Abstract

Children aged four to seven, display a range of behaviours towards their peers at school. Three sub-categories of behaviour include aggression, pro-sociality and withdrawal. There are numerous correlates of these behaviours and huge importance in understanding why children behave in these ways and whether patterns are formed over time.

This presentation will consider research conducted as part of Rix’s PhD, in which both the nature and frequency of these behaviours are explored, in addition to children’s explanations for these. It will consider the methodology and results of this UK based, three phase, fifteen month longitudinal study conducted from April 2012 to July 2013 with two groups of children across five schools.

Children were asked to report on the frequency of their own behaviour, on a three point scale of lots, sometimes and never, before being asked to provide an explanation for displaying and/or not displaying this behaviour towards their peers at school. Reports were also collected from teaching staff and peers.

This presentation will provide an overview of this PhD research as well as give consideration to some of the key findings.