Children´s Talk about Group Belonging : Inclusion and Exclusion Expressed in Focus Groups in School.

Författare

Maria Heintz

Summary, in Swedish

Children spend a large percentage of their day with their classmates in school. Classmates are not only co-workers, but also individuals interacting socially as friends. The understanding of group affiliation and friendship interaction in school is of great importance to social work in school because of its implications on children’s wellbeing and academic performance. Several studies show that social interaction and friendship in school effect children’s wellbeing, academic performance and identity development. The main aim of this presentation is to present the results from focus groups in regard to how children talk about their affiliations to groups within a school class. The focus groups were made in a study of children’s social interaction and group affiliation where a school class of 23 children at the age of 10 years were observed and interviewed, both individually and in groups, during one school year. The observations showed that the children form themselves in friendship groups or clicks which are relatively stable during the school year. In these groups several different strategies were observed regarding the interaction between group members and between groups. The material for this presentation is from the focus group interviews where the children were brought together based on their group affiliation. From this I will elucidate how the children talk about exclusion and inclusion within and between the groups in the school class. The focus in the presentation is groups and processes, not the experience of specific children.

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