"If the teacher smiles a lot, or the kids do, you know it's good in there" : a study of students transitioning into fifth grade
Abstract
The present study was an exploration of students’ experiences as they transitioned
from one classroom to another, specifically from the fourth to the fifth grade within the
same school. Data were collected over four months, beginning in August of 2006 and
continuing through November, in an urban, highly diverse school in a southwestern
public school district. Data included interviews with students, parents, and teachers: focus
meetings with students; classroom observations; and students’ journaling and art.
Additionally, two questionnaires (August and November) were administered which
included questions about experiences in fourth grade and fifth grade as well as about
students’ perceptions of school. Although this study focused on twelve students from
three fourth grade classrooms moving into three fifth grade classrooms, other students
who opted to attend focus meetings were also included in data gathering in order to
gather important participatory and contextual information for interpreting the experience
of the focal participants.
Two research methods were utilized in this study: qualitative and quantitative,
specifically grounded theory techniques and chi-square tests of variance. Results
indicated that transition for children was complex and multi-faceted. It was a taxing and
self-defining process that changed the way children felt about school and teachers as well
as how they authored themselves within their classroom worlds. The students assiduously
negotiated the new classroom, dynamically facilitating their own transition to become
successful members in a classroom context. They constructed and reconstructed
themselves in response to the contextual demands and expectations they encountered. As
the focal students developed strategies that facilitated their transition, they called on both
prior knowledge and novel learning in ways conscious and unconscious. The children
talked about their experiences in ways that troubled the notion that elementary students
might be too young to understand the world around them. Data led to both a theoretical
model of transition according to children as well as deeper understandings of students’
perspectives on the nature of transition.
Department
Description
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