Preschool Peer Socialization: Children’s Strategies for Shaping Behavior in the Classroom

• In Event: 4167 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Children & Youth Roundtable 5: Early Childhood Education

Abstract

How do children in early elementary school learn and apply strategies for influencing the behavior of their peers? Though a great deal is known about how teachers and adults socialize children to adopt behaviors that are appropriate for the classroom, less is known about how peers influence one another’s behavior. In this qualitative case study of an experienced teacher’s half-day preschool classroom, I show how children learn and apply strategies for encouraging and discouraging peer behaviors. To discourage peer behaviors, children initially throw tantrums, but then use the increasingly more sophisticated strategies of communication and avoidance, and selective exclusion. To encourage peer behaviors, children initially provide attention and engage in mimicry, but develop more complex strategies of rule policing, labeling, and selective inclusion. I argue that in preschool, children learn to shape one another’s behavior through their provision of attention and inclusion as a reward, and through the use of ignoring and exclusion as a punishment. Because children’s classroom behavior affects learning and achievement, it is crucial to understand this process of peer influence.

Author

• Amy Michelle August, University of Minnesota