Browsing by Author "Ingström, Terhi"

This study examines bullying in Finnish day-care center groups. Bullying has been studied a lot but bullying among young children has been brought up only recently. Main goal of this study was to find 5-6 years old children who are bullies and get their opinion about bullying and how embloyees intervene bullying among children in day-care. Recent studies has shown that bullying among children before school age can be physical, psychological and verbal. The research material of the study comprises a survey that was made online in day-care centers in Vantaa 2011. The survey was carried out as part of the Helsinki university's earlychildhood education project "bullying in day-care settings". From this survey five bullies was found: two girls and three boys. From the same day-care group was along two children as comparatives. This is a qualitative research and as research method was semi-structured interviews by interviewing 15 children: 8 girls and 7 boys. According to the results of the study, there are bullies in day-care center groups and they vary a lot. They can be confident, week and aggressive. Bullies use mostly physical ways to bully, one of the bullies used only psychological and verbal ways. Children described bullying mostly in physical ways. Day-care centre's employees interfere in bullying by giving children some kind of penalty. Mostly mentioned penalty was "thinking chair". Result of the study is also that employees in day-care centers recognise children who are bullies.