Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-31T09:47:06.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - Conflict

from Part III - Interaction and Inclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2022

Amelia Church
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Amanda Bateman
Affiliation:
Swansea University
Get access

Summary

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of what we know about young children’s peer conflict in early childhood educational settings and how teachers can support children to develop skills in conflict resolution. This chapter begins with a review of the types of disputes in the early years, how children respond to opposition from other children and a discussion of learning opportunities in the practices of negotiation and compromise. The discussion also shows that teacher intervention is either solicited by children when they are stuck in a repetitive stalemate or instigated by the teacher when disputes escalate. Data extracts illustrate how intervention can be managed productively, where teachers guide children to identify and implement solutions. The analysis shows that intervention is most effective when the teacher monitors and encourages the uptake of solutions proposed by the children themselves. Finally, this chapter outlines implications for practice in early childhood education, in supporting children to resolve disputes.

Type
Chapter
Information
Talking with Children
A Handbook of Interaction in Early Childhood Education
, pp. 388 - 404
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahn, J. (2020). Honorifics and peer conflict in Korean children’s language socialization. Linguistics & Education, 59, 100736. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2019.05.002Google Scholar
Bateman, A. (2012). When verbal disputes get physical. In Danby, S. and Theobald, M. (eds.), Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People (pp. 267296). Bingley: Emerald.Google Scholar
Bateman, A. (2015). Conversation Analysis and Early Childhood Education: The Co-Production of Knowledge and Relationships. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Björk-Willén, P. (2012). Being doggy: disputes embedded in preschoolers’ family role-play. In Danby, S. and Theobald, M. (eds.), Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People (pp. 119140). Bingley: Emerald.Google Scholar
Boggs, S. T. (1978). The development of verbal disputing in part-Hawaiian children. Language in Society, 7, 325344.Google Scholar
Brenneis, D., and Lein, L. (1977). ‘You fruithead’: a sociolinguistic approach to children’s dispute settlement. In Ervin-Tripp, S. and Mitchell-Kernan, C. (eds.), Child Discourse. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Burdelski, M. (2020). ‘Say can I borrow it’: teachers and children managing peer conflict in a Japanese preschool. Linguistics and Education, 59, 100728. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589818303826Google Scholar
Cekaite, A. (2020). Triadic conflict mediation as socialization into perspective taking in Swedish preschools. Linguistics and Education, 59, 100753. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589818303978Google Scholar
Chen, D. W., Fein, G. G., Killen, M., and Tam, H.-P. (2001). Peer conflicts of preschool children: issues, resolution, and age-related patterns. Early Education and Development, 12(4), 523544.Google Scholar
Church, A. (2009a). Preference Organization and Peer Disputes: How Young Children Resolve Conflict. Surrey/Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Church, A. (2009b) Closings in children’s disputes. In Thomas, N. (ed.), Children, Politics and Communication: Participation at the Margins. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Church, A., and Hester, S. (2012). Conditional threats in young children’s peer interaction. In Danby, S. and Theobald, M. (eds.), Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People (pp. 243265). Bingley: Emerald.Google Scholar
Church, A., Mashford-Scott, A., and Cohrssen, C. (2018). Supporting children to resolve disputes. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 16(1), 92103.Google Scholar
Cobb-Moore, C. (2012). ‘Pretend I was mummy’: children’s production of authority and subordinance in their pretend play interaction during disputes. In Danby, S., and Theobald, M. (eds.), Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People (pp. 85118). Bingley: Emerald.Google Scholar
Cobb-Moore, C., Danby, S., and Farrell, A. (2008). ‘I told you so’: justification used in disputes in young children’s interactions in an early childhood classroom. Discourse Studies, 10(5), 595614.Google Scholar
Cohen, R. (2009). Language and conflict resolution: the limits of English. International Studies Review, 3(1), 2551.Google Scholar
Corsaro, W. A. (1988). Routines in the peer culture of American and Italian nursery school children. Sociology of Education, 61, 114.Google Scholar
Corsaro, W. A., and Rizzo, T. A. (1988). Discussione and friendship: socialization processes in the peer culture of Italian nursery school children. American Sociological Review, 53, 879894.Google Scholar
Danby, S., and Baker, C. D. (1998). How to be masculine in the block area. Childhood, 5, 151175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danby, S., and Baker, C. D. (2010). Escalating terror: communicative strategies in a preschool classroom dispute. Early Education and Development, 12(3), 343358.Google Scholar
Danby, S., and Theobald, M. (eds.). (2012). Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People. Bingley: Emerald.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, A. R., and Garvey, C. (1981). Children’s use of verbal strategies in resolving conflicts. Discourse Processes, 4(2), 149170.Google Scholar
