Qualitative change in social situation of development as the starting point of children’s role adjustment during the transition to school

ABSTRACT

Children’s transition to school has been widely investigated, but most studies do not clearly define its starting point. By drawing on the cultural-historical concept of the social situation of development, and selecting ‘role adjustment’ as the unit of analysis, this paper seeks to clearly define the starting point of children’s transition to school. Through a case study of two second-generation Chinese Australian children’s role adjustment, this paper finds that it is the qualitative change in children’s social situation of development that signifies the starting point of the dramatic adjustment of their role(s). In particular, the starting point of children’s first dramatic role adjustment marks the starting point of their transition to school, and the starting points of children’s following dramatic role adjustments mark the turning points of their transition to school.

KEYWORDS:

• Role adjustment
• school transition
• social situation of development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Junqian Ma is a lecturer in Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, China. She was awarded the doctorate degree from Monash University in 2017. Before starting PhD, She worked in a primary school in China as a class teacher and a Chinese language teacher.

ORCID

Junqian Ma http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8628-2031

Notes

1 Chinese language school is a weekend school for children to learn Chinese and math. Many immigrant Chinese parents send their children to this type of school.

2 Conversations in this example are translated from Mandarin.

3 Conversations in this example are translated from Mandarin.