“You don’t need to be mean. We’re friends,Right?”: Young Korean-American children’s conflicts and references to friendship

Abstract

In the eyes of adults, conflicts between children are often treated as problematic social interactions that should be prevented. This study describes how young Korean–American children’s conflict negotiation was a central part of their peer culture at a Korean heritage language school in the United States. Eleven young Korean–American children attending a Korean heritage language school, their guardians (mothers and grandmothers), two pre-kindergarten classroom teachers, and two school staff members at a Korean heritage language school were recruited as participants. Data were collected through participant observation, formal and informal interviews, and artifact collection during an academic year. The analysis showed that the heritage language school highly valued the traditional Korean culture in many different ways, and that the ways in which the young Korean–American children negotiated conflicts reflected the ideal of group harmony that is highly valued in the Korean cultural community. This study concludes with implications for early childhood educators working with young children from different cultural backgrounds.

Keywords

children’s peer culture conflicts friends young Korean–American children

Introduction

As children grow, they experience new social interactions in various contexts with other children and adults. Scholars have agreed that in many ways peers offer unique influences on children’s lives in early childhood (and even up to adulthood) that adults or siblings cannot provide. They have found that children’s peer social worlds are associated with multiple aspects of their lives (e.g. Gifford-Smith and Brownell, 2003; Handel, 2006; Hartup, 1992; Hay et al., 2004; Ladd, 1999, 2005; Rubin et al., 2008). Peers contribute to the acquisition and construction of a child’s social and cultural knowledge. At the same time, this process “flows out of children’s worlds, guiding and shaping children’s understanding of what happens within them” (Adler and Adler, 1998: 4). Corsaro (1997) noted that children internalize the adult world according to their own views and produce their own cultures that exceed the internalization of cultural knowledge in their society. Through adult–child interactions, children are exposed to socio-cultural knowledge often, and they appropriate information from the adult world. Yet, the appropriation of information is not just “the private internalization of adult skills and knowledge” (Corsaro and Eder, 1990: 199). Rather, children build and maintain their own peer cultures, defined as “stable set[s] of activities or routines, artifacts, values, and concerns that they produce and share in interaction with peers” (Corsaro, 1997: 95). As Elgas (2003) noted, “cultural knowledge [shared by children] can be defined … as knowing how this peer culture is enacted (through a set of actions, attitudes, values, and artifacts or objects)” (p. 53). Children creatively reproduce the information through the activities and routines that make up their peer culture (Corsaro, 1985, 1992, 1997; Corsaro and Rizzo, 1990a; Elgas, 2003; Gaskins et al., 1992; Madrid and Kantor, 2009).

Despite the recent increase in studies of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, research on children’s peer culture within these populations has seldom been addressed. We still know little about how they construct and maintain their peer cultures, or how the fact that children’s interactions stem from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds reflects both their own peer cultures and the larger culture surrounding them. To date, specifically, the peer culture of young Korean–American children remains unstudied. This study attempts to illustrate how young Korean–American children in the United States actively construct their own understanding about conflicts and how to negotiate them in their peer culture.

Children’s conflicts in peer culture

As in all human relationships, children do not always have pleasant and peaceful peer relations. Conflicts, arguments, debates, and disputes often arise in their peer relations, even among close friends. For young children, friendship tends to mean doing something together “in the moment” (Corsaro, 2003: 69). According to Corsaro (1997), children tend to protect their interactive space, in which they attempt to “keep sharing what they are already sharing and see others as a threat” (p. 24). This often culminates in conflict or in resistance to access by other peers. Researchers have also found that sharing, more than anything else, triggers conflicts among young children (e.g. Killen and Turiel, 1991; Shantz, 1987). Children’s conflicts have often been perceived by adults either as necessitating intervention or as reflecting children’s inherent selfishness or aggression (Killen and Turiel, 1991). However, researchers have begun to understand that children’s conflicts are a part of the natural social interaction that they engage in (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987; Goodwin, 1990) and are important components of children’s development (Iskandar et al., 1995; Murphy and Eisenberg, 2002; Shantz, 1987). Through conflicts, children learn to maintain group boundaries (e.g. Farris, 2000; Goodwin, 1990; Katriel, 1985; Kyratzis and Guo, 2001) and develop cognitive and communicative strategies (e.g. Corsaro and Rizzo, 1990b; Goodwin, 1990; Sheldon, 1996).

