list was in full swing allowing four children

at a time to enter the play area. This may have been due to both a new theme being

introduced and that the teachers had asked the children to bring in their favorite stuffed

animal to add to the veterinary clinic. Every child came to school with a stuffed animal

and was eager to have a turn in the play center showing their friends what they brought to

school. On the following third, fourth, and fifth days of the first week of the veterinary

clinic, the children’s interest seemed to decrease as fewer children participated in the play

center. During the initial phase of the veterinary clinic theme I observed the children

engaged in manipulating the play props more than engaging in building narratives. I
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attributed this to the complexity and unfamiliarity of the children to the play language

and the play props (i.e., blood pressure cuff, pager, syringe, etc.). However, as time went

by the children became more familiar with the materials and had many more exposure to

the language thereby they may have been more interested to participate in this play

center, as seen in table 8.

Table 7
List of children participating in Home Living

Week 1 (Home Living)

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Lewis Lamar Amy Jonathan Lucas
Krishna Amy Nevin Virginia Lakshmi
Amy Joyce Victoria Lauren Rachel
Rachel Lucas Lauren Neely Jonathan
Allison Krishna Rickie Allison
Victoria Joyce Joyce
Lauren Lamar Lamar
Rachel Lakshmi Victoria
Nevin Rachel Amy
Jonathan Mollie
Lewis
Rudy
Lily
4 13 5 9 10
Week 2 (Home Living)
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Victoria Joyce Mollie Victoria Rickie
Mollie Rachel Joyce Lucas Victoria
Lauren Lakshmi Allison Jonathan Amy
Brody Victoria Lilly Rudy Lakshmi
Amy Mollie Rachel Virginia Nevin
Nevin Lucas Lucas Lauren Lucas
Lucas Virginia Ronnie Lakshmi Rachel
Rachel Jonathan Lamar Allison Virginia
Jonathan William Jonathan Lewis Mollie
Lewis Rudy Krishna Lamar

10 9 10 10 10
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Table 8
List of children participating in Veterinary Clinic

Week 1 (Veterinary Clinic)

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
William Lakshmi Mollie Joyce Amy
Jonathan Joyce Victoria Lamar Joyce
Rickie Lewis Lauren Lakshmi Mollie
Nevin Rachel Amy Nevin Virginia
Lakshmi Mollie Joyce Mollie Lucas
Lucas Rudy Lakshmi Lewis
Lauren Jonathan
Rudy Rickie
Victoria William
Rachel
Jonathan
Lamar
James

13 9 6 5 6
Week 2 (Veterinary Clinic)
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Joyce Amy Joyce Lakshmi Victoria
Lucas Lauren Lewis Victoria Lucas
Lamar Jonathan Rudy Mollie Amy
Rachel Rachel Nevin Lewis Rickie
Victoria Krishna Virginia Rachel William
Nevin Victoria Lamar Virginia Lakshmi
Lewis Allison Mollie Krishna Lucas
Jonathan Lucas Rudy Neely Neely
Lamar Lakshmi Lucas Rachel
Lamar James
Jonathan Rudy
Allison

8 9 9 11 12

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Explanation of the Prosocial Frequency Tables

Based on the eagerness as well as their attachment to their favorite stuffed animal,

I anticipated to see children show more empathy. The more sophisticated play props used

in the veterinary clinic, however did not necessarily resulted in more empathic behavior

to be displayed. If anything, I found the complexity of the play props may have inhibited

children from building narratives in their play. Much of their time was spent learning

about what the props’ function were and learning how to incorporate them in their play.

The simplicity of home living play props and its connection to prior knowledge help

elevate the level of play and engage them in a deeper narrative. It is also noteworthy that

a qualitative study is indeed an appropriate approach to such study as it provides a more

in depth analysis.

The following Tables 9 and 10 represent the frequency of prosocial behavior

occurrences between the two sociodramatic play themes. The graph represents a

comparison between the two play themes as it relates to the prosocial frequencies.

