| Case studies were used to investigate the temporal identities of four- and five-year-old children in Mexico and the United States, and the conditions that shaped changes in their ideas about time after they entered public school kindergarten. Specifically, this research sought to: (a) identify the temporal constructs of 11 children; (b) define and describe the culture of time in the family, classroom, community, and broader sociocultural contexts; and (c) understand how environmental circumstances and teacher expectations affect temporal identity development at school. The children selected for the study entered public school kindergarten during the fall of the research period. They had no prior long-term institutional experience, such as preschool or day care, and were typical in their development. Qualitative methods included: observational field notes of the home, community, and school settings; classroom observations; and semi-structured interviews with the children, mothers, teachers, and education administrators. Data were collected in three phases---before, during, and after the kindergarten school year---and analyzed within and among groups to look for commonalities and differences in the temporal constructs of the children across systems.;The results show that the children entered school with a complex network of temporal constructs, shaped by biological needs (sleep-wake cycles) and environmental rhythms (day/night cycles, family routines, television programming). During the kindergarten year, the children's understandings of time shifted toward more detailed and formal methods for understanding and constructing temporal information (increased cycle awareness, began using clock and calendar terms). A continuum of sequential skills delineating temporal identity development was generated based on the findings in each of five conceptual areas: (a) temporal structures, (b) timekeepers, (c) emotional bonds to time, (d) temporal language, and (e) nonrhythmic cues. Immediate (home, classroom) and far-reaching (state and national policies) environmental factors had powerful effects on the children's ideas about time including: the values children placed on time-related constructs; the ways temporal characteristics such as synchrony, duration, rhythm, and pace were arranged to create temporal structures; and the changes experienced by individual children after they began school. |
