Research On Making Firends Of Kindergarten Children In Mixed-age Class

Peer relationship is another important interpersonal relationship in infant stageexcept parenthood, but parents can not replace the companion. As a "special" companion forchildren, Friends are also indispensable. The important value for children to make friends hasbeen proved both at home and abroad. However, because at present most of kindergartens stilluse the same-age class education organizational form in our country and divide into classesstrictly according to age, which makes the children’s friends is single. As the influence on thetheory of foreign mixed-age education, our country also appeared a wide variety of mixed-ageeducation forms. Especially like Montessori mixed-age education， children form differentages live and study in the same class, thus infants make friends with not only same-agechildren but also friends of different ages, and it provides the natural ecological environmentthat is more conducive to children to make friends. The literature found that, Chinese scholarspay attention to the values of the mixed-age education, also pay more attention to peerrelationship under the background of mixed-age education. But maybe based on the specialnational conditions "discontinuity mixed-age" organization, the research on making friends ofinfants is weak. Especially it has less qualitative research on making friends of kindergartenchildren in the continuity mixed-age class.Therefore, based on the ethnology research methods, this study selects a continuitymixed-age class of Chengdu kindergarten as a individual case, and determines the dimensionof the research according to past dating study of school-age children to making friends, thenthe author observed in-depth classes, carried on qualitative research, analysis auxiliary meansof quantitative. First of all, the investigator describes and analyses the current situation on making friends in the mixed-age classes by the method of good friend limit nomination andteacher’s acknowledgement, which makes people know the mixed-age class’s overallrelationship of making friends; Next, according to the current situation on making friends,the researcher elects the children for friends as the main object of study and is in-depthobservation with assisting interviews and physical analysis, at the same time, researches onseveral dimensions including the reasons, the types of behavior and the conflict about makingfriends in mixed-age classes, and classifies and summarizes the reasons and types, andanalyses the differences on making friend from the same-age and different age children, alsopresents some special cases in the process of making friends, so that people can understandspecifically the young children’s making friends. Above the research, the article demonstratesthe "original appearance" of making friends of kindergarten children in mixed-age educationbackground. The results show that:1. The relationships of making friends in mixed-age class present universality, centrality,diversity, complexity and differences, especially the big differences between the same-ageand the different ages children about making friends;2. Appearance, personality, children’s "friendly" performance, space distance andplaymate factor are the main reasons for children to make friends. There are some commonfeatures for the reasons of making friends between the same-age and different age children;3. The behavior types are substance-sharing, the sharing of spirit and comfort, commonactivities, mutual interest and imitation, and helping each other, among there are somepeculiarity to the same age and uneven-aged behaviors;4. The conflicts mainly due to striving for the spatial location, battling for toys andmaterials, the destruction of work and misconduct, which situations are reduplicative. And theconflicts of different-age friends are relatively less than the same-age infant in class, conflictsbetween friends is easier to solve than not friends.Finally, the author makes some discussions as the results of the study combined withsome deep feelings in observation and sums up some views, then makes somerecommendations based on the phenomena and problems found in the study to promotechildren making friends especially different age children in mixed-age classes, in order toprovide some references for kindergarten, teachers and parents.