Browsing by Author "Försti, Sanna"

The purpose of this research was to understand the types of bullying that are present in preschool groups and find possible gender differences in the types of bullying that occurs. The hypothesis was that boys use more physical bullying while girls use emotional and mental bullying, such as talking behind someone’s back. Previous research has also found that boys bullying is often physical and girls use more discreet ways of bullying. I carried out the research by interviewing three preschool teachers from the Helsinki area. The interviews were semi-structured, as the purpose of this research was to understand preschool teacher’s views and experiences with bullying. I only used theory-based analysis. The bullying types were divided into three methods of bullying following the Höistadin (2003) theory: physical, psychological and verb. The research found that all three methods of bullying occur in preschool groups. The most common method of bullying for preschool children was psychological bullying, the second most used was verbal and the least common method used was physical bullying. The most common single way of bullying for both boys and girls was exclusion form games/overall exclusion from the group. Boys and girls methods of bullying also had differences. Physical bullying was a more common method of bullying among boys, while in preschool girls physical bullying did not occur at all. For girls, the most common method of bullying was verbal bullying. Verbal bullying was partly difference between girls and boys. Boy used more straightforward insults and name-calling while girls commented on each other’s clothes and whispered in an unpleasant tone intentionally in the vicinity of other children.