Friendships uniquely affect children’s social, emotional and cognitive development (Fink et al., 2015, Sakyi et al., 2015). Nonetheless, some children fail to establish friendship relations with their peers (Quinn & Hennessy, 2010, Proulx & Poulin, 2013) and perhaps an early childhood setting is where friendlessness is first exchibited and noticed. The reasons some children are friendless vary but research on peer relations pinpoint that certain features (gender, social skills, theory of mind, disability, language difficulties, social status) together with familial characteristics may put children at risk (Fink et al., 2015, Shahaeian et al., 2017).

Inclusive education research has given a new perspective on how and why some children have difficulties in socially bonding with their peers and thus failing to form friendship relations with them. It was first pinpointed that indeed marginalized and excluded children seem to share similar characteristics (Clough & Corbett, 2000). It nevertheless highlighted that it is not these characteristics per se the underlying reason for children’s friendlessness. Rather it is the educational practices and policies, the school culture and ethos, and teacher’s attitudes and stance towards children that share these characteristics (Davis & Watson, 2001, de Boer, Pijl, & Minnaert, 2011, Symeonidou & Mavrou, 2013) that poses them in elevated risk for not forming meaningful peer relations.  Given the importance of friendships and the new perspective that inclusive education research has put forward, targeted programs to ameliorate peer relations, with an inclusive ethos and approach, have not gained the necessary attention especially in early childhood education (Kutnick et al, 2008).

This study is part of a larger project aiming to promote the formation of friendship relations among children in early childhood education. A “Friendship Development Program” (FDP) was developed and implemented in two kindergarten classrooms in Cyprus. The FDP consisted of whole class activities during a ten-week period. The focus was both on the development of skills for friendship (e.g. how I approach a peer) and on supporting children to value diversity (e.g. individual characteristics as assets) through applying inclusive (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011, Florian, Rouse, & Black-Hawkins, 2011, Florian, 2014) and anti-oppressive pedagogies (Beckett, 2015).

This presentation focuses on one part of the project which is concerned with the following research question: How does the implementation of a FDP with an inclusive ethos affect friendless children in early childhood settings?

A convenience sample was chosen from a public kindergarten in Cyprus, in which one of the researchers had easy access. Thirty-seven children (4 to 6 years old) attending two kindergarten classes, participated in the study. Both the children and their parents were informed about the purpose of the study, the process of data collection, and provided their consent to the study. The children’s anonymity was ensured and their right to withdraw from the study any time they wished was explained. Employing a pragmatism approach, we used a mixed methodology gathering both quantitative and qualitative data (Schoonenboom, 2018). The data collection for this part of the study was completed in three phases: before, during and after the implementation of the FDP. During the first phase of the project the children participated in interviews (peer nominations and peer ratings), picture drawing and outdoor observations in order to gain insight on their friendships and general social relations. The same procedure was replicated during the third phase of the project. During the second phase of the project, the FDP was implemented and so children participated in whole class activities, focus groups and indoor and outdoor observations. During this time a research diary was kept. The data analyzed entailed (a) twenty-six video recordings of thirteen organized whole class activities in each classroom, (b) fourteen video recordings of children’s focus groups, (c) children’s drawings and narratives explaining them, and (d) reflective notes from the research diary. The data was analyzed through constant comparative method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994). After reading the data several times, the coding phase followed, using a bottom-up approach. The codes that emerged were subsequently used by a research assistant in order to recode the data. Based on the feedback given by the research assistant and her coding of the data, the codes were restructured, finalized, and used for analysis. The content of children’s drawings was further analyzed. One of the researchers compared children’s drawings horizontally (i.e. among children) and vertically (i.e. each drawing’s content) in order to make meaning. For gathering information about who the friendless children were, we took into consideration children’s interviews and outdoor observations. Friendless children were those children that no other peer nominated them as a friend and/or were observed to play alone or with no stable peer during the outdoor observations.

Analysis of data revealed that six, out of the 37 participating children, exhibited difficulties in forming friendships and had no friends before the implementation of the FDP. These children shared some characteristics; four were boys and half of them had language difficulties. All but one attended the school for the first time. After the implementation of the FDP half of the friendless children formed a friendship relation with a peer. Three important findings emerged from the data. Firstly, the importance of time of intervention was highlighted. What the data revealed was that even if the behavior of a rejected friendless child changed, the degree of his/her social acceptance did not, which in return affected this child’s peer relations. An intervention implemented six months after the school year begun, failed to successfully mitigate the established peer acceptance. Secondly, it was observed that friendless children experienced exclusion and marginalization, but teachers and other school stuff failed to notice. At the same time, children could not express what they were going through. Nevertheless, these experiences had a downward course during and after the implementation of the FDP. The data pinpointed that this trend developed due to its inclusive ethos and practice. Thirdly, caution is needed when a FDP is developed and applied in ECE. The FDP was successful in promoting children’s friendships, enhancing their social skills and the quality of their relations. Having evaluated the FDP solely on its general effect on children’s relations, we would have missed its effect on children who are most at risk. The findings add to the discussion on how kindergarten classrooms can become more inclusive and how FDPs with an inclusive ethos and practice can be better implemented in ECE. This in return will have implications for curriculum design and teacher education.

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