Although, the addition of cell phone in the home living added to the number of interested

children in that center, and captured the attention of some children, I also observed that

some children had a harder time sharing the new prop. This may explain the lower

cooperation rate for that day. Across data collection, Joyce’s attraction to the cell phone

was observed almost on a daily basis. She experienced a hard time giving turns to her

peers with the cell phone. I observed Joyce having a difficult time separating from the

cell phone. Her command of the use of the cell phone and the appropriate language

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proved her prior knowledge and current interest in this device. On many occasions her

head was down on the screen and fingers moving on the key pad which prompted her

peers to ask what was she doing; to which she responded, “I am texting my friend to go

for a coffee”. Later I observed that behavior being imitated by another child who was

able to convince Joyce to giving her a turn with the cell phone. Perhaps, this practice of

convincing peers to share props explains the reason for the higher rate of “problem

solving” theme in the veterinary clinic. There were more props available in the veterinary

clinic, and children experienced less sharing episodes compared to home living theme.

They, however showed more of problem solving skills in the veterinary clinic than

perhaps was needed in the home living theme. In both of the themes, it appeared that as

children began their play they were able to sort through understanding the rules and

becoming comfortable with each other, allowing for deeper levels of expression, and the

connections between them. This is more salient in the increase in children’s exhibiting no

sense of community on the first day of veterinary clinic play followed by a steady

increase.

Table 9 also shows that the display of “empathy/care” was more salient in the

home living theme that included opportunities for caring for family particularly the care

for the baby. The home living theme provided many opportunities for children to bring

their real life experiences into their play. Victoria and Lakshmi seemed to be very natural

in taking care of the baby and managing the work in the kitchen. They both have younger

siblings which I believe helped them in their display of care for their baby dolls, and

impact their peers paly as well. As a center director, I have had the opportunity to observe
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the families’ interactions with their children, I have seen the children being surrounded

with the love of family and extended family and attribute such relationships to fostering

the feelings of compassion and empathy in the children. Table 10 shows that the

“cooperation/compliance” as well as the “problem solving/negotiation” seemed to have

been on the rise during the veterinary clinic. This may be attributed to the nature of the

play as the children needed each other’s help in learning about the functions of the play

props and also ways to problem solve and negotiate taking turns with the many props that

were available during the veterinary clinic play theme. The increase in the two themes

may also be attributed to the longer time the children had practicing these skills. The

“respect/acceptance” theme stayed the same during both play kits, while the “sense of

community/emotional wellbeing” was higher during the home living theme. The children

used their prior knowledge to enhance their play during the home living play kit; this

perhaps helped them build an increasing sense of community and emotional wellbeing

compared to when they played in the veterinary clinic to which they had less prior

knowledge. Graph 1 represents the relationships of the two sociodramatic play kits and

the percentage of each strand of prosocial behavior in each of the two play kits.

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Table 9
Frequency Theme Occurrences During Home Living in Sociodramatic Play

Week 1 Home Living Week 2 Home Living

Themes

D2

D3

D4

D5

D1

D2

D3

D4

D5
D1
Empathy/Care (Showing affection, offering help,
recognizing feelings of another, perspective taking)
5 8 4 8 5 5 6 5 7 8

Cooperation/Compliance (Developing friendship,

playing peacefully, turn taking, sharing, offering toys)
6 3 6 2 6 3 4 4 6 5

Respect/Acceptance (Showing tolerance, sharing, turn

taking, accepting, respecting others and their belonging,
respecting environment, play props and toys) 4 4 3 3 2 4 3 5 5 4

Problem Solving/Negotiation (Finding resolution,

recognizing disagreement, self- control/regulation,
open/agreeable to idea) 2 3 2 1 2 3 4 3 2 3

Sense of Community/ Emotional Wellbeing (Showing

kindness/compassion, patience, peaceful play, self-
control/regulations) 2 3 2 3 1 2 2 3 4 3

Table 10
Frequency Theme Occurrences During Veterinary Clinic in Sociodramatic Play

Week 1 Veterinary Clinic Week 2 Veterinary Clinic

Themes
D2

D3

D4

D5

D1

D2

D3

D4

D5
D1

Empathy/Care (Showing affection, offering help, 1 4 3 3 5 4 5 6 5 6

recognizing feelings of another, perspective taking)
Cooperation/Compliance (Developing friendship, 1 2 3 4 4 5 4 6 5 6
playing peacefully, turn taking, sharing, offering
toys)

Respect/Acceptance (Showing tolerance, sharing, 3 2 2 3 4 3 3 4 2 3

turn taking, accepting, respecting others and their
belonging, respecting environment, play props and
toys)

