A Comparative Study On Children’s Peer Interaction Characteristics Between The Mixed-age Class And The Same-age Class

At present, the kindergartens in our country are mainly in the form of same-age class, while mixed-age class is receiving more and more attention. When mentioned mixed-age class, the first thing people will think of is the social development of children. As we all know, peer interaction plays an important role in promoting children’s social development, which can not be replaced by adults. Therefore, based on the previous researches about mixed-age education and peer interaction, this study chooses 179 children who are from three mixed-age classes and three same-age classes of one kindergarten in Hangzhou as the main research object, and take videos of every child for ten minutes. In addition, the twelve teachers and part of the kids of these classes are interviewed. At the same time, the approaches as on-site observation to record cases and children’s peer nomination are used to collect information. Then, the dates are compared from dimensions of quantitative and qualitative to explore the children’s peer interaction characteristics of two kinds of classes and analyze its influencing factors.This study mainly uses variance analysis and other statistical methods to process the dates from children’s communication time, frequency, initiative and other dimensions, and combined with case interpretation to compare the children’s peer interaction characteristics of two kinds of classes. The result shows that mixed-age class and same-age class are of some common characteristics as well as differences in children’s peer interaction. First of all, for common characteristics, both in mixed-age class and same-age class, along with the growth of age, children’s communication time prolonged, and the contact object increased, and the interaction becomes more active; girls’ interactional skills are better than boys, as well as the dominant trait. This is mainly cased by children’s cognitive level, social experience and gender role identity and other relevant factors. Secondly, in their diversity, children from mixed-age class can use communication strategy better and be more positive, and they also interact with pees for longer time and more times. The peer group’s structures are different in two kinds of classes. In mixed-age class, age is the main factor for kids to identify their roles, while children will compete fairly in the capacity basis to identify their roles in same-age class.Finally, this study proposes several suggestions about perfecting kindergarten and family communication environment which aim to make full use of the complementary advantages of mixed-age and same-age classes, and intend to make teachers and parents educate and guide more properly so as to promote children’s interaction ability.