This study was designed to evaluate the effects of six kinds of social interaction on peer preference among first-grade subjects. Social interaction varied in type of pairing (opposite sex or same sex) and extent of peer interaction (cooperation, spatial contiguity, or normal classroom control). Results of pretreatment peer rankings indicated that subjects preferred same-sex peers as friends. Preference-change scores, obtained by comparing pretreatment and posttreatment peer rankings, were analyzed by analysis of covariance. Treatment and pairing-by-treatment effects were statistically reliable. Evaluation of adjusted preference-change scores indicated that cooperative interaction significantly increased preference for opposite-sex peers (p < .01), but not for same-sex peers. Spatial contiguity appeared to have no effect on peer preference. Results are discussed in terms of a predictability hypothesis, a deprivation-satiation effect, and in terms of a change in the discriminative properties of opposite-sex peers.Ever since Furfey's (1927) investigation of boys' chums, descriptive studies of peer relations have consistently found that young children prefer same-sex peers as friends. Despite this empirical consistency, explanations for the finding have been rather inconsistent. Early theorists attributed peer prefer-
Eight preschool children were exposed initially to an unstructured (open) classroom in which, among other objects, a dozen different books were continuously available. Samples of the subjects' behavior over several weeks documented a very low frequency of reading-related activity (attention to books). Introduction of novel books into the classroom increased some children's reading-related behavior, but adults who modelled reading by reading aloud produced larger and more stable increases of such behavior. There was also a relative increase in frequency of independent and a relative decrease in mutual-peer reading-related activity, possibly as a result of modelling. The study calls attention to the need to evaluate the open-classroom setting in a manner compatible with the experimental analysis of behavior in other applied settingsa manner that is also consistent with the real aims of open education.The movement toward "free" education and "open" classrooms is today one of the prominent reformist movements in education. The primary difference between traditional or formal schools and open schools is that, whereas the former are typically structured for group learning, open classrooms provide a more flexible, individual, or child-centered structure for learning. Advocates of the free-school movement feel that school should be a place in which the child him-'The Preschool
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