Problem Solving/Negotiation (Finding resolution, 1 1 2 2 3 3 5 4 3 3

recognizing disagreement, self- control/regulation,
open/agreeable to idea)

Sense of Community/ Emotional Wellbeing 0 1 1 2 2 1 2 3 2 3

(Showing kindness/compassion, patience, peaceful
play, self-control/regulations)

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Graph 1
Percentage of Prosocial Occurrence in Home Living and Veterinary Clinic

Home Living & Veterinary Clinic

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

House% Vet%

Choosing Sociodramatic Play for Data Collection

The sociodramatic play center context provided children with opportunities that

these behaviors became salient to the eye of the observer. Children’s previous

knowledge–a contributing feature in sociodramatic play–is often influenced by children’s

socioeconomic status, and that can, in turn, influence children’s play behaviors and skills.

In reviewing the literature, gender roles were often discussed to be evident during
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sociodramatic play and to influence children’s role taking skills. Various researchers have

argued that children most often relate to their own gender, and act out the roles of people

who have the same gender. Prosocial behavior, as a result may also be gender specific.

Perhaps for some children, the caring for a baby doll may be shared more in young

female children as an indicator of real life experiences with mothers as primary care

givers. During my observations, however young male children were as engaged in caring

for the baby dolls as their female counterparts. Perhaps, children’s cultural backgrounds

may have had an impact on their prosocial and empathic tendencies and the way in which

they were exhibited. For example, if in some cultures spoon-feeding a preschool child is a

sign of affection, that very act may be displayed by the preschooler during interactions

with a peer as a sign of affection. During this study, I observed children who regarded

preparing and serving food as a token of endearment and therefore they became

immersed in such activities repeatedly. A first or second language spoken at home may

also contribute to the definition and categorization of prosocial behavior and how it is

exhibited. When it comes to the play behavior of the children specifically in the

sociodramatic play area, all the above issues can be considered instrumental in the type of

play outcome it will produce by the participants. Although, this study did not examine

these issues in detail, it was apparent that the diversity of the children involved in the

sociodramatic play can be a factor in the nature of their play and its relation to their real

world experiences.

As I observed the nature of the children’s pretend play, I realized that I was not

most interested by isolated instances of prosocial and empathic behaviors as I anticipated

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I might be earlier in my study. Rather, I was most interested in observing children

engaged in ongoing cooperative, friendly, loving and empathic exchanges that appeared

to be a reflection of their daily interactions. Children’s empathy and prosocial behavior in

a sociodramatic play are to be harvested, only if the seeds of empathy have been planted

in children’s lives, both at home and at school. What I was observing in this area of the

classroom was not a product of the play kits that I had selected, but was the outpour of

what had been integral practice in all other areas of the classroom, and, most likely, the

homes of the children. The children in this classroom extended their prosocial and

empathic behavior as a general practice of living in a group. Observing their play in the

sociodramatic play center provided me the chance to view the behaviors microscopically

as they were represented in the children’s conversations, narratives, verbal interactions

and nonverbal gestures. In this classroom, teachers took an active role in promoting

children’s perspective-taking skills by providing a variety of opportunities for social

sharing and cooperation with peers and teacher (Edwards, 1986).

Although, some children did not show much interest in the sociodramatic play

area at the beginning, the more the children played in that center, the more other children

who had seemed less interested, became curious and interested in participating in the

pretend play. This allowed the opportunity for the children to discover new friendships in

the classroom that later expanded to other centers.

The home living theme of the sociodramatic play brought about a recurrent theme

of empowerment that I was able to observe in the children. For example when Lily, an

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English Language Learner in the classroom sat at the table in the kitchen talking to Ms.

Stacey while waiting for Lewis to make them dinner, a look of joy and recognition filled

Lily’s face. She started speaking by naming the objects on the table in English all as a

result of Ms. Stacey asking Lily for the equivalent word in her native language. I also

observed children play beyond traditional gender roles. This, in and of itself, was a

testimony to the fact that children’s play and selection of play props had been respected

and accepted in the past by all the participants. Preschool teachers have a prominent

influence on children’s social development (Pianta, 1999). I interpreted the children’s

lack of gender-specificity in the roles they chose to play as indication of their teachers

having provided gender neutral experiences. When I observed Lucas and Lamar compete

and cooperate to vacuum the kitchen and cook breakfast, I attributed this to (a) the

likelihood of children observing the men in their homes to take on similar tasks, and (b)

having been in a classroom that promoted and advocated a non-biased approach to

learning. It is this kind of social literacy that preschoolers need to develop prior to any

scholastic literacy.

