ISP

So…ISP starts tomorrow!  I’ve been spending the past 10 weeks with ideas kicking around in the back of my mind, but I’ve finally settled on a topic.  I will be living in Cochabamba (with my host family—yay!) and studying pre-kindergarden education/socialization here in Bolivia, and investigating how different socioeconomic class backgrounds affect that education/socialization.  I’m focusing on preschool (called prekinder here), ages 3 to 4.5.  I’ll be spending time volunteering in at least one daycare.  Tomorrow I go to the daycare/preschool, which is private but gives scholarships to families that can’t pay.  The kids there are ages 1.5 to 4.5 (NOTE: Autocorrect is in Spanish, so don’t mind any really weird typos.)  I’ll volunteer there with the prekinder class Wednesday through Friday mornings, and have some interviews with the teachers there hopefully.  The director of the daycare is a friend of my academic adviser, and she agreed to be my project adviser.  She’s super nice and has a lot of awesome ideas about education and kids.  I’m also hoping to volunteer in a public daycare, which is free but a lot more crowded and has less materials.  I’m hoping my adviser can help me find one.  I’m also planning to interview some sociology, education, and psychology professors/majors at the local university to learn more about socioeconomic class in Bolivia and how it is passed on to kids.  I’ll keep y’all posted on what I learn!