Conflicts among peers reflect specific cultural contexts (French et al., 2005; Garvey and Shantz, 1992). Despite the amount of research documenting cultural differences in adults’ conflicts (e.g. French et al., 2006; Markus and Lin, 1999), there have been relatively few studies of cultural differences in conflicts between children. Among these few, Corsaro’s (1997) study showed that conflicts among Italian children presented opportunities for the children to exert control over their lives. Corsaro and Rizzo (1990b) elaborated that Italian preschool children were engaged thoroughly in discussions that were “complex, stylistic, and aesthetically impressive [verbal] routines” (p. 40) of their peer culture, using interactive patterns rarely shown by American preschool children. Corsaro (1994) argued that discussion in Italian children’s peer culture reflects the larger Italian culture, in which discussion is highly valued. Similarly, Medina et al. (2001) noted that the ways in which preschool children in southern Spain and Holland dealt with conflicts reflected the collectivistic and individualistic characteristics of these countries, respectively. For example, when children from each country entered conflict situations, preschool children in southern Spain tended to maintain interactions centered on a common goal over interactions that served personal interests, while Dutch children tended to preserve personal goals. Although physical rupture occurred in both cases, they operated differently for each nationality. Spanish children tended to show temporary physical rupture and then quickly regain the equilibrium of their previous interactions, while Dutch children tended to use physical rupture as a solution to conflict situations.

Additionally, Farris (1991, 2000) discovered that Taiwanese preschool children’s conflicts reflected both their own peer culture and their adult culture. For example, in cross-gender play, girls were often asked to serve food to boys, reflecting the roles of women in traditional Taiwanese society. Farris found that when girls used aggressive language patterns in cross-gender conflicts, a practice not common among European–American preschool girls, this aggressive talk was believed “to subvert the gendered social order of Taiwan’s society” (p. 541). Similar to Farris’s study, Benjamin et al. (2001) reported that Taiwanese 8- and 9-year olds showed fewer conflicts and more agreement among their peers than did Canadian children. French et al. (2005) found that Indonesian children’s conflicts reflect the characteristics of the Indonesian cultural emphasis on maintaining interpersonal harmony. They tended to disengage, which is viewed as an undesirable reaction to conflict in European–American contexts. Katriel (1985) reported that brogez (the state of anger) in Israeli children is “a socially bounded interactional state” (p. 473). She noted that brogez allowed Israeli children to “handle conflict situations by declaring a phase of ‘time out’” (p. 476) and to reflect on the social status they generally took for granted in their everyday lives. Thus, these studies define children’s conflicts as interactive processes through which children clearly reflect their local and larger cultural beliefs and values. Recently, Tobin et al. (2009) found that teachers in three preschools in different cultures approached children’s conflicts differently. Japanese teachers waited for children to solve their conflicts themselves for a while. They believed that children’s tensions or conflicts are “an inevitable and not necessarily undesirable dimension of the peer relations of young children” (Tobin, 2000: 1157). In contrast, American teachers in Hawaii immediately intervened in children’s conflicts when they occurred. Yet, many questions about other children’s conflicts and friendships, including those of Korean–American children, remain, and there is a need for further research.

Korean–American children and Korean culture as a collectivistic culture

Many Asian Americans retain their preexisting Asian cultural values and beliefs, even as they acquire American characteristics (Oyserman and Sakamoto, 1997). Asian cultures, including the Korean culture, have been described as collectivistic cultures in which interdependent relationships between people are highly valued. In contrast to the individualistic cultures of Western countries, including the United States, which place value on the individual’s autonomy and personal interests, the collectivistic cultures of East Asia (e.g. China, Japan, Korea) tend to place value on relationships with others, accommodating others’ feelings and preferences (Shweder et al., 1998). Many researchers (e.g. Kitayama et al., 2006; Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Markus and Lin, 1999) have found that collectivistic cultures place social harmony above individual preferences.

Shweder et al. (1998) summarized the characteristics of the interdependent self that is valued in many East Asian cultural contexts (e.g. China, Japan, Korea) as being

(a) connected; (b) context-based; (c) relational, flexible, malleable, responsive to others’ expectations, preferences, and feelings; (d) similar to others and concerned with fitting in; (e) particularly sensitive to potential inadequacy, self-critical; (f) improvement- and mastery-oriented; (g) open, receptive; and (h) fully engaged. (p. 901)

Considering these characteristics of collectivistic cultures, conflicts in collectivistic cultural contexts have been perceived as different from conflicts in individualistic cultures (e.g. the United States). In collectivistic cultures, conflict is viewed as “disturbance or disharmony in the relationship between individuals” (Markus and Lin, 1999: 16), so that one is expected to be sensitive and responsive to maintaining relationships. Expression of negative emotions during conflicts is discouraged; instead, appropriate conflict resolution involves indirect expression of sensitivity to others’ emotions. In contrast, conflicts in individualistic cultures are viewed as impingements on individual choices or actions and direct response is used to resolve conflicts (Kitayama et al., 2006; Markus and Lin, 1999).