To demonstrate the important role of the teachers, I share one more example from

my data that illustrates how the children were supported by their teachers’ comments and

directions to learn to respect peer’s choice and ideas:

Lewis: I want to be the nurse.

Krishna: But nurses are girls

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 Ms. Linda: Nurses can be both boys and girls.

Krishna: But mostly they are girls.

Ms. Linda: Oh, I have seen men who work as nurses in the hospital.

Krishna: But when I go to doctor, I only see girl nurses.

Krishna was clearly connecting his past experience to his pretend play. Ms. Linda

realized that conversations help uncover and challenge children’s assumptions, and used

this play event for a discussion about gender. She may not have convinced Krishna that

there are many male nurses, but he might be more willing to allow his male friends to

play the role of a nurse during sociodramatic play because of this exchange.

Across the data collection period, I observed non-gender-stereotyped play

behavior from many of the boys who bottle-fed babies, changed diapers, pushed strollers,

washed the dishes, cooked the food, and vacuumed the carpet. All the household actions

that have been traditionally expected to be performed by the girls, in real life and in their

play, were performed by the boys without any objections or opposing comments from the

children.

“Research suggests that from an early age children’s understanding of gender is

influenced by their experiences with their family, culture and life style, as well as by the

broader community (ncac.acecqa.gov.au/educator-resources/pcf-articles/Gender).

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 The primary change in the life of the modern families has led to convergence of

the roles mothers and fathers take to balance the work and family. The increasing number

of children living in two-income families, that is families with both parents employed;

experience less gender-specific activities in their homes. As a director of preschool

program, I have witnessed an increase in the number of fathers involved in custodial care

of their children, compared to last decade. Today in our program, we see almost equal

number of mothers and fathers involved in packing children’s lunches, drop off and pick

up children from the center. As a result of changes in the life of modern families, social

issues such as gender role will surface in classrooms, and when they do, teachers’

abilities to identify and address the issues will greatly influence children’s learning and

opinion-forming.

Research on Children’s Prosocial and Empathic Behavior

Much research on children’s prosocial behavior has been conducted in laboratory

tasks and using teacher and parent reports of children’s behavior. Although these are

valid and reliable research methods, it is also important to study children’s prosocial

behavior in a natural environment and the context of their everyday play. This study

explored preschool children’s prosocial behavior in the context of sociodramatic play

with their peers, teachers and environment. The content for the sociodramatic play during

home living theme was derived from children’s lived experiences. Familiarity with the

objects and the roles performed helped children immerse themselves in their play as they

developed sub-themes (examples of going to the park, going on a vacation, having a

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birthday party, etc.). Throughout the data collection period, the children continued to play

in a cooperative, friendly environment and manner. The children respected each other’s

imaginations and broadened each other’s pretend play. For example when Lucas was

looking for a trashcan in which to empty his dust pan, Rachel told him to pretend there

was one by the stove. The participating children were involved in assuming roles, trying

out the dress up clothes and using the play props in a cooperative manner.

“The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

pointed out that “preschoolers are capable of engaging in truly cooperative play with their

peers and forming real friendships. However, development of these important social

skills is not automatic for children. They need coaching and supervision to learn and

maintain appropriate behaviors with others.” (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997, p. 116)

Teachers facilitated home-school connections by asking children to bring stuffed

animals from home during the second phase of data collection, during the veterinary

clinic set-up. This activity helped spark conversations between the children and the

sharing of stories about their home lives. For example, when the children learned that

Rudy had a real pet snake that was eagerly accepted by the children and one remarked,

“Isn’t it cool to have a snake for a pet?” They shared in many ways with each other. As

the children gathered around the play prop hospital bed that was placed in the middle of

the veterinary clinic play area, talking about the toy animals that they brought from home,

I heard them say things like, “That’s my favorite bunny, I had him since I was a baby”;

“My grandma got me that monkey, I keep him on the top of my dresser”; “I bought this

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giraffe when we went to Disney last year.” The children made a stronger connection to

the paly environment which was constructed by them, they were respectful of each

other’s belongings, and, in general, practiced generosity in sharing their toys from home.

