ABSTRACT
This chapter explores examples of children's emotional displays within disputes in an everyday early childhood education setting and the ways in which the teachers attend to them. It presents the observations of children approaching a teacher with an emotional problem and an analysis of how that problem is also unpacked through the co-production of knowledge exchange by the interlocutors. Literature that uses conversation analysis (CA) and ethnomethodology to investigate disputes between young children and the role of the adult in such disputes reveals how adults intervene and to what end. In the case of a mother intervening in an argument between her two sibling children, G. Busch identifies how the verbal and physical actions of the mother work to resolve the dispute. The link between disputes and emotions is also considered in CA literature where disagreements between young children are acknowledged as being emotionally charged exchanges that prompt teachers to intervene in a way that mediates conflict resolution.
