Engaging early childhood teachers in participatory co-design workshops to educate young children about bullying

ABSTRACT

Children involved in bullying are vulnerable to social, physiological, psychological, educational, behavioural, and adjustment problems which can persist into adulthood. In Australia, formal education about bullying is not introduced until year four (age 9), making pastoral care and addressing bullying in junior primary (ages 4–8) the responsibility of early childhood teachers. This study employed a participatory co-design framework with 12 South Australian early childhood teachers to co-design and implement a tailored bullying education/prevention program, informed by students’ understanding of bullying. Co-design methods included small group interviews, discussion, and modified Q sort techniques to support teachers in identifying and defining the magnitude of the problem; determining why it occurs and; designing a contextualised intervention. A test–retest quasi experimental design/evaluation framework was developed to explore the co-design and program implementation processes. All teachers (N=12) reported the co-design process was enjoyable, energizing, and engaging/informative and would use their new skills to modify and implement their program with future classes. Teachers reported children were highly engaged during implementation. Children’s responses (N=99) post-intervention showed significant improvement in their understanding when describing bullying. Strengths and limitations of employing co-design processes to develop tailored educational programs are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-design
• participatory design
• co-researchers
• bullying education
• early childhood

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The University of South Australia Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) 0000032569 and the Department for Education and Child Development approved this project: South Australia CS/15/00003-1.31 extending a larger study exploring cross cultural understandings of bullying.

2. As the focus for this paper is on the use of the PD Framework,, please see Ey and Spears (2018) for a full report across all school settings

3. please see Ey and Spears (2018) for the full report

4. please see Ey and Spears (2018) for the full report

Additional information

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Organisation Mondiale pour l’Education Préscolaire (OMEP) World Organisation for Early Childhood Education