TEACHERS PERCEPTIONS OF PLAY FIGHTING AND REAL FIGHTING IN PRIMARY-SCHOOL

A sample of 30 teachers were given a questionnaire about how they view ed the relationship between playful fighting and real fighting. In add ition, these teachers and 20 children aged five to seven were shown a videofilm of 20 fighting episodes, some playful and some real, and ask ed to make judgements about them; the responses of teachers and childr en were compared. Teachers reported difficulty in distinguishing playf ul from real fighting for about one-third of occasions - sometimes due to false information from children, and sometimes due to missing the whole of a complex sequence. They also thought that play fighting was about twice as frequent as real fighting, with both much more frequent in boys than girls; and that nearly one-third of play fighting episod es would turn into real fighting (more often for boys than girls). The video analysis showed that the teachers tended to agree with children about the nature of episodes, but verbally reported a wider range of cues in making their judgements. Results are discussed in terms of som e apparent areas of disagreement between teachers, children and outsid e observers concerning the relative frequency of playful and real figh ts, and the likelihood of the former turning into the latter.