Conflict strategies in early childhood: a phenomenographic study in the Swedish context

As conflicts are a commonplace aspect of preschool life, children in the preschool setting are presented the opportunity to learn how to manage conflicts and to express themselves in the process. Empirical studies on preschool children’s understandings of strategies regarding peer conflicts are scarce. More commonly, research focuses either on children as subjects of observations or on teachers’ interventions. Therefore, this study aims at studying conflict management strategies of preschoolers in Sweden. The research is driven by a developmental theoretical perspective relating social conflict to developing processes, making questions such as ‘how do children develop through conflicts’ and ‘what do they learn from them’ relevant. A phenomenographic approach was used to investigate the qualitatively different ways in which preschoolers understand peer conflict management. Sixteen 5-year-olds were interviewed at an international preschool, guided by cards reflecting peer-conflict cases. The findings revealed five qualitatively different ways of understanding conflict management. The empirical contribution of the study consists of knowledge on how preschoolers themselves perceive their conflict management strategies which can support teachers in the preschool to reflect on and organize the conflict resolution preschool environment.