Children's Disputes Research Articles

KETERLIBATAN ORANG TUA DALAM RUMAH TANGGA ANAK DI KELURAHAN GURAPING KECAMATAN OBA UTARA


 
 
 The purpose of this study was to determine the form of parental involvement in children's households in the Guraping Village, North Oba District, Tidore Islands City. The results of the study describe the habits of parents who do not understand their position in the midst of children's family life so that parents are not the arbiters between their children's disputes as husband and wife, but as unilateral decision- making that harms life between husband and wife in this case their children. The conclusion from this study is that parental involvement in children's households does not always have a positive impact on their children. In Islamic law the involvement of parents in a child's household is permissible as long as it does not contain elements of tyranny, mediating between children's disputes is not based on reasons of economic conflict. Parents must be a source of solutions for both.
 
 

‘Use your words’: Vocalization and moral order in an oral preschool classroom for deaf or hard-of-hearing children

AbstractThis ethnographic study examines deaf or hard-of-hearing children's socialization in an oral classroom, a setting designed to promote spoken language as the primary mode of communication. Drawing from nine months of observations, I describe how the meanings assigned to children's vocalizations create a system of values and judgements that organizes and regulates classroom behavior. Specifically, vocalization itself is oriented to as a moral practice that is necessary for the mutual understanding and accomplishment of classroom activities. Informed by ethnomethodological and language-socialization perspectives, I illustrate how participants co-construct a local moral order wherein students are held accountable for ‘using their words’ to perform social actions. Analyses discuss three interactional contexts where moral issues are routinely constructed as contingent on and resolvable through vocalization—children's help-seeking, children's disputes, and negotiations of classroom participation—thereby shaping children's understanding of language use and reflecting broader institutional expectations and ideology regarding oral communication. (Moral order, preschool children, socialization)*

A longitudinal examination of power in sibling and friend conflict

AbstractThis study examined use of power resources and power effectiveness during the process and outcome of focal children's disputes with their sibling and friend across early and middle childhood. Participants included 35/46 families; focal children (15 males, 20 females) were observed at the age of four (T1) and 3 years later at the age of seven (T2) at home. Sibling and friend conflict sequences were coded for power resources (coercive physical, coercive verbal, simple information, elaborated information, legitimate), immediate power effectiveness (attempt, success), and conflict outcome. Relationship effects indicated focal children employed coercive physical and legitimate power more with siblings whereas they used simple information power more with friends during the conflict process. Focal children were more effective using legitimate power with siblings than friends in the conflict process whereas information power was used more when focal children won conflicts with friends. Regarding developmental effects, focal children employed more coercive physical power at T1 than T2 and elaborated information power at T2 than T1. In contrast, focal children were more effective using information power and coercion when winning conflicts with friends at T2 than T1. Results highlight variability in children's use of power based on relationship partner and development.

Parent Mediation Empowers Sibling Conflict Resolution

Research Findings: For the current study, formal mediation procedures were adapted for families and parents were trained and asked to mediate their children's disputes; control group parents intervened as they normally would. Conflict negotiations with parents and their children (ages 3½–11 years) occurring 3 and 7 weeks following training, and with children alone 7 months later, were videotaped and coded. Parents were able to learn and implement mediation techniques: They were more likely to discuss the children's emotions and less likely to blame them for past transgressions and to propose solutions to the children's conflicts than were control group parents. Children in the mediation group learned from their parents and were more likely to ask each other for plans to resolve the conflict, to generate plans, and to discuss their own and their siblings’ emotions than were control group children. Younger mediation group children were specifically empowered, as both they and their older siblings were more likely to discuss the younger children's interests and emotions and to resolve issues so that younger siblings’ goals were achieved. Practice or Policy: Our results replicate and strengthen previous findings of the benefits of conflict mediation for children's conflict resolution abilities.