High-interest play props such as a vacuum, stroller, cell phone, and egg beater

that were to be operated by individual children were added to the play kit. These items

came in a designated time during the data collection to explore children’s prosocial skills

such as sharing and turn taking. I purposely added only one of the high interest play

props at a time to observe the reactions by children. Their skills in negotiation, problem

solving, turn taking and even control of their impulses were topics of observation. The

children for the most part adopted skillful resolutions to obtain the prop from their peers,

but there were some instances when the children were not so peaceful and cooperative.

For example, when Lauren walked in immediately after Amy in the play center, she lost

her chance of picking up the cell phone. Her impulses ruled and she started pulling the

cell phone out of Amy’s hands. Knowing that this was not an appropriate method, she

merged her action with a sweet tone of voice, saying to Amy in the most persuasive of

tones, “I need this phone so I can call you (the veterinarian) to help my sick puppy.”

Lauren was caught between using force and the knowledge that that method was not

appropriate.

Teachers’ requests for the stuffed animals from home also provided me with the

opportunity to observe the children’s lack or presence of prosocial skills. I observed the

respect that children showed to their peers’ belongings. They showed no resentment,

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teasing or excluding of any toys that were brought in by the children. If anything, they

were cautious in choosing a toy that was available to them instead of being persistent

about having toys that the owner had had a hard time separating from. When Joyce yelled

at Victoria for picking up the stuffed animal that she had brought from home, Victoria

placed it back down with a startled look on her face. Ms. Linda came to Joyce, kneeled

down to her eye level and explained to her, “Do you remember that we talked about the

toys from home?” Signs of regret came to Joyce’s face as she remained silent. Ms. Linda

continued, “We told our friends that if you choose to bring your favorite stuffed animal

from home, you will be sharing it with your friends playing in the clinic. If you don’t feel

like sharing, you may keep your stuffed animal in your locker.” Joyce had picked up

another toy that she was going to offer to Victoria instead. This reminder convinced her

to share her toy even while still showing some reservations about doing so.

The children in this study spoke to each other using kind words almost all of the

time. They were generally agreeable to each other’s role selections, and they respected

the process of turn taking. Peer interactions represented mentoring, compliance and

cooperation between the children regardless of their age or gender. Children shared their

knowledge of play props, past experiences, and home lives to extend their play with their

peers. Equally important, was the way the children on the receiving side of an interaction

demonstrated acceptance, respect and willingness to apply what they learned during this

process.

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 Children’s connections to their past experiences enhanced their play. Those

children who had pets at home; had visited the veterinarian’s office with their families; or

had connection to the field of medicine were more engrossed with the veterinary clinic

play activity than those children without those kinds of real life experiences. They were

more likely to use language that was relevant to the care of the animals during pretend

play (e.g., “my dog needs stitches”), and they showed affectionate gestures (hugging,

patting, and tone of voice) toward their animal patients. The children who had siblings

were more likely to share/swap a toy and knew the tactics to negotiate to get a toy from a

peer. These children often were more patient with events that did not go according to

their plans and displayed problem-solving skills that assisted them in resolving the

unwanted play situation.

In analyzing the field notes I had taken during my observations, I found that when

the children played in the home living environment, they appeared to have the basic

schemas and were well-versed in the roles they took. They used the terminology and

language that were related to their play, and were able to maintain a storyline. The

children’s previous experiences of watching their parents function at home provided them

with a context to sustain their play. Children’s home life experience were brought into the

play episode (“Lamar, do your homework”), and the play props and their usage were

identified by prior knowledge (“that’s an egg beater, my mom uses it when she makes us

eggs”). At the same time, I observed a fascination for manipulating the play props (e.g.,

the egg beater) by children who saw this device for the first time. They were interested in

possessing it and exploring more than using it to further their play.

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 Children seemed to need more direction for the veterinary clinic during its first

few days. I observed fewer sustained play episodes and more isolated play that involved

manipulation of the play props. Ms. Linda spent her time in the play area answering

children about the function of the play props and how they were used, and she modeled

the language, and used specific terminology that was related to the play. I attributed this

to some children lacking the experiences in their real lives to help them connect to the

play. For some children, the connections to this play kit were limited to having read

books and watching video clips in the classroom. The absence of schema and

terminology required to uphold the play theme became apparent in the duration and the

level of the play in which the children were engaged. For some children in this study,

play became more about the play props and less about developing a story. For example,

they became preoccupied with exploring the blood pressure cuff, thermometer, scale,

syringe, stethoscope, animal cage, and so forth. The children’s play became more

dependent on the support they received from the teachers.