Paralleling these notions, Korean culture is considered collectivistic, and is defined as a “relationship culture” (Kim and Choi, 1994). Korean culture values maintaining a group identity and upholding group harmony (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). The interdependent self-valued in Korean culture is reflected in Korean language practices. For example, Korean people tend to use Woori (we, our, us) rather than Na (I, me, my) (Choi et al., 1993; Kim and Choi, 1994). Specifically, Woori is “used to denote a group of people (such as ‘our family’), an entity (such as ‘our nation’), and even possessions (such as ‘our house’)” (Kim and Choi, 1994: 246). Korean–American children raised in Korean immigrant families in the United States are influenced both by the cultural values and beliefs of their ethnic community and those of American mainstream society. They tend to retain Korean cultural values and beliefs that emphasize group cohesion, emotional self-control, and cooperation. In Farver et al. (2000) study, Korean–American teachers emphasize group harmony and self-control for children rather than individual interests or concerns. European–American teachers value individual achievements and self-expression of children more. Kim (1991) described how Korean children are taught to maintain group harmony, control the display of emotion, and minimize conflict in social interaction. They are also discouraged from asserting strong opinions or ideas different from those of others, especially those of family or friends (Kim and Choi, 1994). When it is necessary to express a different opinion, it should be done in the most indirect or least confrontational manner possible (Kim, 1991). These characteristics of Korean culture are embedded in the concept of friendships in Korean culture. For Koreans, who value harmonious social relationships, friendship is understood as one of the essential dimensions to maintain the society. Koreans develop more intimate and longer relationships with peers than Americans (French et al., 2006), as other studies about friendship in collectivistic cultures (e.g. Reis et al., 2000; Wheeler et al., 1989) noted.

Research questions

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the under-researched peer culture of Korean–American children in a Korean heritage language school, a context outside of the traditional research focus on formal school contexts. This study examined how young Korean–American children in the United States negotiated conflicts as a central part of their peer culture within a Korean heritage language school. Research questions focused on how children’s conflicts were related to Korean traditional values and beliefs, and how young Korean–American children negotiated them within their peer culture.

Methodology

Research context

This ethnographic study was conducted at a Korean heritage language school in a metropolitan area of the southeastern United States from October 2007 to October 2008. Many cultural groups in the United States, including Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, and Vietnamese, attend heritage language programs on weekends or through after-school programs (Cho, 2000; Draper and Hicks, 2000; Siegel, 2004). By attending heritage language schools outside of the formal US education system, immigrant children learn and share their cultural identities and values while maintaining their heritage language (Cho, 2000; Fishman, 2001). A Korean Catholic Church supports the heritage language school with funding and resources (e.g. the school building, class materials, etc.). The Korean language and culture class for Korean immigrant children and Korean–American children was held for 1 hour every Sunday. Over 100 children ages 3 to 18 years attended the school during the research period. There were a total of 17 teachers and assistant teachers. Most staff members and teachers at the school were immigrant mother volunteers. The school used self-made classroom materials in tandem with textbooks published by Korean institutes and distributed by the Korean Consulate General.

Research participants

The participants were 11 pre-kindergartners (seven boys and four girls), their guardians (including seven mothers and two grandmothers), two pre-kindergarten classroom teachers, and two school staff members. For the selection of participants, I used both “purposeful sampling” (Patton, 2002: 230) and “criterion sampling” (p. 238), which involved targeting young Korean–American children outside of the formal school systems in order to study their peer culture. I chose children in the pre-kindergarten classroom because that grade level would allow me to study the children’s initial transition from home to school. In addition, the curriculum of the pre-kindergarten class was more flexible than that of the upper-grade level. This flexibility helped me observe how children interacted with each other in the classroom. I contacted the Korean heritage language school and received assent forms and consent forms from the participants’ parents, teachers, and school staff members. The children were all born in the United States and were 3 to 4 years old during the research period. They spoke English in their preschools or daycare centers on the weekdays while attending the heritage school each Sunday to learn Korean. Their guardians had immigrated to the United States from 5 to 32 years prior to the study. Two bilingual teachers in the classroom had also immigrated when they were young. The school coordinator was responsible for the school curriculum under the supervision of the school director, who served as the priest of the Korean Catholic Church.

