The Social Competence of Preschool Children's Response to Conflict and Peer Acceptance in a Mainstreamed Classroom
Lewis, George Frank
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/69196
Description
Title
The Social Competence of Preschool Children's Response to Conflict and Peer Acceptance in a Mainstreamed Classroom
Author(s)
Lewis, George Frank
Issue Date
1988
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Education, Early Childhood
Education, Special
Abstract
Justifying the mainstreaming of young handicapped children on the basis of the increased learning opportunities resulting from classroom interaction with nonhandicapped peers has not been supported by the research showing that interaction between handicapped and nonhandicapped children occurs less frequently than expected by chance. However, it is possible to increase peer interaction by using social skills training to improve children's peer acceptance. One of the critical social skills relating to peer acceptance may be the way children manage social conflict situations. The present study investigated the relationship between peer acceptance and preschool children's response to conflict by observing an intact group of 10 handicapped and 4 nonhandicapped preschool children for six months. Peer acceptance was a child's sociometric status determined by the paired comparison technique. Response to conflict was an observational measure of the behaviors of children who were targets of attack. There were five response categories: (a) taking independent nonaggressive action, (b) taking dependent nonaggressive action, (c) threatening attack, (d) responding evasively or passively, and (e) attacking directly. Principal components multiple regression analysis was used to predict peer acceptance from response category, handicap status (handicapped or nonhandicapped), and chronological age. Peer acceptance did not relate to any category of response to conflict or to the handicap status of the target child. Analysis of the 285 conflict episodes concerned the relationship between result of the conflict and response category of the target child. Winning a conflict by the target child was associated with more socially competent responses and losing was associated with the less socially competent responses. Thus, the data indicated that although teaching children ways of responding to conflict might not lead to increased peer acceptance it might provide functional skills in managing classroom conflict in socially competent ways in order to achieve more positive outcomes. Further research needs to investigate the relationship of peer acceptance to children's perceptions of what constitutes socially competent responses to conflict. Teaching social skills that have been empirically related to peer acceptance will help handicapped children receive maximum benefit from preschool mainstreaming.
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