Parents and preschool workers’ perceptions of competence, collaboration, and strategies for addressing bullying in early childhood

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore and compare parents’ (n = 141) and preschool workers’ (n = 81) perceptions of bullying with respect to preschool workers’ competence, collaboration with parents, and strategies for dealing with bullying. Whereas most participants held positive views about their collaboration, preschool workers tended to be more critical of parents than vice versa. With respect to strategies, we found that the order of preferred approaches was largely consistent across groups, yet the two groups differed in the degree to which they supported certain approaches. Among parents, lower perceptions of children’s well-being and increased exposure to bullying were associated with more negative views of collaboration and preschool competence. Parents who had little direct exposure to bullying were more likely to report that they lacked the knowledge needed to evaluate the competence of preschool workers. Taken together with previous research, these findings suggest that preschools often rely on a reactive approach to including parents in the process of addressing bullying. We argue that a more proactive stance is warranted.

KEYWORDS:

• Preschool
• parent collaboration

Notes on contributors

David Lansing Cameron is a professor of special education at the Department of Education, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway, where he researches and teaches in the fields of inclusive, comparative, and special education. His most recent work concerns multi-disciplinary collaboration, implementation of educational policy, and exploration of the social learning environments of children.

Velibor Bobo Kovac is a professor at the Department of Education at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway, where he teaches courses in psychology, special education, research methods and the history of education. His research interests include studies on addictive behaviours, motivational theory and assessments of children’s behaviours in various contexts.