Research procedure

Children’s interactions with peers and adults were observed, recorded with field notes (DeWalt and DeWalt, 2002), and videotaped (Graue and Walsh, 1998) in weekly 2-hour site visits during the 2007–2008 academic year. The children’s spontaneous interactions were recorded in my field notes. Verbal interactions were recorded as exactly as possible in field notes, and non-verbal interactions were jotted down as key events as well. At the same time, the participant children’s interactions with peers and adults were videotaped on one video camera and two audio recorders. Videotaped instances of verbal and non-verbal interactions were logged and indexed as field notes. When I developed my field notes after observation, I also combined the transcripts of video and audio recordings into the field notes. I tried to place the video camera and myself in spots where I could see all of the children at once when they worked as a whole group or played with each other in the classroom. Fortunately, this was possible because the classroom was small. When the children played, I directed the video camera toward the interactions between particular children, while still trying to capture all of the children. In order to overcome the limitation of the video camera being usually fixed in one spot, I placed two audio recorders with Pressure Zone Microphones^TM (PZM^TM) microphones near the children in the classroom to capture their verbal interactions. In addition to participant observations in the heritage language school, I gathered additional information by observing the child participants in the religious education class that all child participants attended for 1 hour immediately after the heritage language class.

I started to gain entry into children’s worlds from both an insider and outsider position.

As an adult researcher, I was partly an insider and partly an outsider among the child participants. I was an outsider due to my adult characteristics such as physical size, age, and authority. As a Korean adult living, working, and studying in the United States, I have both retained my Korean heritage and absorbed American culture to some degree. As a participant observer, I tried to maintain an awareness of the power relationship between an adult researcher and child participants. Researchers have tried to overcome the difficulties of entering children’s worlds by positioning themselves through the least-adult role, or in a role different from that of the other adults (e.g. Christensen, 2004; Corsaro, 1985; Fine and Sandstrom, 1988). Fine and Sandstrom (1988) noted that adopting a friend’s role with the least-adult authority and sanctioning of children’s behaviors is a good way to cultivate relationships with child participants. Christensen (2004) positioned himself in his study through “the act of looking” and “listening attentively” without any interruption of children’s activities. Attempting to minimize adult authority and power, Corsaro (1985) used a “reactive entry strategy” in which he entered children’s play areas and waited for children to react to him. Unlike typical adults, he did not attempt “(a) to initiate or terminate an episode, (b) to repair disrupted activity, (c) to settle disputes, or (d) to coordinate or direct activity,” attempting to become “part of the activity without affecting the nature or flow of peer episodes” (p. 32). He gained entry by placing himself in a peripheral position from which he nevertheless participated in the children’s world. For this study, I tried to gain entry into and participate in the children’s world by minimizing my given authority and power as an adult, using the “reactive entry strategy” suggested by Corsaro (1985).

Formal semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002) of 60 to 80 minutes and informal interviews were conducted with each guardian, pre-k classroom teacher, and staff member. All formal interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in Korean and later translated into English. The adult participants were mainly asked to describe what values they emphasized and their perspectives on the children’s American schooling. Several artifacts (i.e. children’s work, weekly newsletters for parents, and other materials displayed around the school) were collected to gather information about how children’s peer culture was represented through various visualized materials and how children’s peer culture was embedded in children’s work. However, this article focuses mainly on observation and interview data.

Research data analysis

Utilizing inductive analysis strategies, all data were carefully and reflectively read, identified, and coded to find patterns, themes, and categories. Through a consistent process of comparison and contrast (Charmaz, 2000; Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of the coded data within and across the data set, relationships were sought and codes were categorized. I analyzed children’s interactions in their peer relations, focusing on how traditional Korean cultural values were taught and how they were reflected in the children’s peer relations.

