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Fostering Safe and Inclusive Environments in Early Childhood Education: Addressing Bullying, Harassment, and Exclusion

12 Jun 2025, 10:00

1h 30m

Stavanger Forum

Symposium Bullying and peer aggression in early childhood education and care Room: Vindafjorden

Speakers

Ragnhild Lenes (Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger) Ingrid Midteide Løkken (Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger) Janken Camilla Sæbø (Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger) Silje Vignes Flesjå (Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger) Tone Rove Nilsen (Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger) Thomas Moser (Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research in Education, University of Stavanger)

Description

Our symposium is dedicated to creating safe and inclusive environments for children in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). We will explore the pressing issues of bullying, harassment, and exclusion among children and toddlers in Norwegian ECEC settings. The symposium will feature four presenters and a discussant. Our research includes a comprehensive literature review, qualitative interviews, observations, and a broader study with various data sources, including quantitative investigations.
Ensuring safe environments for children is mandated by the Norwegian Kindergarten Act, Chapter VIII, enacted in 2021. Our literature review examines how different stakeholders in Norway perceive exclusion, bullying, and harassment. We investigate teachers' perspectives on exclusion among toddlers through an interview study. Through qualitative observations, we explore the ECEC staff's role in negative actions between toddlers. The included broader study consists of five work packages, exploring how promoting children’s well-being may be essential for supporting healthy development and could be a prerequisite for fostering good peer relations and inclusiveness among children.
This symposium aims to illuminate the complexities of early childhood social dynamics and provide evidence-based strategies for educators and policymakers to create positive and inclusive ECEC environments. Understanding these processes is critical, as they can impact children’s ability to thrive, play, learn, and develop during the early stages of their lives.

Keywords

Bullying, Exclusion, Inclusion, Toddlers, Kindergarten Act

Additional field for symposia

1: Bullying in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care and new regulations in the Kindergarten Act.
Tone Rove Nilsen, Thomas Moser, May Irene Furenes Klippen, Ingrid Midteide Løkken, Ellen Elvethon

Since the late 1990s, the topic of bullying in ECEC has been debated in Norway, with questions about the term's relevance. Today, it is clear that bullying occurs in various social contexts. Drawing on results from a scoping review of 93 documents on bullying in Norway from 1997 to 2020, we find how various ECEC actors, including academics, staff, parents, and children, have different understandings of bullying. In recent years, attention has shifted from a more individual-oriented understanding to bullying as an expression of inappropriate or unfortunate social processes. In January 2021, amendments to the Norwegian Kindergarten Act were introduced to ensure children's rights to a safe and sound psychosocial environment. The staff is now held accountable for preventing and intervening in exclusion, bullying, or other forms of harassment. This study aims to explore how research on exclusion, bullying, and harassment in Norwegian ECEC has emerged since the law's implementation. An updated systematic literature search from 2021 to 2025 found six peer-reviewed research articles in the national library system Oria and international databases such as Eric, Academic Search Premier, and Scandinavian Research in ECEC (nb-ecec.org). These articles are thematically analyzed with subsequent coding of the content of the literature. The theoretical background for this study is Vygotsky's sociocultural learning theory and the importance of the social context for children's play, learning, and development. Findings may ensure new knowledge about how the law amendment is implemented in the Norwegian ECEC and how it may affect safe and sound environments for children.

1. Teachers’ Perspectives on Exclusion Among Toddlers
   Silje Vignes Flesjå, Janken Camilla Sæbø

This study explores teachers' experiences regarding exclusion among toddlers in ECEC. Several recent studies reveal that bullying occurs in ECEC, but very few included toddlers (children under three). The study aims to contribute new perspectives on social exclusion among toddlers. The theoretical background for this study is Bandura's social learning theory and Vygotsky's sociocultural learning theory. The study is a secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews with six teachers from four ECEC centers. The interviews are about their experiences with belonging, exclusion, and inclusion. The interviews were analyzed using a thematic approach inspired by Braun and Clarke's six steps. An abductive approach was adopted for the analysis. All the ECEC teachers in this study reported experiencing exclusion among toddlers. Exclusion can manifest in various ways, and there are multiple reasons behind it. The children protect their resources, friends, and toys, and the teachers give examples of how children reject others with body language and words. They highlight the children's competence in play and language, the parent's relationship with other parents, and the children's self-regulation as influencing factors. Several ECEC teachers note that they occasionally observe a pattern regarding which children are excluded early on. Exclusion in toddler groups is a well-known issue among ECEC teachers. The patterns of who is excluded highlight the necessity for early intervention in ECEC to prevent exclusion. To foster a safe, inclusive environment, ECEC staff should establish a conscious, inclusive relationship from the beginning of young children's enrolment in ECEC.

1. Staffs Role in Negative Actions Between Toddlers in Norwegian ECEC
   Ingrid Midteide Løkken, Ellen Elvethon og Helene Berntsen Svensson

Negative actions in play and interaction occur as part of developing social competencies. Adverse actions may involve a violation where, for example, a child takes a shovel from another child. The children need behavioral support, guidance, and help from the ECEC staff in these situations. It is required by law for children in the Norwegian ECEC to have a safe and sound environment free from bullying and other violations. The staff is obliged to prevent, observe, investigate, and intervene. Little is known about how the staff intervenes in negative actions between toddlers, so this study aims to investigate how the staff intervenes. The study uses a qualitative approach based on observations from eight toddler groups. The observations were transcribed, coded, and categorized as negative actions through thematic analysis (Miles, Huberman & Saldana, 2014). Preliminary results show that negative actions between children took place in every toddler group, individually or as repetitive patterns. The staff stopped and solved the situation, and the actions were, to a minimal extent, used to support the interaction between the toddlers. There were also some situations where the staff did not discover children's undesired actions. The implications of this study are to contribute to awareness of the staff's role in handling and preventing negative actions between children to provide support for positive interaction.

1. Children's well-being in ECEC as a measure to prevent bullying
   Ragnhild Lenes

This presentation aims to explore the relationship between children's subjective well-being in ECEC as a means for preventing early bullying. It builds on experiences and findings from the research project "Children's subjective well-being in ECEC provisions". Promoting children's well-being is essential for supporting healthy development and is considered a prerequisite for promoting good peer relations and inclusiveness among children. Applying a wide range of sources and methods, the research project encompasses five work packages: A literature review to establish a theoretical framework based on recent research (WP1), an observational and interview study of children, teachers, and parents in ECEC settings (WP2), a fidelity study in 14 ECEC provisions where the subjective-wellbeing of children is measured and related to staff's well-being and the quality of the provision (WP3), an analysis of quantitative data from a large study (1,150 children, ages 4.5-5.5) based on surveys completed by children and teachers (WP4) and an assessment of the dynamics of children's well-being three times daily over 10 weeks using digital tablets. These WPs will provide data about children's experiences with and perceptions of bullying in ECEC (WP1, WP2, WP3). In spring 2025, the research group will examine the relationship between children's subjective well-being and bullying based on the magnitude of the available data. We will present our findings regarding disentangling the intricate and complex relations between subjective well-being and bullying in everyday life in ECEC provisions, especially from the perspective of which well-being measures can have a notable preventive potential in which contexts.

1. Discussant
   Thomas Moser

To start the discussion with the participants, the findings of the four contributions will be briefly summarized and reflected upon, considering recent research regarding their significance for preventive work against bullying, harassment, and exclusion in ECEC.