En studie om barns vänskap : Gruppintervjuer i förskola och förskoleklass

Sammanfattning: Abstract The purpose of this essay was to investigate what thoughts children in preschool and preschool class have about friendship. We also want to investigate what characteristics and which strategies they look for in friendship relationships.  To perform this study we used the following questions as a starting point.   Which characteristics do children see as attractive in their cultures? How are friendship relationships affected in different contexts? Can one see a difference in the most important characteristics and strategies between the children in preschool and the children in preschool class?   To answer our questions and to reach our purpose we have held group interviews with children in preschool and in preschool class.  We have, in our study, used published scientific literature to get an understanding of what has been presented in relation to this topic in the past. The result shows that the children in preschool and preschool class do differ in certain aspects but also have some similarities on ideas about friendship. Both preschool children and the children in the preschool class are highly competent and skilled at integrating with other children. What divides them is their ways to plan their friendship. This result will be presented in our result section. Our conclusion is that children’s friendship- making abilities varies, partly depending on how the institutions are formed and partly on the age of the children. The institutions are formed in different ways, where children in preschool have more freedom for friendship -making during the whole day, while children in preschool classes are more bound to the day’s work schedule and friendship -making is mostly restricted to the breaks. We study the teaching program in Karlstad University and will have qualifications to teach from preschool up to preschool class. To have the possibility to influence both institutions we chose to compare them in regards to the issues mentioned in the last question.   Keywords: Children’s friendship, Children´s Cultures, preschool, preschool class.