I focused on children’s conflicts in order to learn how the children internalized Korean culture and reflected it in their peer culture. The children’s utterances concerning friendship during their conflicts were analyzed. The reason focused on references to friendship comes from the fact that Korean culture emphasizes harmonious social relationships, and conflicts are understood within this social framework. In this article, the coded data only included the children’s utterances that contained the exact word, “friend.” For the analysis, I adopted Corsaro’s (1985) method of analyzing children’s references to friendship. Corsaro (1985) reported that children’s references to friendship can be used “as a device for gaining entry and social participation” (e.g. “Can I be your friend?”) as well as a “basis for exclusion” (e.g. “You are not my friend now.”) (p. 124). He also noted that children used references to friendship to build solidarity through competitive remarks (e.g. “We are not her friend, right?”) and to attempt social control over other children (e.g. “I’ll be your friend if you do this.”). References to friendship in both play situations and non-play situations (e.g. doing worksheets) were included because the children also used the word “friend” when participating in non-play activities.

Findings

Interdependence and sharing in order to maintain group harmony were highly valued by the adults at the heritage language school as part of Korean culture. The children also negotiated and handled their conflicts in ways that reflect the cultural values and norms of the Korean culture as learned from the adults. The Korean–American children in this study made references to friendship in order to resolve their conflicts around sharing, particularly for the purpose of building and maintaining group harmony as valued in traditional Korean culture. Thus, by using the word “friend,” the Korean–American children tended to affirm Korean cultural values and norms when conflicts occurred among peers.

Interdependence and sharing valued in the heritage language school

The study revealed that the Korean immigrant guardians and teachers at the school emphasized the value of interdependence and sharing in many different ways. The layout of the Korean heritage language classroom reflected collectivistic cultural values. Unlike the typical American early childhood classroom, the furniture and materials (e.g. crayons, pencils, papers, etc.) in the heritage language classroom were distributed in ways that encouraged the children to share with peers. For example, in the classroom, the tables had no individual child’s name. The children chose which table to sit at each week. When they worked on worksheets at the tables, two or three crayon boxes were given to the children to share. The teachers frequently encouraged the children to share materials, saying, “Do you want to share it with her?” or “Share it.” This was in spite of the fact that sharing materials was not strictly necessary; although many heritage language schools tend to lack resources and materials (Wang, 1996), this particular school was well funded by the Korean Catholic Church and Korean Consulate General.

The primary characteristic of collectivistic cultures, “the-self-in-relation-to-other” (Shweder et al., 1998: 899), was reflected in the heritage language school curriculum. Mrs Hong¹, the school coordinator, emphasized that the school stressed learning beyond mere academics; the children were also encouraged to “harmoniously get along with others” and “cooperate” (Interview). The teachers encouraged the children to share even what they personally brought into the classroom, as described in the following field notes:

As the children play in the classroom, Miss Jang asks them to gather on the carpet to participate in a game involving rhythmic movement and singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in Korean. Before coming to the carpeted area, Jessica and three other boys (Kyuwon, Junsung, and Yongjae) are playing with each other in the play house. Jessica, wearing her little white backpack, shares her cookies with the three boys. When the children hear Miss Jang’s direction, Jessica slowly moves toward the carpet, holding her bag of cookies in her hands. The three boys come to the carpet, each eating some of Jessica’s cookies. Other children gather around Jessica to receive pieces of cookies from her. Miss Jang repeatedly asks the children to take their seats on the carpet for the next activity. While Miss Jang arranges other children’s seats, Jessica comes to the carpet and begins to give her cookies to some other children. Myungwoo finally comes to the carpet. When Myungwoo sees Jessica’s cookies, he also tries to get a piece. Jessica says to him, “Wait. No,” and puts the bag of cookies back into her backpack. There is a small conflict between Myungwoo and Jessica that lasts a few minutes. Miss Jang, who has been watching them for a while, tells Jessica, “If you’re not going to share with everyone, then you shouldn’t [eat] right now.” Jessica replies, “I shouldn’t share yet,” looking at Myungwoo. After Miss Jang confirms that all the children are ready to participate in the song, she tells the children: “OK. Stand up.” (Field notes/video transcripts)

Although Miss Jang kept asking the children to take their seats on the carpet and pay attention to her, it took time for them to comply, as they were distracted by Jessica’s cookies. After Miss Jang noticed that Jessica did not share her cookies with Myungwoo, she asked Jessica to either share them or stop eating them. Miss Jang’s original intention might have been to encourage Jessica to get ready for the next activity by having her quickly put her cookies back into her backpack. She could have just easily said that Jessica could not eat her cookies except during an assigned time. Instead, Miss Jang told Jessica that she could eat her cookies on the condition that she shared them with all the children. Miss Jang’s remark presented her underlying belief that children should share everything with their peers. The teachers in the study encouraged the children to solve their conflicts through sensitively considering others and maintaining group harmony (e.g. sharing).

