Developmental characteristics cannot be understood as mere intellectual, physical and social changes without cultural and social background, since development occurs in the interaction with environment rather than in social isolation. The ecological systems theory emphasizes that heredity is directed and developed in an environment, which is a basic developmental drive according to Bronfenbrenner. Family and school are basic contexts for a child and influence their psychosocial development. For this reason, they are the main focus of the doctoral dissertation. The roles, goals and family relationships associated with them are defined also by a number of children. It is established that important differences between children from different social contexts can be found.
Teachers meet both only children and children with siblings in class. In school, students refine their knowledge and competencies acquired in the family, and build their personalities. It is important for the teacher to know the environment, from which children are coming, in order to understand their needs. The purpose of this thesis is to research the psychosocial development of an only child and of a child from a large family in middle childhood, and to analyse the connection between a child’s psychosocial development and the size of their family and their role in a child’s behaviour and performance in school. The research was done through a qualitative research method (a multiple case study). I included six families in the research, three families with an only child and three large families with at least four children. The awareness that a child’s behaviour can be explained only in the environment where it occurs, led me to methodically and purposefully collect the empirical materials in a child’s natural environment. The data are collected through partially structured interviews, sociometric trials and observation of family and class interactions.
An important founding of the research is that families with an only child included in the research have more favourable SES than the large families, which in our case means that the three only children included in the research have more opportunities for aesthetic, cultural and natural scientific activities. So they more often go on excursions and vacations. On the contrary, in the large families, included in the research, many siblings mean less quality for family environment, however, the social aspect of living with siblings is found as an important factor for a child’s development. The sibling interactions in all three large families enable an individual to develop the ability for mutual help, empathy and prosocial behaviour, competencies less characteristic for the only children included in the research. In this manner, siblings who were involved in the study have better social competencies and a broader social network of friends. Only children who cooperated in the research more often need encouragement from parents to make social contacts. In the families involved in the research, the only children communicate mainly with adults, which impacts their rich vocabulary. Family emotional climate is connected with a child’s emotional competencies. Emotional openness and emotional power of a family depend more on an individual family characteristics and less on the number of family numbers. An authoritarian and strict parenting style is more characteristic for all three large families included in the research. In the school context, the results indicate the connection between a student’s social competencies and their acceptance among peers. In average, siblings involved in this research are more favoured in a peer group, however, a child’s individual character is important. The school is an important medium of socialisation for the only children in the research. For this reason, an important task of teachers is to encourage only children to make new social contacts and to include them into group and collaborative learning, since they have a tendency to individual activities. In average, the only children in this research are better learners in school, have more afterschool activities, they are more knowledgeable and more cooperative in class. They have parents with higher education who expect more from the child, engage more in their schoolwork and cooperate more often with the school. In the three large families involved in the research, some of these tasks are taken over by older siblings, since younger siblings learn everyday skills from them through observation and imitation. Besides, they learn content of school teachings through common play. Similarly, school age siblings in our study help each other with homework and learning for the school.
The dissertation is concluded with a proposal of teaching strategy development for teaching only children and siblings in the future. The collected and analysed factors that facilitate or inhibit a child’s development in families with an only child or in large families offer an insight into roles and tasks of parents in the family. At the end, proposals for future research are added.
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