유아들의 친구관계 질적특성에 관한 연구

A Study on the Qualitative Characteristics of Young Children’s Friendship

본 연구의 목적은 유아의 사회적 발달에 중요한 영향을 미치는 친구관계가 어떠한지에 대한 진정한 의미를 파악해 봄으로써, 유아들의 친구관계 형성, 유지 및 변화에 대한 깊은 이해를 도모하고, 이에 적합한 사회적 태도를 지도하는데 필요한 자료를 제공하는데 있다. 연구의 대상은 만 5세 유아 2명 박진열(가명)과 윤형진(가명)이다. 주요 자료의 수집방법으로는 유아관찰 및 기록, 면접, 교사의 반영적 저널 등이며, 수집된 자료들을 부호화하고 범주화한 뒤에 정리된 자료를 읽으면서 그 의미를 분석하고 해석하였다. 연구 결과 유아들은 유사성, 근접성, 애착, 관계성, 주도성, 지원성에 기초하여 다양한 친구관계를 형성하고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 뿐만 아니라 유아들은 친구관계에서 싸움과 화해, 때리기와 따돌리기, 규칙 어기기와 같은 친구관계 갈등을 경험하고 있음을 알 수 있었다.

The objective of the present study is in-depth examination of friendship, which has significant effects on young children’s social development, and for this purpose, a research question was formulated as follows. For the purpose of this study, Following research question: 1. What are the qualitative characteristics of young children’s friendship? The subjects of this study were two five-year-old children, Park Jin-yeol (pseudonym) and Yoon Hyeong-jin (pseudonym) selected from a class at W Kindergarten in Cheongwon-gun Chungcheongbuk-do. Data were collected through observing and recording the children, interviews, and the teacher’s reflective journals during the research. Collected data were conceptualized for examining the qualitative characteristics of the children’s friendship and the roles of friends, and the derived concepts were interconnected based on a category, and expressed in hierarchy according to the relation of related categories. Using the processed data, the meanings were analyzed and interpreted. At the end, concepts derived from these analysis methods were integrated. The results of this study are summarized as follows: First, young children’s friendship showed similarity, approximation, attachment, and relationship, initiative, supportive based on the various patterns. Because they formed friendship based on the similarity of attending the same class, their age did not affect friendship. Children showed the tendency of feeling friendship with learning tools or intimate animals that they played with. They created imaginative friends in their mind and played and lived with them together. Young children expressed their affection for friends verbally by saying like, keep company with or popular. In addition, they expressed their affection actively by playing with the friends, sitting beside them, or planning together. To maintain friendship based on affection, they expressed and shared their thoughts or feelings actively. It was found that, in order to have opportunities to make friends with those whom they liked, young children kept friendship with those around the friends. They responded in a way preferred by their friends in order maintain friendship, and extended the range of friendship through established relations. As they played favorite plays with the closest friends, they experienced pleasure from the plays as well as pleasure from associating with close friends and this gave the children a positive idea on and satisfaction with friendship. It appeared that young children developed friendship further through interactive behaviors such as helping a friend who was doing a difficult activity or asking helps. Second, young children experienced friendship conflicts such as fighting and reconciliation, beating and alienating, violating rules, etc. Children distinguished between mistakes and deliberate acts, and showed social behaviors like forgiving friends’ faults and restoring friendship through reconciliation. Children did not associate with those whoacted aggressively without reason, and with those who violated rules, they maintained association while giving information on the rules and demanding to keep the rules.