Are we talking about the same thing? A Survey of preschool workers’ attitudes and beliefs about bullying.

The study explores kindergarten staff's beliefs, views and attitudes regarding the phenomenon of bullying in kindergartens. The research questions are: 1) Do employees in Norwegian kindergartens believe that bullying occurs in kindergartens? 2) Are kindergarten employees' views in line with established descriptions of bullying in the research literature? 3) To what extent do kindergarten employees have dismissive attitudes and biases about bullying in kindergartens and the children involved in the bullying?

The results show that there is broad agreement among kindergarten staff that bullying occurs among young children. Many kindergarten staff (42%) indicated that children as young as one to two years old are capable of bullying. However, the responses suggest that the participants' understanding of bullying is not consistent with established definitions in the literature, especially in terms of intention, duration, and objectivity. Overall, the kindergarten staff did not have negative or disparaging attitudes towards children involved in bullying, or towards the need to address the problem. The researchers behind the study believe these results are positive because the employees' beliefs and attitudes about bullying are likely to affect their willingness and ability to manage cases of bullying in the kindergarten environment.

The data material consisted of 694 employees in private and municipal kindergartens in Norway who responded to an online survey. The largest group of participants in the study were qualified kindergarten teachers with at least three years of higher education (45.4%). The survey consisted of approximately 25 questions, with a total of 90 underlying elements, and investigated the employees' attitudes towards bullying and children involved in bullying, definition aspects of bullying and professional experience of the phenomenon.

Kovač, V. B. & Cameron, D. L. (2021). "Are we talking about the same thing? A Survey of preschool workers’ attitudes and beliefs about bullying". Child Care in Practice, DOI: 10.1080/13575279.2021.1951167.