Affective Qualities of Sibling Disputes, Mothers' Conflict Attitudes, and Children's Theory of Mind Development

AbstractPreschoolers' theory of mind (ToM) was examined in relation to emotional features of their conflicts with siblings, using mothers as privileged informants. Fifty‐four children aged 3 to 5 years and their 54 mothers took part. Children were given 10 standard false belief tasks and a standardized language test. Mothers completed questionnaires, rated vignettes, and kept a conflict diary to provide detailed data on siblings' conflicts, mothers' conflict attitudes, and mothers' use of mental state language to talk about children's disputes. Results revealed that children's ToM scores were significantly correlated with affective dimensions of their sibling disputes, including more frequent expression of positive emotion while disagreeing and less post‐conflict distress. Logistic regression showed these associations were independent of age and verbal ability. Mothers' conflict attitudes were significantly correlated with the affective outcome of their children's disputes but not with the preschooler's level of ToM understanding. Findings are discussed in relation to possible reciprocal influences between ToM development and the growth of affectively positive and constructive conflict resolution skills.

Komatsudani Then and Now: Continuity and Change in a Japanese Preschool

In this article the reflections of the teachers and directors of Komatsudani Hoikuen (‘day-care center’) on a video the authors recently made at their preschool are used to explore processes of continuity and change in Japanese preschool education over the course of a generation. The social changes that are associated with changing preschool practices in Japan include: a falling birth rate, women's changing attitudes about marriage and work, the social isolation of families, a putative decline in the quality of parenting, and a prevailing mood of national pessimism that is closely tied to a long period of economic decline. These factors are discussed in relation to Komatsudani's minimalist approach to curriculum, to its strategy for dealing with children's disputes, and to its development of a system of older children helping with the care of infants and toddlers.

Building bilingual oppositions: Code-switching in children's disputes

This study examines bilingual children's code-switching practices as they occur in multiparty play activities in an English school in Sweden. By focusing on the endogenous organization of play events, the study contributes to our understanding of bilingualism as both resource for and result of children's social conduct. The central questions are: what is the role of bilingual practices in children's mundane reflexive production of social order, and, specifically, what sort of interactional work may be accomplished through code-switching? Interpretive analyses of naturally occurring play episodes were conducted, broadly along the lines of interaction and conversation analytic research. The empirical data comprise over 20 hours of audio- and video-recorded play, taking place during recess. The analyses draw upon previous work on language alternation, which focuses on members' procedures for accomplishing locally meaningful interaction in bilingual conversation (Auer, 1984; Gumperz, 1982). The results are reported in four empirical studies, highlighting the following features: The children did not make use of a specialized play language. Rather, both English and Swedish were commonly spoken during recess activities. Further, the children's choice of language was locally sensitive and guided by a general preference for same language talk. In light of this preference, the linguistic contrast arising with code-switching served to contextualize children's actions. More specifically, the empirical studies demonstrate (i) how code-switching may be used to facilitate children's entry into ongoing play; (ii) how it may serve to bring about a shift in conversational footing; (iii) to highlight the oppositional nature of certain actions within dispute exchanges, and finally, (iv) to enhance, in certain sequential locations, children's competitive bids for the conversational floor. The present approach diverges from the monolingual perspective traditionally adopted in research on bilingualism, as well as the commonplace conceptualization of bilingualism as, above all, an aspect of the individual mind. Instead, bilingualism is viewed as a set of contingent practices within joint activities in play. Thus, the present study highlights the socially distributed nature of bilingualism, managed and accomplished within interactional exchanges.

Mediation as a method of parent intervention in children's disputes.

This study examined the feasibility and short-term effects of mothers' use of mediation to help children (5 to 8 years) resolve disputes. Families in which mothers were trained to use mediation were compared with control families on intervention strategies at home and discussion of a recurring conflict in the laboratory. With training, mothers could use mediation strategies, and these strategies were favored by both mothers and children. Children responded appropriately to mediation (reasoning, discussing emotions, and understanding motivations more often than in control families). Mediation empowered children, particularly younger siblings, to solve conflict issues. Although questions of the long-term implications of mediation remain, this study suggests that mediation may be a powerful parenting tool, promoting social understanding and productive conflict resolution.

Equality Based Provisions Of The Family Law Act And The Invisibility Of Women

This article is concerned with the invisibility of women's interests in family law disputes about children which has resulted from the equality discourse adopted for family law reform. The notion of parental responsibility has been chosen to exemplify the way in which this invisibility has been entrenched, although the issue of the application of the best interests principle is also important in this context. The article advocates that the equality discourse be abandoned in the context of post-separation children's disputes, and that provisions be developed which more accurately and appropriately reflect the reality and difference of women's lives and experience. It concludes with references to alternative strategies for making women and their interests more visible in the context of family law child-related disputes.