Teachers’ engagement was often an important part of the children’s play. During

the first week of each of the play kits, one of the teachers became part of children’s play,

as she took on a role. I observed that some children became dependent on having the

teacher engaged in their play. They would ask the teacher to join in and would not initiate

or continue their play unless the teacher participated. Although, this helped the play to

carry on longer and at a higher level, it seemed to have taken away from children’s

imagination. At times, it appeared to be guided by the teacher rather than by the children.

During the second week of the home living play kit and the veterinary clinic, I asked the
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teachers to refrain from participating in the play-but to stay in a close proximity so they

could support children linguistically by providing them with the appropriate terminology

to enhance and help sustain the play event. During this time, teachers used sentences to

elaborate on a topic of play or discussion (example of children going to the park

vignette). They also helped clarify children’s intention to their peers (example of Lucas

being misunderstood by Lakshmi in baby in the crib vignette). As another stage in

teachers supporting children’s play, I observed teachers providing background knowledge

to children’s play theme by including books, video clips and stories. This was more

evident during the veterinary clinic play theme as some children seemed to require this

information to generate imagination.

According to Decety and Jackson (2004), empathy is hardwired in our brains and

is developed through interactions with others. Researchers believe that human beings can

learn empathy and that is possible to train or enhance empathic behaviors (Decety &

Jackson, 2004; Feshbach & Feshbach, 2009). Empathy is not a magic wand but it is a

necessary one to build a community of peaceable children.

The activity planned by the teacher to collect donations of goods and money for

the Toledo Humane Society can be considered a kind of empathy-training that was

intended to increase the children’s empathy toward animals in need of protection. When

the organization representative read a story to the children, they showed a tremendous

amount of attention and they appeared to be immersed in the story of the stray dog in the

book. The look on the faces of these young children was a demonstration of empathy, as

146
they put themselves in the place of the lost dog in the story. The advantage of developing

empathy in young children is not limited only to their social emotional well-being, but, as

Gallo (1989) argues, empathy training enhances both critical thinking skills and creative

thinking.

Research has demonstrated a connections between imagination skills, role taking,

and empathy. Imaginative processes have been suggested to account in part for the

operation of both empathy and role taking by providing more direct response to another’s

experience (Hoffman, 1982: Scottland, 1969). The connection of imaginative process to

role taking may be due to their shared underlying premise, namely, that they both require

cognitive decentering. That is, they both require creativity and flexibility to allow for

different viewpoints rather focusing specifically on one. During the course of my

observations of the children’s play, I noticed that some children’s imagination guided

their pretend play, while others depended on peers’ input to enhance their play. The same

children also played cooperatively and conformed to role changes suggested by their

peers. For example, I have known 5-year old Victoria since she was 18 months old. She

was immensely interested in storybooks and used to bring a new book every day to

school for us to read to her several times throughout the day. This interest increased as

she grew older. Victoria started talking by age 2 and developed an expansive expressive

language by the time she was 3 years old. At age 3, she was deeply interested in

imaginative play and used to walk into school dressed as a character in one of her many

fairytale costumes. Victoria was so immersed in the enactment of her role that she would

object if called by her name. She would correct us and tell us to call her by the
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character’s name. Victoria’s mother, an early childhood professional herself, nurtured

Victoria’s love of books and respected her imaginative processes. I remember last year,

when we had a book exhibition at school, as Victoria stepped in the room all decorated

with shiny colorful books, her face lit up the room. She excitedly chose the books she

wanted and walked over to the cash register. She had brought in her money and perhaps it

was her mother who made sure Victoria had a limited budget since it was only that she

was going to pay by herself that she was convinced to limit herself in the choices of

books to buy. Victoria, on other days, was escorted to school by her father and since last

year, accompanied by her younger sibling. She usually carried a tote full of small toys

that she keeps in her locker (school policy). She then follows through a goodbye ritual

she has in place with her father.

