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The competent child and the right to be oneself: Reflections on children as fellow citizen in an early childhood centre
... According to Foucault (1995), the term discourse refers to a series of declarations or claims that indicate how language is used to describe a phenomenon; these claims influence how people act and behave by establishing truth regimes that define what is acceptable and what is not. To put it another way, language is not neutral, and while it lacks a material nature, it does have tangible and actual repercussions, and so children's lives are shaped by the dominant discourses, which generate common knowledge, conceptions, values, practices, and expectations (Kjørholt, 2005;Kjørholt, 2004). The differences in the conceptualization of disability between Syria and Norway were repeatedly mentioned by the participants. ...
... Norway is a leading country in its advocacy for children's rights and was one of the first countries to sign the UNCRC with an emphasis on article 3, the best interest of the child, and article 12 which is on children's rights to participation. In Norway, children are seen as right holders, and a discourse of the competent child is dominant (Kjørholt,2015;Kjørholt, 2005). On the other hand, parents described the general attitudes in Syria as that children should be compliant with adults' orders who know what is best for them. ...
... I see that the special education teacher and the doctor are more concerned about how he is spending his free time or if has friends outside school, but we do not get much feedback regarding the academic results, I mean...in the end he needs to have a degree... (Lucas's mom) However, a discourse on a competent and a right-holder child does not stand alone and is not problem-free; it is entwined with other discourses that define normality and push for more monitoring and assessment, as well as the establishment of the norms of what constitutes a decent childhood (Franck & Nilsen, 2015;Kjørholt, 2005). This may make it more difficult for immigrant families, in particular, to feel as if they fulfill Norwegian society's standards and expectations. ...
... According to Foucault (1995), the term discourse refers to a series of declarations or claims that indicate how language is used to describe a phenomenon; these claims influence how people act and behave by establishing truth regimes that define what is acceptable and what is not. To put it another way, language is not neutral, and while it lacks a material nature, it does have tangible and actual repercussions, and so children's lives are shaped by the dominant discourses, which generate common knowledge, conceptions, values, practices, and expectations (Kjørholt, 2005;Kjørholt, 2004). The differences in the conceptualization of disability between Syria and Norway were repeatedly mentioned by the participants. ...
... Norway is a leading country in its advocacy for children's rights and was one of the first countries to sign the UNCRC with an emphasis on article 3, the best interest of the child, and article 12 which is on children's rights to participation. In Norway, children are seen as right holders, and a discourse of the competent child is dominant (Kjørholt,2015;Kjørholt, 2005). On the other hand, parents described the general attitudes in Syria as that children should be compliant with adults' orders who know what is best for them. ...
... I see that the special education teacher and the doctor are more concerned about how he is spending his free time or if has friends outside school, but we do not get much feedback regarding the academic results, I mean...in the end he needs to have a degree... (Lucas's mom) However, a discourse on a competent and a right-holder child does not stand alone and is not problem-free; it is entwined with other discourses that define normality and push for more monitoring and assessment, as well as the establishment of the norms of what constitutes a decent childhood (Franck & Nilsen, 2015;Kjørholt, 2005). This may make it more difficult for immigrant families, in particular, to feel as if they fulfill Norwegian society's standards and expectations. ...
... In addition to this formal system, we also needed another, external, theory-based tool for the analysis of voice content. We formulated characteristics, or indicators, as possible manifestations of young children's voice within the school-context [1,19,20] : 1. expressing feelings and choices ...
... Those school contexts influence children's perspectives at the same time. Our analyses show that the objects and subjects in these school contexts here and now have their influence on children's expressions [20] . The educational philosophies children encounter in their own school contexts do so as well [10] . ...
... We found that the content of voice content differs for each child, probably partly due to the different influences children encounter in their lives. The diversity of personal interests and emotions that function as a prism through which children perceive a seemingly constant educational environment, is also an explanation for children's differences in content of voice [20] . This is precisely the working of what Vygotsky called 'perezhivanie' [8] . ...
... According toKjørholt (2005), scholars must see the growing interest for participation in the context of international discourse about children as social actors, whose right it is to participate in and make decisions about matters that concern them. The UN Convention on the Rights of theChild (1989)represented an important change in perspectives on the child and childhood. ...
... The child as a member of social groups—class, preschool, and local community—can be an actor who has an important role in changing his world. Countries in Scandinavia have recently developed an influential discourse on children's rights, where participation and listening to children is especially stressed (Kjørholt, 2005). The Swedish preschool curriculum describes children as coconstructers in the creation of culture and knowledge (Sandberg & Eriksson, 2010). ...
