This research observes how a one year old infant form relationship with peers when they newly enter a nursery. It also observes how through these relationships the infants adjust to the nursery. Therefore, the research places its purpose on the meanin...
This research observes how a one year old infant form relationship with peers when they newly enter a nursery. It also observes how through these relationships the infants adjust to the nursery. Therefore, the research places its purpose on the meaning of peers during the process of adaptation.
The specific research issues are the followings:
First, how do the peer-to-peer relationships of a one-year-old infant help the infant adapt to nursery life?
Second, what meaning do peers impose during the process of adaptation of newly entering one-year-old infants?
This research used a method called ethnographic research from December of 2009 till April of 2010 in the one year old infant classroom of a nursery located in the region of Kyonggi-Do by living with the infants and observing their lives. For the research, seven newly entering one old year infants, three currently attending infants, and five teachers participated.
The research results are the following:
First, there are five aspects of the adjustment of one year old infant who is newly entering the nursery. The aspects are ‘guarding up against unfamiliar environment, showing active curiosity, searching the nursery while having the mother as a safety guard, being less responsive, and adjusting slowly. These adaptive aspects inform that infant’s process of adaptation is taking place dynamically with individual cognitive characteristics.
Second, the meanings of peers to the newly entering one-year-old infant during the process of adaption were ‘object of caution, playing stranger, friend that informs the infant of joy of playing, and playmate.’ When the new infants first begin to adjust, peers are originally objects of caution because they are strangers. Even though the adjusting infant lives with other infants, he/she still lives separately from the others because the new infant views others as only “playing strangers.” However, as the infant watches others play he/she gradually takes interest in the play of the other infants already adjusted to their new environment. For the new infant, the playtime of the other infants who have already formed relationships with their peers seems to be exciting, fun, and desirable. This is reason why the new infant begins to want to join the others. Through the activities of the other nursery infants, the new infant starts to make connections with his/her peers. Playing becomes the mediator through which the new infant meets with other infants and begins to forget about the sorrow originally felt from being separated from his/her parents. The new infant starts to interact with peers, discovers new activities, and feels the joy found in these activities. The infant then links this joy with the nursery. Infants who start to make relationships through playing eventually make playmates and adapt to the life of the nursery comfortably and stably. The research that has been conducted in this inquiry is significant because it has uncovered the important meaning peers have in the adapting process of one-year-old infants to nursery life.