When I observed Victoria during the sociodramatic play, I noticed that regardless

of the playkit, she took a lead in the pretend play and often raised the level of play in

progress. Victoria’s strong sense of imagination strengthened her ability to role-play

during sociodramatic play. Throughout the data collection period, I observed Victoria’s

display of empathic behaviors as she took the role of a caring mother, almost always

holding a baby tightly in her arm (even when she was engaged in vacuuming the floor). I

observed her empathy during play as a veterinarian when she delicately held an injured

dog in her arm, laid him on the table and talked to the dog’s owner assuring her that after

she puts the cast on the dog’s leg, it won’t be long before he would be all well again.

Empathy is considered to reflect on one’s personality (Bryant, 1982; Mehrabian &

Epstein, 1972), particularly when one’s own emotional needs are met (Hoffman, 1975;
148
Strayer, 1980). In my observation of children, and as a particular example, Victoria, I

noticed that children whose home lives were supportive of their affective needs, tended to

be more forgiving in general, and empathic, in particular, toward their peers. Empathic

awareness should facilitate conflict resolution and cooperative, helpful interactions

(Hoffman, 1975; Mussen & Eisenberg-Berg, 1977), as it is incompatible with hostile,

antisocial behavior.

Limitations

One clear limitation of this study was that the children involved were from a

relatively narrow range of socioeconomic backgrounds. However, readers should know

that it was possible to see differences among the children at that their home lives differed

in many ways. I did not focus on children’s home life situations, their family dynamics,

or other behavioral or environmental factors that may impact children’s social and

emotional development. It may be beneficial to examine children’s life situations more

thoroughly and comprehensively to gain accurate insight on all aspects of their social and

emotional development at home and at preschool. Among the factors that may be

important are the child’s culture, gender, birth order, language(s) spoken at home, and

even parents’ different outlook on life. All of these may have potential impact on

producing the behaviors children will exhibit with their peers, and are important concepts

to be examined in future research.

The number and/or themes selected for the sociodramatic play in this study can be

considered as another limitation of this study. Although, the two themes presented in the
149
sociodramatic play offered the children the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their

prosocial and empathic behaviors; there are still a number of other themes that can be

organized and produced to create optimal avenue for the children to enhance and their

social and emotional development, and to exhibit their prosocial and empathic behaviors.

I only implemented two themes that I felt were interesting and applicable in bringing out

children’s prosocial and empathic behaviors. It may be beneficial to observe other themes

carried out as well as other materials and play props used by the children in their play.

Future Research

In our modern society, do our children see traditional acts of kindness like giving

up a seat to a pregnant woman on the bus, helping an old lady cross the street, or helping

a homeless individual fallen on the ground, or even the neighbor’s cat being rescued from

the tree? What is the likelihood of our children experiencing negative conditions that may

be related to family stress, separation, divorce, exposure to conflict and violence on

television, difficulties with peers, and bullying? Since the likelihood of experiences much

of the latter is much greater than of the first, a focus on prosocial behavior and empathic

tendencies in children from early age should take precedence on the “research and

development” agenda of early childhood education and care advocates. Constructs such

as kindness, caring, respect, generosity, and patience as part of social skills can offset the

negative behaviors that otherwise will replace prosocial and empathic behavior.

There were many ideas that came to my mind throughout the process of this

study, including ideas for future research as well as for professional development. Topics
150
of interest for future research include examining empathy as a desired disposition for

teachers (Katz & Raths, 1985). The field of education can benefit from investigating

empathy as a construct to be included in a curriculum for pre-service and in-service

teachers. Empathic people are known to be better communicators as they are skilled in

placing themselves inside the shoes of another person and viewing the world from the

perspective of that person.

NAEYC places great value on the relationship and communication between

teachers and families by highlighting it as one of the standards for professional practice

(http://www.naeyc.org/academy/primary/standardsintro). This relationship is sensitive to

family composition, language, and culture. Regardless of the familiarity of the teacher

with the home culture of a child, a teacher can only establish a collaborative relationship

with a family when she demonstrates empathy with the family. Teachers’ empathy will

open a window of perception to the diverse livelihood of each child. It could be important

to study the empathic understanding of teachers who are instrumental if we are to ever be

able to offer a truly differentiated education.

Implications for Practice

In this research I intended to present a rich description of participants and a

detailed analysis for understanding children exhibiting prosocial and empathic behaviors

during sociodramatic play. The ability to engage in and sustain imaginative play is not

only central to children’s development – particularly cognitive and social/emotional

development – it was also the avenue in which I banked my observations of the

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children’s interactions. I found it necessary that the teachers took an active role in

teaching the skills to engage in make-believe play. It is important that teachers

understand their roles as mediators and facilitators of dramatic play, remembering the

objectives, but allowing play to be guided by children. It is my hope that this study will

help bring teachers the information they need to further enhance the children’s dramatic

play that will in turn further their development.