Similarly, the interviews with the Korean immigrant guardians (mothers and grandmothers) revealed that they valued sharing with others highly. They expressed particular concern over how well their children shared materials or toys with other children. For example, a Korean immigrant mother of a 3-year-old girl, Joohee, expressed her concern when her daughter began attending a pre-kindergarten weekdays and a heritage language school on Sundays:

I’m concerned about the possession issue … about whether things are mine or yours … Now, she seems to willingly share. She did not readily share anything that she was eating with others before, but recently I have seen her sharing more … her behaviors now seem more natural and less peculiar. (Interview)

One of the reasons why the guardians valued sharing seemed to be rooted in the fact that Koreans often interpret individualism as egotism; thus, the emphasis on the individual self and preferences is considered selfish, immature, and a threat to group harmony (Choi and Kim, 2003; Shweder et al., 1998). In addition, paralleling Korn’s (1993) study, encouraging sharing among friends falls into “unselfishness” as one of the important dimensions of friendship in Korean culture.

Children’s usage of the word “friend”

As an indicator that the Korean–American children reflected Korean culture in their peer cultures, they often used references to friendship in order to maintain group harmony in the wake of conflict. As in Corsaro’s (1985) study, the Korean–American children in this study referred to friendship spontaneously and often to gain access to ongoing activities. In this study, of the 89 references to friendship, 56 arose from attempts to access groups or ongoing activities. These 56 references were uttered both by those who wanted to be included and by those trying to protect their activity through exclusion (e.g. “Only my friends [come]!”). Of the remaining references, 19 were used to build solidarity (e.g. “Do you want to be my friend?”) during ongoing activities, including competitive remarks (e.g. “He is not your friend.”). Interestingly, the children used the friendship reference 14 times to coordinate group harmony (e.g. “You want to be a good friend.”). For example, during my third visit to the heritage language classroom, I observed the following incident, in which a girl tried to prevent her peers from entering into conflict by using the word “friend”:

There are two crayon boxes on the two tables placed close to each other. Soojung, Jessica, Sora, and Junsung are sitting at a table. Next to the table, Kyuwon, Seonil, Myungwoo, Hyonmin, Boyong, Wonkyu, and Joohee are sharing the crayons and coloring worksheets. As they are coloring, Myungwoo and Hyonmin, who are sitting on the other side of Jessica and Soojung, take a bunch of crayons and spread them out on their own papers. Soon other children, including Jessica and Soojung, complain about the two boys’ behavior. Sora, who is sitting next to Soojung, says to the class, “You don’t need to be mean. We’re friends, right?” The boys look around at the other children for few seconds and do not say anything. Instead, they begin to return the crayons to each crayon box. (Field notes)

Sora’s remark, “We’re friends, right?” momentarily redirected the children without the adult intervention. It also led to sharing among the children. Because this episode occurred in the fourth week after the class began (and the children had only met three times before that week), the children’s peer relations were loosely structured. At that time, Sora did not have enough status to influence the other children. However, no one resisted Sora’s remark, and they all accepted it in silence. Here, Sora used the word “friend” to reduce conflict and maintain group harmony. In contrast, use of the term “friend” for large group cohesion was not found in the studies carried out by Corsaro and his colleagues (e.g. Corsaro, 1985; Corsaro and Rizzo, 1990b). Indeed, Sora’s remark was quite different from the typical use of the term “friend” as observed in European–American children’s peer relations (e.g. Corsaro, 1985). On the one hand, although European–American children in Corsaro’s study frequently asked, Sora’s remark “We’re friends, right?” was neither a means to achieve access to a play group nor a strategy to exclude someone from the play group. Instead, the term “friend” was used to encourage the group collaboration by reducing conflict among peers. In this sense, Sora’s reference to friendship reflected an aspect of these children’s ethnic cultural values. Through the reference to friendship, the children in this study affirmed their common understanding that sharing with each other is an appropriate and desirable behavior.

The effort to reduce conflict and increase group harmony reflected in the Korean–American children’s peer relations was also observed by Farver (1999), who examined European–American children’s and Korean–American children’s interactions during their pretend play in preschool settings. She found that European–American children showed more aggressive and negative attitudes toward their peers’ initiations and contributions to the play than Korean–American children did. She also noted that Korean–American children, whose culture emphasizes the maintenance of harmonious relationships, “responded in cooperative fashion to peers’ play initiations” and “were non-confrontational in their dyadic play” (p. 122). She explained that European–American children’s play tended to involve more conflict due to their culture’s emphasis on the assertion of the self.

