How do Argentinean preschoolers perceive social withdrawal? Attributions toward shyness and unsociability in children from urban, marginal urban and rural contexts

KAREN CASTILLO; MIRTA SUSANA ISON; CAROLINA GRECO

Mendoza

Workshop; Investing in Sustainable Childhoods: Implications for Preventive and Intervention Research; 2019

ISSBD - Universidad del Aconcagua

Early childhood is a critical stage in human development and policies and programs over that period prove to be crucial in the bold and transformative agenda for Sustainable Development. It is also known that positive social interactions in this period allow structuring a healthy development, as they provide children with social support, exchange and enrichment of their own resources. Children who exhibit withdrawn behaviors may fail to seize such a valuable social opportunity and this condition may lead to adjustment difficulties in their future. Observed consequences of different forms of social withdrawal in childhood have been mainly linked to features of the sociocultural contexts and peers? beliefs about these behaviours. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze and compare young children?s perceptions and attributions toward shyness and unsociability in different social contexts. The study includes 300 children aged 4-5 years old, attending public kindergartens located in rural, urban, and marginal-urban areas from Mendoza, Argentina. Children were interviewed with a series of vignettes depicting hypothetical peers displaying social and nonsocial behaviours. There are no results yet due to data analysis is still in process.No research on withdrawn children in Argentinean contexts has been found, and there is still little work on social development in early childhood considering the rural, urban and marginal-urban regions in the country. Results of this project could give new perspectives to understand the implications of the context for withdrawn children and it is hoped this may lead to useful recommendations for the local educational and health policies in early childhood.