I discussed the importance of the social-emotional climate in the literature review

for this work. Previous research has shown that social-emotional climate in the classroom

is known to be an important factor in creating an environment conducive to practicing of

prosocial behavior. In my discussion of the results of this study, I illustrated the

relationship between the socio-emotional climate of the overall classroom and the

activities observed within the sociodramatic play area. Elements of teacher- child

relationships, classroom organization, peer interactions, classroom ethos were important

contributing factors to this study, but it was beyond the scope of this research for them all

to be investigated in a detailed way. It is my hope that teachers will regard these

components instrumental in developing empathy and prosocial skills in young children. I

learned that for prosocial and empathic behaviors to be exhibited, it must first be nurtured

by the adults in the children’s lives. Social learning and development theorists like

Bandura (1962), Erickson (1968), and Vygotsky (1978) highlight the importance of

environment on children’s learning at early stages of their development, and emphasize

the importance of the impact of adults’ responses on children’s behavior. Vygotsky

regards development in terms of change and how structures alter and impact life
152
pathways. Children’s learning and development therefore, is influenced by the socio-

cultural context in which the children interact. Bruner (1996) elaborated on the

framework of historical and social context of learners, representing a shift from cognitive,

psychoanalysis, and learning theories of the past that described development in universal

terms. He argued that such theories can no longer be applicable to everyone, everywhere,

and all the time (Brunner, 1996). He argued that:

The truths of theories of development are relative to the cultural context in which

they are applied. The plasticity of the human genome is such that there is no unique way

in which it is realized, no way that is dependent of opportunities provided by the culture

into which an individual is born....man is not free of either his genome or his culture...to

say then that a theory of development is ‘culture free’ is to make not a wrong theory but

an absurd one (p. 135).

I find the social cultural experiences of children to be of great significance to their

development and the way they learn; and therefore, the importance of educators’ and

researchers’ awareness that the development of children are culturally specific and

contextual. It is with this understanding that future research can more accurately account

for what, why and how children learn (Ferrari, 2002; Rogoff, 2003).

A Call to Action

This study was in a sense a “proof of concept,” that given a supportive context,

even very young children can demonstrate capacities to be empathic and self-regulatory

153
as well as kind, and considerate. These are currently aspects of character development

we, as a society, are realizing are just as important, if not perhaps more important, than

the acquisition of academic skills (Tough, 2011). In a time when IQ losses its place to

self-regulation as an indicator of school success for children, the definition of “successful

learner” will open the window to investigation of concepts such as empathy as a

curriculum in caring education. According to B.F. Jones (1990):

"successful students often recognize that much of their success involves their

ability to communicate with others … they are also able to view themselves and the

world through the eyes of others. This means … examining beliefs and circumstances of

others, keeping in mind the goal of enhanced understanding and appreciation. Successful

students value sharing experiences with persons of different backgrounds as enriching

their lives. (p.19)."

In the world of early childhood education and care, the model of a small, homey

early childhood program in which teachers, children and families want to stay for many

years, is one I think we should consider more seriously trying to replicate on a broader

scale.

Conclusion

This research focused on exploring the prosocial behavior and empathic

tendencies of children during play. Today’s media has contributed greatly to inculcating a

culture of violence; its publicity as a source of entertainment, consequently promoting a

154
lack of sensitivity toward pain and distress of others. The potential violence in our

society, the significance of bullying in grade school students, and the lack of

understanding of the ever changing demographics of children from diverse backgrounds

are all new challenges that are best conquered with learning about the importance of

empathy. These examples are proof of our vital need for implementing prosocial behavior

(compassion) as an integral component of the educational curriculum in our schools.

Empathy and prosocial behavior need to be regarded as the new currency with which to

build a world democracy. Perhaps, it’s now time for a paradigm shift—a leap toward the

final stage of human evolution—a realization of a higher being, one that moves away

from pure sense of individualism to a collective consciousness.

This study’s findings confirm that young children are capable of learning and

exhibiting empathy and prosocial behaviors when the vital components as discussed in

this study are met.

155
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