With regard to sharing objects, I also observed the children referring to friendship to resolve their conflicts in the pre-kindergarten religious education class:

The children are making Christmas cards for their parents. Each table has a crayon box to share. Soojung, Jessica, Kyuwon, and Junghoon sit together at one table. Soojung sits next to Jessica, and Kyuwon sits in front of Jessica. Mrs. Lee, the religious education teacher, asks the class to finish their coloring, saying, “Let’s finish!” Soojung, Jessica, and Kyuwon immediately respond to Mrs. Lee, saying, “I’m still not done.”

Kyuwon (when Jessica pulls the crayon box toward her and picks out several pieces of crayon):

Don’t take all of it.

Soojung:

Yeah, don’t take all of it. Please put it in the middle … (after few seconds) How, how mean, how mean you are! Just put it in the middle!

Jessica immediately and carefully moves the crayon box to a position midway between Soojung and herself, but the location is still far from Kyuwon and Junghoon. After a few seconds, Junghoon stands up and stretches his arm toward Jessica in order to pick up crayons. For a few seconds, Jessica stares at Junghoon, saying nothing:

Soojung:

(shortly, to Jessica) See? Other people have to stand up to reach them. (After a few seconds) It should be in the middle (moving the crayon box)! (However, Jessica moves the crayon box back toward herself.) She’s not putting it in the middle. I’m not going to be your friend!

Jessica does not respond to Soojung. Instead, she continues coloring her Christmas card. Soojung and Jessica do not talk to each other for a few minutes. (Field notes/video transcripts)

In this vignette, Jessica put the crayon box back to a spot between her and Soojung after hearing Soojung’s remark about Jessica being “mean.” Even though Soojung now had easy access to the crayons, she spoke up for her peers at the table who still could not reach them. She even announced that if her suggestion of moving the crayon box to the middle of the table for all was not accepted, she would not be friends with Jessica. As in Hyonmin’s intervention mentioned above, Soojung revealed in this incident that maintaining group cohesiveness was more important than pursuing one’s personal needs.

Another instance of the word “friend” being used to diminish conflicts over sharing was observed when the children made a transition from free play to a group activity, as illustrated below:

After the children have had some free play time, Miss Cho, the teacher, asks them to gather on the carpet. Some children do not pay much attention to her as she tries to settle them into a circle. As Miss Cho arranges seats for Boyong, Wonkyu, Yongjae, and Kyuwon, Myungwoo advances to the carpet with a truck in his hand from a toy box on a nearby table in the classroom, and tries to sit next to Junsung, who takes a seat near Kyuwon. Shortly, Junsung tries to take the truck away from Myungwoo.

Myungwoo (pinching Junsung’s cheek):

You’re a baby! You baby! You baby!

Junsung (to Myungwoo):

I’m not. (He takes the truck away from Myungwoo.)

Myungwoo (protecting his truck from Junsung):

No! (He moves away from Junsung.)

Junsung (loudly):

Come here!

Myungwoo (pointing at Junsung):

You! Not, it [unintelligible].

Hyonmin (walks over to them and says to Myungwoo):

Peter [Myungwoo’s English name], you want to be a good friend.

Myungwoo stares at Hyonmin and Junsung for a few seconds in turn.

Junsung (with upset voice):

I don’t want to be a baby!

Myungwoo tries to put the truck in a spot near Junsung. Soon, Miss Cho intervenes in the conflict, saying, “Paul [Junsung’s English name] is not a baby. He is a big boy.”

Myungwoo (mumbling):

This, (pointing to Junsung) … took it (moving back away from Junsung). (Field notes/video transcripts)