... It is important to listen to children, to guarantee them a safe and stimulating environment, where each and every one of them feels safe, secure, and accepted and has the optimum stimulations for development and learning. According toKjørholt (2005), there is a need to replace the notion of the autonomous subject with a relational perspective emphasising care and solidarity, based on the assumption that we all—adults and children—move between positions of dependence and independence, competence and incompetence. AsKjørholt (2005)stated, we believe the autonomy of the individual is entwined with interdependence and is constituted within the web of social relationships. ...
This article presents part of the research performed in a project from 2008 to 2013, regarding the introduction of the Reggio Emilia approach to Slovene preschool educators. The study’s aim was to recognize the possible influence of the training—from 2009 to 2011—in this project on educators’ viewpoints and the promotion of children’s participation in practice. We believe that a potential reform of the Slovene national curriculum should establish the participation of children as one of its key principles. It seems that the two-year intensive training of educators, followed by projects in preschool practice, has been a successful step in this direction.
... This rhetoric, inspired, for example, by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and by the sociology of childhood, has become an integral part of various didactic and pedagogical developments in the field of education. Concurrently, the 'competent' child is understood as having the right to express her/his views and to be involved in decisionmaking on issues concerning her-/himself (Kampmann, 2004: 137–148; Kjørholt, 2005; Vandenbroeck and Bouverne-De Bie, 2006). It is also increasingly common in present-day early education – as well as in other social fields – that the child's participation is aimed at by recording her/his views. ...
... Additionally, several researchers have pointed out what a multifaceted and challenging issue it is to listen to children and to act in ways that are responsive to their perspectives in society (e.g. Cederborg, 1997; Dockett et al., 2011; Kjørholt, 2002 Kjørholt, , 2005 Komulainen, 2007; Mac Naughton et al., 2007; Mannion and I'anson, 2004; Moss et al., 2005; Sinclair, 2004; Wyness, 2009). Generally, this article looks at childhood as a thoroughly social and fundamentally relational phenomenon (Alanen, 2001Alanen, , 2009). ...
... This article was inspired by the rhetoric of the competent child which characterizes Nordic early childhood education and is reflected, for example, in the notion of the child being able to express her/his views and having the right to be involved in decisionmaking concerning her-/himself (Kampmann, 2004; Kjørholt, 2005; Vandenbroeck and Bouverne-De Bie, 2006 ). The article presented a case study of parent–teacher discussions about the child's IEP in Finnish ECEC. ...
Contemporary Nordic early childhood education and care takes as its starting point the individual and ‘competent’ child and emphasizes the aim to take account of children’s views. It is also common in educational settings that the child’s views are documented and thus transformed into contexts in which they are discussed between the adults. In light of a case study of 22 parent–teacher meetings in Finnish early childhood education and care the article discusses the position of the child’s voice in this context. The theoretical framework is based on a relational view of childhood and the child’s voice, on theories of face-to-face and institutional interaction and on discursive psychology. The article highlights the multifaceted relational processes in which the child’s participation is embedded in adult-led institutional practices.
... Barns rett til medvirkning I vid forstand har planverkenes forankring i blant annet Barnekonvensjonen (FN) ført til at hverdagspraksis i barnehagene preges av "rettighetenes etikk" (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005). Universelle diskurser om barns rettigheter blir knyttet til spesifikke moralske verdier om at barn skal få gjøre egne valg (Kjørholt, 2005). Barnekonvensjonens budskap om barns rettigheter er videreført i Barnehagelovens § 3 som understreker barns rett til medvirkning i barnehagen. ...
... I praksis blir medvirkning ofte tolket til å gjelde medbestemmelse. Noe som fører oss over til en gjengs forståelse av at barns medvirkning i stor grad er blitt tolket til å omhandle selvbestemmelse, der Etikk i praksis Barn det vesentligste har vaert at barn for det første skal ha mulighet til å velge selv, og dernest velge mellom så mange alternativer som mulig (Kjørholt, 2005). Begrepet medvirkning kan forstås som både selvbestemmelse og medbestemmelse (Bjerke, 2010). ...
Title: Ethics in practice: Children who have difficulties interacting and their participation in day-care centres.
Abstract: In recent years there has been a trend promoting "children’s right to participation". The point of departure for the article is qualitative data material collected from three day-care centres in Norway. The main objective has been to illuminate the choices the staff have and the dilemmas they face in their day-to-day practice when it comes to children who have interaction difficulties and their opportunities to participate. Findings: The practice is action-oriented. Actions, dilemmas and discretionary assessments are related to consequential- and deontological-ethics reasons.
