From birth, children’s environments pose opportunities for learning experiences that can foster their school readiness at kindergarten entry (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). A key environment for infants and toddlers is the home, where they develop in the context of interactions with their families. Another key environment are formal learning settings such as preschool, though distal policies influence the extent to which children can access them. This dissertation takes an ecological approach to understanding these proximal and distal influences on children’s school readiness (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). A strength of the dissertation is the use of samples that include fathers and also represent the experiences of non-white, bilingual families.

Studies 1 and 2 center on the home by exploring the mathematical environments infants and toddlers engage in with their parents. Study 1 codes video-recorded parent-child interactions during play to identify the extent to which parents use gestures with talk about mathematics. Study 1 findings show that while overall frequency of math gestures is low, parents vary considerably in their gesture use. It also finds that mothers engage in math gesturing more frequently than fathers, suggesting that parental nonverbal communication patterns differ by parental gender.

Study 2 explores the extent to which English-derived coding schemes of parental spatial talk that are translated to Spanish undercount expressions of spatial concepts by excluding verbs, which in Spanish can implicitly convey spatial concepts (compared to English, which primarily uses prepositions). By creating a Spanish-derived coding scheme to compare to results with the English-derived coding scheme, Study 2 finds that nearly half of the amount of discourse is missed when using an English-informed coding procedure because verbs are not included.

Finally, Study 3 uses an event study to estimate impacts of a federal policy on enrollment of 4-year-olds in pre-k, which is important because of its focus on school readiness skills. Results indicate that awarded states increased enrollment numbers; however, there is evidence of a positive policy diffusion effects in which non-awarded states went forward with increasing enrollment as well. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that taking an ecological approach that examines both children’s in-home experiences and access to out-of-home learning provides a more nuanced understanding of children’s experiences before they enter kindergarten.

Mobile screen technologies, such as smartphones and tablets, permeate the lives of most U.S. families with young children (Common Sense Media, 2017). However, very little is known about the role these technologies play on the quality of interactions between caregivers and their young children, and even less is known about parents’ beliefs of these technologies. Specifically, scarce research has explored parents’ beliefs about how these devices both support and hinder their parenting experiences and their children’s learning, particularly among parents from ethnic minorities, such as Latino mothers and fathers. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on exploring the associations between mobile screen technologies and the quality of caregiver-child interactions, and on investigating socioeconomically diverse Latino parents’ beliefs about the ways mobile screen technologies have supported and/or hindered their parenting and young children’s learning.

Study 1 focused on understanding whether caregiver use of a mobile screen device was related to the quality of interactions they had with their young child (i.e. joint attention, talk, positive emotion, initiating interactions, responding to the child) in public settings. To address this question, two researchers anonymously and systematically observed and coded the behavior of 98 caregiver-child dyads during naturally occurring interactions in public settings across low and middle-high income neighborhoods. Findings showed that caregiver use of mobile devices was negatively associated with joint attention, caregivers’ talk to their child, caregivers’ display of positive emotions, and caregivers’ initiation of interactions with their children. However, caregivers’ use of a mobile device was not significantly associated with caregiver responsiveness to the child, children’s talk or displays of positive emotions. Furthermore, when looking at the specific ways caregivers used their mobile device, we found that looking at the screen was positively associated with most components of quality interaction compared to activities involving more fine motor use such as texting or swiping. Finally, we also found that a higher proportion of device use by caregivers and their children was significantly associated with a lower proportion of most of the key components of high quality interactions.

Study 2 focused on understanding how a socioeconomically and linguistically diverse sample of Latino mothers (n = 20) and fathers (n = 20) with young children (0-4 years) believed mobile screen devices supported and/or hindered their parenting experiences. A total of seven themes emerged, capturing the ways mobile screen devices had served as a support (i.e. access to information, social support access, parent-child bonding, facilitates teaching), hindrance (i.e. disrupts parent-child interactions), or both (i.e. child behavior management, parental psychological effects) for parents. However, although most of these themes were spread across diverse parents, a few differences by parent gender, language, and income, but primarily by parent education, emerged.

Study 3 used the sample of parents from study 2 to investigate how these parents believed mobile screen devices had supported and/or hindered their children’s learning. Findings showed that one major theme emerged centering on parents’ opinions about the types of mediation practices (i.e. monitoring content, setting time limits, co-using of the device) they believed contributed to mobile devices being beneficial or detrimental towards children’s learning.

Collectively, these three studies suggest that mobile screen devices can both negatively and positively contribute to the quality of family interactions, parenting experiences, and parents’ perceptions of children’s learning among diverse families, depending on how the device is used. Therefore, future work on mobile screen technologies should go beyond just observing or asking questions about whether a device was used or not and focus on the specific ways devices are used and how that use relates to parenting practices, parent-child interactions and positive and negative learning outcomes.