In this episode, Hyonmin intervened and tried to resolve the conflict between Junsung and Myungwoo by invoking friendship. As intended, Hyonmin’s reference to friendship worked to reduce the conflict prior to the teacher’s intervention. Although Myungwoo was still hesitant to share the truck with Junsung after Hyonmin’s remark, he eventually put the truck next to Junsung as an indication of his willingness to share. Miss Cho’s later intervention focused on soothing Junsung’s emotions rather than resolving the conflict. Thus, it was indeed Hyonmin’s intervention and his strategic use of the term “a good friend” that helped resolve the conflict between his peers. As Killen and Turiel (1991) found, the children were capable of resolving conflicts in their own ways, and one of the primary strategies they used to resolve conflicts was to talk about friendship. Like Sora’s remark in the earlier vignette, Hyonmin’s reference to “being a good friend” encouraged his peer to control his personal “desires, goals, and emotions that can disturb the harmonious equilibrium of interpersonal transaction” (Shweder et al., 1998: 899). In addition, Hyonmin said, “be a good friend” as an indirect expression, rather than direct response to his peers such as “don’t do it,” or “share it.” This indirect expression of sensitivity to others’ emotions is one of the characteristics of collectivistic cultures, as others (e.g. Kitayama et al., 2006; Markus and Lin, 1999) have described.

Discussion

This study focused on how young Korean–American children at a heritage language school in the United States actively constructed their own understanding about conflicts and negotiated them in their peer culture, reflecting their cultural context. This study sheds light on the importance of children’s conflicts in their worlds in many ways.

First, adults often consider conflicts between children to be problematic social interactions that should be prevented (e.g. Killen and Turiel, 1991). However, we need to reconceptualize our notions of children’s conflicts. The examples in this study showed that children’s conflicts are important components of children’s peer culture that contribute to their socialization process. In particular, this study showed that a teacher’s interventions are not necessarily required for solving children’s conflicts. The young children in this study were capable of solving their conflicts themselves, without teachers’ interventions. Through conflicts and the process of conflict resolution among peers, children can communicate what they expect of each other and acquire social knowledge through their negotiations with peers (e.g. Madrid and Kantor, 2009; Murphy and Eisenberg, 2002). In this study, the young children derived their social and cultural knowledge (e.g. group harmony) from the adult world, but they made sense of this knowledge through their own perspectives, as shaped by themselves and their peers (e.g. by using references to friendship in conflicts). In addition, given the taken-for-granted belief that adults should prevent children’s conflicts, young children can be easily considered blank slates rather than active learners who have their own agencies to solve their problems surrounding them. However, if teachers are aware of the importance of children’s conflicts in their development, they can understand children’s worlds better and provide appropriate methods of handling children’s conflicts. Encouraging children to resolve conflicts on their own can help them negotiate and construct beliefs and norms valued in particular contexts, such as in the classroom (e.g. Corsaro and Rizzo, 1990b; Goodwin, 1990; Madrid and Kantor, 2009).

Second, the Korean–American children in this study upheld and distributed traditional Korean cultural values about maintaining group harmony and sharing in their conflict resolution with peers. As many researchers have noted (e.g. Aydt and Corsaro, 2003; Farris, 2000; French et al., 2005; Kyratzis, 2001; Kyratzis and Guo, 2001; Medina et al., 2001), the strategies used by children to resolve conflicts in their peer interactions reflect the values and beliefs of the culture in which they are situated. In this study, the Korean–American children made references to friendship as a strategy to pursue their personal goals as well as to build and maintain group cohesiveness in peer relations. This strategy is quite different from that typically found in American preschools. The Korean–American children tried to maintain group harmony by controlling their own and their peers’ personal interests through conflict resolution. Although this study showed Korean–American children adopting social and cultural knowledge from adults (e.g. cultural community) through conflicts and conflict resolution, children will implicitly and explicitly learn social knowledge, values, and beliefs of teachers and reflect them in their peer cultures differently according to contexts where they are situated.

Third, although some researchers have studied cultural differences in adult conflicts, less attention has been devoted to conflicts among children (Chen and French, 2008) and there has been little attention to friendship and peer interaction addressing the influence of culture and context (Gaskins, 2006). In this sense, this study contributes to the current literature. In spite of this contribution, there has been still little attention to how young immigrant children negotiate their rules and norms and resolve their conflicts in mainstream school settings, or to how teachers address these conflicts. The paucity of literature reflects an overall neglect and deficit view of these children’s capability of meaning making and solving problems. Future research needs to pay attention to how young immigrant children conflict with other children and solve their conflicts in different settings, including mainstream school, and how teachers approach these conflicts.

Conclusion

This study has provided that examining and understanding children’s conflicts as a central part of peer culture in various ways can open up possibilities for teachers to utilize this awareness in their classroom instruction, and eventually enable teachers to understand them as active constructors of meaning in children’s lives. Children’s conflicts embedded in peer cultures can also allow educators and researchers to understand children’s know-what and know-how in local contexts through their own terms.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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