Early childhood educators’ experiences of bullying episodes: a qualitative approach

ABSTRACT

This study explored early childhood educators’ experiences and understanding of bullying in early childhood. Fourteen early childhood educators were interviewed. All the interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).The results showed four themes: (1) Educators’ emotional burden from children’s unexpected behavior, (2) Ambiguity of conscious intent among young children, (3) Implications associated with children’s external characteristics, (4) Educators’ empathetic stance toward bullying behaviors. Furthermore, participants perceived bullying as a serious behavior and were more likely to intervene during incidents. Increasing educators’ awareness is crucial in order to expand their acknowledgment of this problem.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying
• young children
• early childhood educators
• aggressive behaviors
• interpretative phenomenological approach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the ATEI of Thessaloniki research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.