A Comparative Study On The Characteristics Of Children's Behaviors In Mixed-age Classes And Their Peers

As a special educational method,mixed-age education attracts many domestic scholars’ attention.Generally speaking,in China,the main form of the kindergarten class organization form is same-age class which is given priority to at home,but now many kindergartens start trying to build mixed-aged class organization form.For mixed-age education,people will firstly consider the development of children’s socialization which under the mixed-age education system.Helping behavior as the significant component of prosocial behavior,it is the only way for child socialization.Therefore,the author observed 210 children who have been chosen from three mixed-age classes from one of the provincial level demonstration kindergartens in Xi’an,which have three age groups children and three age groups classes.As the additional observation record,the author carried out a helping behavior test for mixed-age classes and a part of same-age classes.At the same time,the author interviewed 6 teachers and some children.Based on the observation record,the results of examination and interview data,there are the analysis about the characteristics of mixed-age and same-age children’ helping behaviors and the reason why they have it.The results found that children in mixed-age classes and same-age classes have part of same characteristics of helping behaviors.First of all,helping behaviors will increase with the growth of children’s age.Secondly,the main helpful objects are children’s companions.Thirdly,children have positive attitudes for helping others.What’s more,children prefer using limb strategies than other ways.Besides,they also have their own characteristics.Firstly,children in mixed-age classes carry out more helping activities than same-age classes.Next,in mixed-age classes,girls have more positivity than boys on helping behaviors.On the contrary,children,in same-age classes,spent the equal times on doing helping activities.Finally,helping behaviors always happened in play context in mixed-age classes.Compared with mixed-age classes,children in same-age classes carry out most helping behaviors in life situation.In the light of above results,the reasons why there are common characteristics of helping behaviors in mixed-age classes and same-age classes are not only lies in the rules of children’s development and the education of kindergarten,but also influenced by their family environment.Conversely,different class organization form,education environment and gender differences in children’s growth will cause diverse characteristics.Hence,in order to make parents and kindergartens guide children better,meanwhile,let children make the best of the both class organization,the author offers some suggestions which are teachers should improve their professional quality,kindergartens should create an appropriate environment and parents should pay more attention on children’s development.