Early Childhood Teachers' and Parents' Perception of Aggression and Bullying Behaviour in New Zealand's Early Childhood Settings
Bullying in early childhood is a globally recognised issue, yet it remains relatively under-researched, especially in New Zealand. Early childhood teachers and parents play crucial roles in supporting young children’s social development. Early childhood teachers provide opportunities for children to practice social skills and resolve conflicts, while parents and whānau model appropriate social behaviour and teach children about managing emotions at home. However, distinguishing between bullying and aggressive behaviour can be challenging, as these behaviours often overlap. Accurate identification of bullying behaviour is essential for effective intervention strategies by parents and teachers. Bullying may be overlooked in early childhood due to various factors, including a normative belief that downplays its significance. Nevertheless, bullying can have severe consequences for both victims and perpetrators, leading to physical and emotional harm and social and behavioural problems, respectively. Understanding early childhood teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of aggressive and bullying behaviour among young children, as well as their preferred intervention strategies, can inform the development of educational programmes to address and support affected children.
This doctoral research comprises one quantitative study with two parallel data collection strategies investigating early childhood teachers’ and parents’ responses to hypothetical scenarios depicting different types of aggressive and bullying behaviour in early childhood contexts. Participants’ ability to recognise aggressive behaviour from bullying behaviour, their perceptions of seriousness, their sympathy toward victims, their likelihood of intervention, and their preferred intervention strategies were assessed. Study phase A involved 272 early childhood teachers who responded to six scenarios depicting physical, verbal, and relational aggression and bullying behaviour. The majority of participants were full-time teachers (80%), with over half having more than ten years of experience (52%). Study phase B involved 107 parents, predominantly mothers (93%), responding to scenarios in which their child was the perpetrator. Most parents held a university degree (77%). Data collection for both phases utilised separate anonymous online surveys.
The findings revealed that early childhood teachers and parents were able to distinguish aggressive behaviours from bullying behaviours, with physical bullying scenarios being more easily identified as bullying compared to verbal and relational bullying scenarios. Consequently, both groups rated bullying scenarios as more serious than aggressive scenarios, with physical incidents considered the most serious, followed by relational incidents, and verbal incidents being perceived as least serious. Additionally, both early childhood teachers and parents demonstrated high levels of sympathy toward victims of bullying scenarios, indicating a greater likelihood of intervention in bullying incidents compared to aggressive incidents. For physical and relational bullying scenarios, parents and early childhood teachers proposed a cluster of intervention strategies, while for verbal and all types of aggression scenarios, one or two strategies were suggested.
In summary, the findings suggest that early childhood teachers and parents share similar attitudes toward aggressive and bullying behaviour. Notably, both teacher-child interactional style and parenting style influenced participants’ perceptions of the hypothetical scenarios to some extent. The results highlight the need for educational programmes to enhance early childhood teachers’ and parents’ awareness of covert forms of bullying behaviour in early childhood settings, as these behaviours can be as harmful as physical bullying.
