The Influence of Urban Management on Improving Children’sSocial Skill (A Case Study: Toy Houses of Tehran)

Launching the toy houses over the city of Tehran is one of thebasic efforts of urban management. The purpose of establishment of toyhouses is training the different social and individual skills through play and toythus, evaluating the effectiveness of these centers is significantlyimportant.This research aimed at studying the influence of toy house’sperformance on children’s social skill development over the 22 districts ofTehran.

This research is a semi – empirical study (experimental group andcontrol group).Children who have used toy house’s services are experimentalgroup and those who have not used toy house’s services are control group.Statistical community in this study are children who call on toy houses inTehran (children 3 to 7 years old) and 500 children was selected as studysample and the obtained data was analyzed by the covariance analysis method.

Toy houses had a significant effect on the children’s social skilldevelopment. In relation to subsidiary hypothesis, toy houses have significantimpact on children’s verbal and nonverbal social relations. Also, about theimpact of toy houses regarding sex and age groups, the results indicate thatthere is no difference between the impact of toy houses services and theincrease of the social skill group by separation of boys and girls. Furthermore,the interaction between both sexes and the groups was found non- significantand thus the sex variable does not have the role of modifier. In relation to ageand the impact of toy house services on increase of the social relationdevelopment rate, there is no difference between 3-5 and 5-7 years old.However, the impact of age and group’s interaction is significant as a result;the variable of age has a modifier role.

It can be expressed toy houses play an important effect on thechildren‘s social skills and essential projects like this will show itseffectiveness in the future. Paying attention to children and investing on thisbasic age group will be doubtlessly useful for the future of the city andcitizen’s physical and emotional health. For achieving more qualitative results,more longitudinal researches and pursuing children’s social development overtime is suggested.