How Do Sibling Conflicts End?

The endings of sibling conflicts were investigated in 40 families at 2 time periods. Each family included 2 children, studied when they were 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 years of age, and 2 years later, at 4 1/2and 6 1/2 years. Four types of conflict endings were observed in sibling conflicts: Compromise, Reconciliation, Submission, and No Resolution. Results indicate that at both time periods conflicts typically ended with No Resolution, followed by Submission, Compromise, and finally, Reconciliation. Submissions decreased and No Resolutions increased over the two time periods; no changes were observed in either Compromise or Reconciliation. Parents' interventions led directly to a resolution of 16% of the children's disputes (Parent Ending). In those cases, there was a greater likelihood of conflicts ending in Compromise or Reconciliation than when parents did not intervene. Conflicts in which parents intervened but the children ultimately resolved the conflicts themselves (Child Ending with Intervention) occurred 42% of the time. Such conflicts ended more often with No Resolution and less often with children's Submissions to their siblings. The implications of these findings for the development of children's conflict resolution skills and the role of parent involvement are discussed.

The Benefits of Parent Intervention in Children's Disputes: An Examination of Concurrent Changes in Children's Fighting Styles

The impact of parental intervention on the quality of children's conflict behavior was examined using observational data from 40 English‐speaking Canadian families with 2‐and 4‐year‐old children. Children's behavior in the portions of fights that preceded their parents, interventions was compared to their behavior in fights in which there was no intervention. Also, children's behavior before parental intervention was contrasted with their behavior after intervention. It was found that parents intervened in the most intense fights between their children, fights in which the children displayed few de‐escalating strategies. Parental intervention was associated with their children using fewer power strategies coupled with an increase in the use of more sophisticated negotiation moves. It was concluded that parental intervention in sibling conflict has beneficial effects in terms of the immediate quality of the children's fighting. Results were interpreted in light of contemporary models of socialization.

The Benefits of Parent Intervention in Children's Disputes: An Examination of Concurrent Changes in Children's Fighting Styles

The Benefits of Parent Intervention in Children's Disputes: An Examination of Concurrent Changes in Children's Fighting Styles

Family violence and family court litigation: A feminist perspective

A number of areas are considered where family violence arises in Family Court proceedings. Increasingly family violence has become a relevant factor in children's disputes, injunctions for personal protection and sole use of real property, as a consideration in property cases and in cases involving cross‐vesting of jurisdiction and damages for personal injury. Each is examined as well as the problems family violence poses for the Family Court both in terms of philosophical and historical underpinnings and in its practical application of the provisions of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (FLA).

Preschool children pay attention to their addressees: Effects of gender composition on peer disputes

The aim of this study was to examine whether preschool children take the gender of the addressee into account when disputing during peer exchanges. There are mixed findings on whether young children take their listeners into account (termed audience design); very little is known about whether the gender of the addressee is an influential variable on children's use of language, particularly during disputes. It was hypothesized that preschool children would alter their language use in mixed‐sex groups more than in same‐sex groups, based on findings that show gender‐typed behavior to be more predominant in same‐sex than mixed‐sex interactions. Preschool‐age children were videorecorded during seminaturalistic peer group triadic sessions in which children played with small toys at a table. Children's disputes (n = 195) were coded for their discourse content and structure. The results showed that both boys and girls modified their language use in mixed‐sex groups. Boys used fewer commands when more girls were p...

Arguments and relationships within the family: Differences in young children's disputes with mother and sibling.

This study examined whether children's arguments differ in disputes with mother and with sibling as well as how arguments used in family interaction relate to later assessment of social understanding. Fifty children (age 33 months) were observed interacting with the mother and sibling in 2 visits in the child's home, and family conversation was recorded and subsequently transcribed. Results showed correlations between partners'arguments in conflict within dyads, but children's argument with their mothers was not related to that used when in dispute with their siblings. Children's use of argument with sibling was also predictive of sociocognitive performance assessed 7 months later