School climate, broadly considered to be an individual's experience of school life, is especially important in early adolescence, when there is a known mismatch between the structure of middle schools and adolescents’ developing needs. Despite certain components of school climate being particularly developmentally salient in middle school, such as student autonomy and interpersonal relationships with peers and adults, not enough is known about the particular aspects of importance in these two areas, in order to better leverage them for school climate improvement. Further, historically marginalized students, such as students of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, often experience a school’s climate more negatively, making school climate an important educational equity issue. Additionally, research is limited on how climate functions in out-of-school spaces, such as extracurricular programs, where many adolescents spend significant time. Through three studies, this dissertations seeks to help address these gaps by expanding understanding of the impact of autonomy and interpersonal relationships on student outcomes, using approaches that are well suited to such research, but often underutilized: youth participatory action research (YPAR) and social network analysis (SNA), and including samples of majority low-income, Latine young adolescents. Designed in collaboration with a Title 1 middle school, Study One examines how students conceptualized school climate during the COVID-19 pandemic and how participating in a YPAR project impacted students’ feelings of belonging, mattering, and empowerment, as well as perceptions of school climate. Findings revealed that despite school climate including both at-home and in-person components during the spring of 2021, students felt the shared aspects of the school environment were the most salient and malleable to change through action research. Additionally, students had significant increases in their feelings of empowerment and mattering throughout their participation in the project. Using social network analysis, Study Two and Three explored how the peer and teacher-student relationships within a summer enrichment program relate to students’ feelings of belonging, mattering, connection, as well as perceptions of program climate. Both studies were conducted in collaboration with an out-of-school program focused on supporting would-be first generation college students. Results from Study Two revealed that higher amounts of close outgoing ties to peers were associated with higher feelings of mattering and connection, as well as more positive perceptions of program climate, and that students’ peer ties increased significantly over the summer. The findings from Study Three showed that ties to teachers also significantly increased over the course of the summer program and that higher amounts of outgoing ties to teachers were associated with stronger feelings of connection and more positive perceptions of program climate. Collectively, these three studies explore how young adolescents experience developmentally important areas of school climate – student autonomy and interpersonal relationships – using a sample of students who are often underrepresented in such research and including the less explored setting of out-of-school programs, offering directions for future research to improve school climate.

The negative impact of physical violence against children is well established, but cultural norms surrounding appropriate acts of violence vary and aspects of one’s culture influence these behaviors. Given that the U.S. is multicultural, it is critical to examine which aspects of immigrants’ cultures are risky or protective for physical discipline. However, researchers who study the links between culture and physical punishment typically focus on one culture and the factors identified in one group are not explored in others. Research identifying potential common risk and protective factors across cultures does not yet exist. It also remains unclear what role acculturation plays for caregiver physical punishment.

This dissertation explores whether cultural factors such as norms, values, and beliefs that have been linked to physical discipline within certain cultures are applicable to different cultures, as well as what role acculturation and generation status plays. The first study addresses how caregivers’ filial piety, familism, and machismo attitudes are associated with students’ experiences of physical discipline. Findings indicate that caregivers’ machismo attitudes are a risk factor for physical punishment, while their beliefs about familism have mixed effects on students’ experiences of physical discipline. The second study uses three generations of Taiwanese-origin mothers to examine how immigration and growing up bicultural influences mothers’ risk and protective factors for physical discipline. As mothers become more acculturated to the U.S., they are less likely to hit their children. However, for all three groups, mothers prefer to use non-violent methods of discipline. Further, various risk and protective factors at differing levels of proximity to the child coexist and play a role in mothers’ choices to use physical discipline and some of these factors persist across generations, while others are unique to a generation.

These findings highlight some of the cultural factors that may exacerbate or buffer caregiver physical discipline for different populations. It broadens our understanding of cultural influences on parenting and sheds light on areas to intervene on and prevent caregiver violence, which will be meaningful for programs and policies hoping to reduce corporal punishment and physical abuse across a multicultural population.

Many young adults and adolescents use texting apps, where users can send messages to others directly and privately. Texting apps have great potential for enabling individuals to seek support anytime and anywhere, but whether they actually benefit wellbeing is not well known. In this three-study dissertation, I explore whether young adults use texting apps when experiencing intense emotional states, whether texting a friend can help early adolescents cope with stress, and whether the content of texts matter for improving wellbeing.

