This study aims to investigate what kinds of interactive structures the preschoolers show in the process of forming social power in the Kingergarten and how that power changes.
The following queations are presented in this study:
I. What kind of inte...
This study aims to investigate what kinds of interactive structures the preschoolers show in the process of forming social power in the Kingergarten and how that power changes.
The following queations are presented in this study:
I. What kind of interactive strutures tne preschoolers show in the process of forming their social power?
1. What are the strategies and structures of domination and confrontation for the formation of social power?
2. In what situation is the preschoolers social power revealed?
II. How does the preschooler social power change?
1. How does the social power emerge?
2. How is the social power maintained?
3. How is the social power dispersed?
For the study of interactive structures and the changes of power shown in the process of the preschoolers forming social power, this study attempted to do ethnographic approach in which the researcher comes into the kindergarten classroom and reveals the significance of its specific world.
The 4-year-old class at C kindergarten in Seoul was selected as the subject for this study. The teacher and helper as well as 33 preschoolers participanted in the research. The research was started in March 1996 and was continued till February 1997, that is to say, for one year in which the preschooler met for the first time in the Kindergarten and got along until they moved up to the upper class.
For the collection of materials for the study, a variety of methods were used such as participant observation, depth-interview, the collection of documents and questionnaire for parents. And as a way of recording these collected materials, field note, field research diary, participant observation note, and depth-interview note were composed. The available materials were collected and analyzed simultaneously all the while the research were being done.
The results of this research are as follows:
1. The interactive structures of the peer groups social power.
The social power in the peer group were formed in such situations as taking possessions of playthings, play areas, and play roles, intervening in a play, interrupting a play, showing off, physical attacks, and winning in a group game.
In these situations the preschoolers made use of various dominating strategies to control their friends as they want and the countparts put to use many confrontation strategies to react to their friends domination. The domination and confrontation structures of these strategies were greatly influenced not only by the strategic characteristics which were paid attention to in the former studies but also by the diverse factors, for instance, who use the strategy, the meaning of strategy, when to use the strategy, the temperament of preschooler, the intimacy among the preschoolers.
2. The formation and change of the social power in peer group.
The social power of peer group has been formed and changed through the process of emergence, maintenance and dispersion. In these changing processes, the social situations of preschoolers, their own temperament and the teachers intervention worked as important factors.
To be specific, the intimacy with other preschoolers before entering the kindergarten, the relationship among their parents, and the continuous contacts even after graduating from kindergarten had effects on process of preschoolers forming the social power. In addition, the individual temperament of preschooler was another crucial fator as well. These power relations assumed the aspect in which the logic of relative powers is intricately entangled like a web rather than the relation in which the particular preschooler dominates the others.
The teacher was observed to intervene ceaselessly in the forming process of the preschoolers social power. On occasion the directly suggested some rules like "Dont Force" to the preschoolers, and they indirectly tired to disperse the preschoolers social power by changing educational activities such as directing the leader into other areas or making preschoolers taking interests in the role they hate to do.