On Giving Reasons in Verbal Disputes: The Development of Justifying

INTRODUCTION In the past seven years an interest in the discourse structure of children's spontaneous verbal disputes has added new detailed information to the study of children's argumentation (Dunn & Munn, 1987; Eisenberg, 1992; Maynard, 1985; Phinney, 1986; Willbrand & Rieke, 1986). Taking advantage of analytic techniques used in discourse analysis, the purpose of this study is to examine the development of children's argumentation by analyzing the discourse contexts of justifications. By analyzing justifications, the study addresses issues in the development of children's argumentation and interpersonal conflict. Previous Studies of Children's Disputes Conflicts between children have been of interest to developmental psychologists as social and cognitive phenomena for many years; one of the first studies conducted in the early 1930s (Dawe, 1934) investigated the relation between conflicts and social adjustment. Piaget stressed the importance of conflict in cognitive and moral development (Piaget, 1932), while Vygotsky stressed internalization of social interaction and the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), which would also include interpersonal conflicts, as important to cognitive and communicative development. In recent years, however, technological advancements in recording interaction and theoretical advancements in the study of language have created a new sensitivity to the complexities of children's conflicts. Several studies (Eisenberg, 1992; Hay, 1984; Maynard, 1985; Phinney, 1986; Shantz, 1987) have described the nature of arguments among young children in the following ways: arguments are rare and very short events when compared to the rest of children's interactions during a typical day, lasting less than ten turns 90% of the time; the first moves in an argument have a tremendous effect on the rest of the interaction; similarly, the topic of dispute has a tremendous effect on the interaction, and topics change in the course of development from an initial focus on object control to include issues of behavioral control or ideational opposition (differences in beliefs, likes, rules of interaction, moral or conventional transgressions). Dunn & Munn (1987) provided the first study of children's first uses of justifications in spontaneous verbal disputes. In a longitudinal study of 43 children observed at home at 18, 24, and 36 months, they found that justifications were present but very rare at 18 months, occurring in only 4% of all the disputes with mothers. They noted a significant increase in the use of the justifications between 24 and 36 months. The justifications were most likely to occur in disputes over object rights or control; these same types of disputes were also the ones which elicited the most anger and distress at 18 and 24 months. In a study of 4-year-olds' conflicts with their mothers, Eisenberg (1992) found that the children used justifications in 36% of their disputes, and these disputes concerned plans and intentions and also expressed more anger and distress. The study also found that both children and adults used justifications more when they initiated the conflict, and were more likely to use justifications if the other did so previously. Communication theorists and argumentation theorists have also investigated children's verbal disputes, both elicited and spontaneous, in order to broaden the concept of argumentation and reason giving by using analytic techniques from discourse analysis and to examine the development of argumentation (Benoit, 1983; Haslett, 1983; O'Keefe & Benoit, 1982, Willbrand & Rieke, 1986). These studies have found both developmental differences in strategies for resolving disputes (Benoit, 1983) and both developmental and stylistic/personality differences in the use of more mature reasoning strategies in verbal disputes (Haslett, 1983; Willbrand & Rieke, 1986). These studies have focused on explicating the relation between argumentation and interpersonal verbal disputes, trying to understand the relation between reason giving (an argument people make) and interpersonal conflict (an argument people have) (O'Keefe, 1982). …

Arguments and relationships within the family: Differences in young children's disputes with mother and sibling.

Arguments and relationships within the family: Differences in young children's disputes with mother and sibling.

Argument as status assertion: Contextual variations in children's disputes

ABSTRACTPrevious analyses of children's disputes have concentrated on the use of various strategies within discrete activity contexts. Using data from an ethnographic study of an integrated kindergarten, it is suggested that children's disputes are strongly influenced by the activity and role structure of a given event, and that variations in how an event is contextualized are linked to the social structure of the classroom. Analytical problems in studying disputes from this perspective are also discussed. They include determining the speaker's focus, coping with multiple contexts, and selecting the level of analysis. (Developmental sociolinguistics, children's social behavior, peer interaction, analytic problems, American English)

Children's disputes in three speach communities

Despite considerable recent research on child discourse, there has been little controlled cross-cultural work. Numerous valuable studies of children's speech events in specific societies are available, but comparisons are largely anecdotal and informal. Similarly, several analytical schemata have been developed to deal with particular types of discourse in particular societies (see, for example, Sinclair & Coulthard 1975; Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974 Brenneis & Lein 1977; Watson & Boggs 1977), but their applicability in other contexts has not been tested. Comparative research is necessary both to test the generality of interpretations of child discourse based on research in one society and to explore the cross-cultural utility of analytical methods.