Conflict is an essential impetus for change, adaption, and development. Conflict management skills are associated with a number of positive aptitudes including enhanced perspective taking and social understanding, successful peer group entry, and the...
Conflict is an essential impetus for change, adaption, and development. Conflict management skills are associated with a number of positive aptitudes including enhanced perspective taking and social understanding, successful peer group entry, and the formation and maintenance of friendships.
The purpose of this study is to intensely explore preschool children's strategies for conflict resolution in the Kindergarten. The major research questions were as follows :
1. What strategies do preschool children use to resolve conflict?, and what is the most frequently used strategies for conflict resolution?
2. Are there any difference between sex composition of dyads(boy-boy/boy-girl/girl-girl) and strategies children use when engaged in conflict?
3 Are there any difference between children's perception and practices in children's strategies for conflict resolution?
4. What is the perception of the kindergarten teachers about the children's strategies for conflict resolution?
The subjects of this study were 74 five- year- old(37 boys, 37 girls) in two kindergarten. An questionnaire were distributed and collected from 316 teachers randomly selected from Seoul, Kwangju and Chonnam Province areas. The data collection was included videotapes and observations of children's play activities, field note, interview, observation. Data collected were analysed using the SPSS program.
The major findings obtained from the present study were summarized as follows:
1. The resolutes showed that children used a variety of strategies for conflict resolution, that is, eleven different strategies were identified in this study. 'Standing firm' and 'reasoning' were most frequently used such as 'ignorance', 'negotiation', 'authority', 'threat' and strategies.
2. Children's strategies for conflict resolution seemed to be different according to characteristics of sex composition of dyads. The tendency of using 'power' was much more appeared in boy-boy dyads than girl-girl or to resolve the conflict by 'threat', 'justification'. In mixed-sex groups, boy-boy-girl is showed more ignorance in the language aspect than boy-girl-girl.
3. Results also revealed some differences between the perception and practices of children's strategies for conflict resolution.
4. The kindergarten teachers assumed that children resolve there conflicts depending on authority in conflict situation,
Recommendations and suggestions were made based on the results of the present study.