Young children’s views concerning distribution of clean-up duties in the classroom: Responsibility and self-interest

Abstract

The preschool setting offers many opportunities to promote development of responsibility in young children. Clean-up routines may support children’s distributional judgments, and reveal their sense of responsibility about classroom duties. Although there is a large number of studies regarding children’s views about resource distribution, children’s distribution of work or duties focusing on household chores is a topic that is much less examined. The present study examines Greek children's beliefs about distribution of clean-up duties using an interview protocol with a series of picture prompts developed and used in Japan. Thirty five-year old children took part in the study. Data showed that the participant children hold certain ideas concerning clean-up distribution providing judgments that are comprehensible and uniform, especially when referring to situations without the influence of contextual factors. After the ‘players’ responsibility norm’, prosocial patterns of reasoning constituted the second, in terms of frequency, type of response to justify children’s views about clean-up distribution.

Keywords:

• clean-up
• responsibility
• distribution
• kindergarten
• Greece