Erickson, F. (1982). Classroom discourse as improvisation: relationships between academic task and structure and social participation structure in lessons. In Wilkinson, L. C. (ed.), Communicating in the Classroom. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Evaldsson, A.-C., and Svahn, J. (2017). Staging social aggression: affective stances and moral character work in girls’ gossip telling. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 1(1), 77104.Google Scholar
Garvis, S., and Cohrssen, C. (eds.). (2020). Embedding STEAM in early childhood education and care. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Genishi, C., and Di Paolo, M. (1982). Learning through argument in the preschool. In Wilkinson, L. C. (ed.), Communicating in the Classroom. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, C. (1988). Two moral orientations: gender differences and similarities. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 34(3), 223237.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society, 18(1), 5373.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1990). He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (2001). Organizing participation in cross-sex jump rope: situating gender differences within longitudinal studies of activities. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34, 75106.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (2006) The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status and Exclusion. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H., and Goodwin, C. (1987). Children’s arguing. In Philips, S., Steele, S., and Tanz, C. (eds.), Language, Gender, and Sex in Comparative Perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H., Goodwin, C., and Yaeger-Dror, M. (2002). Multi-modality in girls’ game disputes. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 16211649.Google Scholar
Haslett, B. (1983). Preschoolers’ communicative strategies in gaining compliance from peers. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 69, 8499.Google Scholar
Holm Kvist, M., and Cekaite, A. (2020). Emotion socialization – compassion or non-engagement – in young children’s responses to peer distress. Learning Culture and Social Interaction, 28, 19.Google Scholar
Houen, S. Danby, S., Farrell, A., and Thorpe, K. (2016a). ‘I wonder …’ formulations in teacher-child interactions. International Journal of Early Childhood, 48(3), 259276.Google Scholar
Houen, S., Danby, S., Farrell, A., and Thorpe, K. (2016b). ‘I wonder what you know …’ teachers designing requests for factual information. Teaching and Teacher Education, 59, 6878.Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kyratzis, A., and Guo, J. (2001). Preschool girls’ and boys’ verbal conflict strategies in the US and China: cross-cultural and contextual considerations. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34, 4574.Google Scholar
Mashford-Scott, A., and Church, A. (2011). Promoting children’s agency in early childhood education. Novitas – ROYAL: Special Issue: Conversation Analysis in Educational and Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 1538.Google Scholar
Maynard, D. W. (1985). How children start arguments. Language in Society, 14, 130.Google Scholar
Moore, E. (2020). ‘Be friends with all the children’: friendship, group membership, and conflict management in a Russian preschool. Linguistics and Education, 59, 100744. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589818303838Google Scholar
Moore, E., and Burdelski, M. (2020). Peer conflict and language socialization in preschool: introduction to special issue. Linguistics and Education, 59, 100758. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2019.100758Google Scholar
Newman, R. S., Murray, B., and Lussier, C. (2001). Confrontation with aggressive peers at school: students’ reluctance to seek help from the teacher. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), 398410.Google Scholar
Rae, J. (2001). Organizing participation in interaction: doing participation framework. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34, 253278.Google Scholar
Roseth, C., Pellegrini, A., Dupuis, D., Bohn, C., Hickey, M., Hilk, C., and Peshkam, A.. (2008). Teacher intervention and U.S. preschoolers’ natural conflict resolution after aggressive competition. Behaviour, 145(11), 16011626.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., and Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696735.Google Scholar
Shantz, C. U. (1987). Conflicts between children. Child Development, 58, 283305.Google Scholar
Sheldon, A. (1990). Pickle fights: gendered talk in preschool disputes. Discourse Processes, 13, 531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigurdardottir, I., Williams, P., and Einarsdottir, J. (2019). Preschool teachers communicating values to children. International Journal of Early Years Education, 27(2), 170183,Google Scholar
Theobald, M., and Danby, S. (2012). ‘A problem of versions’: laying down the law in the school playground. In Danby, S. and Theobald, M. (eds.) Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People (pp. 221242). Bingley: Emerald.Google Scholar
Theobald, M., and Danby, S. (2017). Co-producing cultural knowledge: children telling tales in the school playground. In Bateman, A. and Church, A. (eds.), Children’s Knowledge-in-Interaction: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 111126). Singapore: Springer.Google Scholar
Vuchinich, S. (1990). The sequential organization of closing in verbal family conflict. In Grimshaw, A. D. (ed.), Conflict Talk: Sociolinguistic Investigations of Arguments in Conversations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×