Impetus for the intervention, early stages of planning, and funding

Despite the growing interest in victimisation problems in school (see Smith et al., 1999), studies that have addressed this issue in the pre-school years are extremely rare. The existence of victimisation in pre-school children, however, had been systematically studied and demonstrated in earlier studies: in day-care centres in Norway (Alsaker, 1993a, 1993b); in the United States with kindergarten children (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996); and in kindergarten in Switzerland (Alsaker, 2003; Alsaker and Valkanover, 2001). All three studies showed that the extent to which victimisation occurs in the early childhood years is comparable with that in grade school and that it has an immensely stressful effect on young children.

Studies from Australia (Slee and Rigby, 1993), Finland (Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Berts, and King, 1982), Ireland (Neary and Joseph, 1994), the United Kingdom (Boulton and Smith, 1994), Norway (Alsaker and Olweus, 2002; Olweus, 1993), Sweden (Olweus, 1978), and Switzerland (Alsaker, 2003) have all shown detrimental effects of victimisation on self-esteem. Repeated victimisation experiences may elicit intense emotional experiences, including feelings of helplessness, worthlessness, and shame. In addition, they may result in highly stable negative expectations for peer relationships and negative self-evaluations, even after the victimisation has stopped (Alsaker and Olweus, 2002; Olweus, 1991). Such negative perceptions of self and peers may, in turn, influence the child's behaviour in school, thus making him or her more vulnerable to victimisation. Therefore, it is important that prevention of victimisation starts in pre-school contexts.