Browsing by Subject "Bullying"

The object of this study was to examine how children described being disturbed and how much it included bullying. Second, how much participation and unclear orientations were differing from each other when it comes to disturbing situations in day care. Third, they wanted to find associations between children's age and disturbing orientations in this study. The aim of this study is that day care educators could become more aware, understanding and responsive to disturbing behaviour and exercise of power between children. The study was based on a large and international Early Childhood Education research and development project, called Source of Orientation. The data was collected in spring 2010 from different kinds of day care centres and 8 Councils of Eastern-Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. There were 816 children who took part the project. The data was collected in multi-methodical methods: children's interview, observation and learning environment assessment. The data was mainly used as quantitative data in the project in this study. The qualitative data was based on children's agentive perception created by Jyrki Reunamo (2007b) from Helsinki University. According to the results, most of the children orientated participate when they became disturbed. Also, they understood that disturbing behaviour included bullying. That showed that bullying and disturbing were the same thing for the children. In addition, the study showed individual and developmental differences between children in daily situations in day care. It seemed that the youngest children (2-3 years old) orientated more unclearly than the oldest ones. The oldest children (4-7 years old) orientated participate more often. On the other hand, different kind of disturbing orientations were found in every age group. That indicated that disturbing orientations were not only based on age, but also for example individual settings. In conclusion, strong educators are needed with pedagogical views for young children in peer groups dealing with deterrents, interferences, and disturbing situations. Children orientating in disturbing situations highlighted the importance of child observation, especially when it comes to withdrawn and unclear orientated children.