Who is a friend? Voices of young immigrant children

ABSTRACT

Through nine months of ethnographic observations and video-cued child interviews, this study explored two Korean immigrant children’s perspectives on friendship in U.S. preschools. The study was framed by Bakhtinian dialogism and revealed that, compared to their teachers, who tended to identify friendship by observing the frequency of peer interactions, the participating children recognized friendship through qualitative features of relationships, such as sharing non-verbal and verbal communication, respecting ongoing play activities, and offering mutual assistance. This manuscript highlights the importance of considering what cultural- and linguistic-minority children pursue in a friendship when designing pedagogical strategies for encouraging positive peer relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Friendship
• peer relationships
• immigrant children
• children’s voices
• Bakhtinian dialogism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All names of the people and schools in this manuscript are pseudonyms.

2. All Korean words spoken by the participants were translated into English and italicized.