In Study 1, we examined the relationship between texting and experiencing intense emotional states (N = 104). For one week, young adults completed surveys on mood and stress hourly. An application on their phones logged when and for how long they accessed texting apps. Using multilevel modeling, we found that young adults spent more time on texting apps when experiencing high stress, low mood, or high mood. No associations were found, however, between texting and subsequent mood and stress.

In Study 2, we experimentally tested whether texting would help early adolescents cope with stress. Adolescents (N = 122) participated with a friend and both teens completed a stressful task. Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to text their friend, watch a video (i.e., active control), or sit quietly (i.e., passive control). Texting did help adolescents cope; those in the texting condition reported higher moods at the end of the study than adolescents in both control conditions and lower stress levels than adolescents in the passive control condition.

In Study 3, we examined whether the content of texts mattered for improving wellbeing. Among the participants in the texting condition in Study 2, participants who shared about negative experiences and received supportive responses from their friends had higher mood and higher heart rate variability (i.e., lower stress) than participants who did not share about negative experiences. However, participants who shared about negative experiences but received unsupportive responses, did not experience greater wellbeing than those who did not share about negative experiences. My studies demonstrate that texting can be a valuable tool for improving wellbeing, but may depend on the responses that are received.

Children spend a great deal of time in digital spaces in middle childhood and these digital environments are increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. But little is known about the digital experiences of children between the ages of 8 and 11, or how they might be making sense of algorithmically curated experiences across platforms (Odgers & Jensen, 2020; Radesky et al., 2023; Stoilova et al., 2021). Given the commercial and algorithmically driven digital contexts in which many children spend time, this mixed-methods dissertation seeks to highlight the voices of young digital media and technology users, specifically between the ages of 8 and 11 years old, as well document the opportunities young learners have to develop their skills and understandings about technology and new digital media in US public schools. This dissertation, and especially Study 1, is framed within a developmental affordances approach (Moreno & Uhls, 2019) to make connections between children’s unique developmental strengths and capacities in middle childhood and the opportunities and risks of technology use in the algorithmic age. The focus on children between the ages of 8 and 11 is meaningful because this is the time when most youth in the United States acquire their own device and use social media, despite platform age requirements. Study 1 draws on focus groups with socioeconomically, racially, and ethnically diverse children (N=34) ages 8 to 11 to explore smartphone ownership as a potentially meaningful rite of passage and how smartphone ownership aligns with developmental needs, highlighting children’s stories, feelings, and experiences of getting a smartphone in childhood. Study 2 draws on the same focus group data to document children’s sensemaking of data flows and algorithms in middle childhood, speaking to issues of algorithmic literacy, corporate surveillance, and critical media literacy. Study 3 uses survey data from a large sample of US educators (N=1,325) to examine patterns of instruction related to corporate surveillance, algorithmic literacy, and media literacy in the 2022-2023 academic year, as well as which educator-level predictors are associated with more instruction. Together, these studies have implications for supporting children’s development in the digital age across individual, social, and regulatory environments.

To date, applying what is known about child development to educational app design has been minimally studied and rarely tested. Using developmental and learning sciences research (e.g., Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015), this dissertation identifies whether evidence-based teaching strategies are used in the design of existing educational apps and experimentally tests how some tactics are more effective than others. Study 1 aims to understand how popular preschool literacy and math apps are designed and whether they connect with evidence-based teaching practices. This content analysis of 171 top literacy and math premium and free apps on Apple and Android app markets uses a defined spectrum of effective teaching tactics for young children identified in developmental and learning sciences (e.g., feedback, increasing complexity, guided play), to identify whether these tactics have been applied to current apps’ mechanics. Findings show there is a wide variety of features used across preschool apps, but few provide developmentally appropriate guidance for young learners, such as scaffolded feedback and leveling. Study 2 explores the direct effects of these features with 240 preschoolers, to experimentally test: a) which types of audible app feedback best support preschool learning, and b) whether preschoolers using an educational app with scaffolded challenge (i.e., leveling up) learn better than preschoolers using the same app with random ordered challenge. An ANCOVA and post-hoc Tukey test show that, of the participants who played the feedback tasks first (n=120), those with scaffolded feedback (i.e., explanations for correct and incorrect answers) were more accurate than participants with sound responses (i.e., bell, gong). However, this advantage disappeared when children played the leveling game first. Participants with encouraging (i.e., “Great job!” or “Try again!”) feedback took longer to complete tasks, compared to the sounds feedback group. Moreover, leveling results showed that gradually increasing challenge helped preschoolers make fewer incorrect responses and complete tasks faster than children playing the same game with random order leveling. Ultimately, improving the design of educational preschool apps through empirical research, like this, may be what our increasingly digital age needs to provide young children with high quality digital learning tools.

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