... Barn som likeverdige og aktive deltakere har stått i fokus en tid både gjennom FNs barnekonvensjon , i forskning og pedagogisk litteratur (jf. for eksempel Eide, 2008a; Eide & Winger, 1996, 2003b Eide & Winger, 2005; Kjørholt, 1998 Kjørholt, , 2004 Kjørholt, , 2005 Lindahl, 2005;). Dette har fått konsekvenser for norske barnehager . ...
... Dette representerer et syn på barn som likeverdige subjekter som blir behandlet med respekt (E. Johansson, 2005; Kjørholt, 2005 ) eller som Palludan (2005) uttrykker det, gis muligheter til " å sette spor " . I Rammeplan for barnehagens innhold og oppgaver (Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2006) som er en forskrift til loven, blir det understreket at barnehagen må gi rom for ulike barns ulike perspektiv og må vise respekt for deres intensjoner og opplevelsesverden: " Barnehagen må ta utgangspunkt i barns egne uttrykksmåter. ...
Title: Young children’s participation during circle time. Abstract: In day schedules of early childhood education, circle time has traditionally been one of the core situations. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children should be given opportunity to influence their everyday life. This article presents an analysis of circle time in 8 toddler groups. The focus of the analysis is children’s opportunities to participate and take part in the process of decision-making during circle time. The results indicate that the toddlers take part in community of the group, but their opportunities to influence are limited.
... Instead, it is a view that is more consistent with growing up in the twenty-first century that demands new forms of learning and collaborative problem-solving, especially for sustainability issues where there is already evidence that individuals have poor responses to issues with collective answers. This does not mean that we take no notice of children's cognitive, social, physical and emotional development; rather, our orientation is one that supports holistic expectations of children as human beings with civil rights and the right to take part in civic engagement (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005;Kjørholt, 2005;Theis, 2010). Third, because education is seen as a key instrument for the construction of a 'good' citizen, here is a need for critical analysis of underlying assumptions and hegemonic structures of the ways of understanding early childhood education as an educational arena. ...
... Childhood does not take place in a vacuum; children are affected everyday by power imbalances, gender and class structures, as well as social and political cultures. To address these injustices and power structures, remedies for social transformation are to be made visible (Kjørholt, 2005). One way to do this is to use the concepts of transformation and affirmation (Fraser, 2003(Fraser, , 2009 shown in table 1. ...
This article scrutinizes the ways that young children are described and supported as active
participants for change within the Australian and Swedish national steering documents for
early childhood education. A critical theory lens was applied in combination with document
analysis that looked for concepts related to environment and sustainability i.e. environmental,
social, economic and political dimension of development, humans place in nature, and
environmental stewardship. Concepts concerned with critical thinking, and children as active
participants for change were used as specific dimensions of curriculum interpretation.
Analyses show that, while both the Australian and Swedish curricula deal with content
connected to environmental, social and cognitive dimensions, there is limited or no discussion
of the political dimensions of human development, such as children as active citizens with
political agency. In other words, children are not recognised as competent beings or agents of
change for sustainability within these early childhood curriculum frameworks. Hence, these
supposedly contemporary early childhood education documents lack curricular leadership to
support children to contribute their voices and actions to civic and public spheres of
participation as equal citizens.
... Instead of passive socialisation into culture and norms, the active, agentic child was introduced. Attention was drawn to the creative and differing competencies that children already have (Kjørholt 2005) instead of the earlier emphasis on developmental stages, which has been called the 'dominant framework' or 'developmentalism' (see Lee 2001;Rautio & Jokinen 2015). The second central realisation was that childhood could be seen as a cultural and context-bound social construction, and thus subject to critical scrutiny, deconstruction and change. ...
The subject of this thesis is everyday life in the school classroom with a focus on
what matters to the children. The classroom is understood as a more-than-human
context consisting of combinations and gatherings of material things, bodies, time,
space and ideas. The study is located at the intersection of education,
interdisciplinary childhood studies, narrative and ethnographic studies, and
informed by the ‘material turn’ of social sciences.
The empirical part took place in a third- and fourth-grade class where the
researcher was the class teacher. An approach called ‘classroom diaries’ was
developed in which the 10-year-old pupils wrote their observations, thoughts and
stories freely. The nomadic analysis departed from the question, ‘What is
happening in the classroom?’ and proceeded through repeated readings and
retellings, working with writing as inquiry. The fragmented, controversial and
messy writings of the children challenged the teacher/researcher to find nonrepresentational
ways of engaging with data.
The study consists of a summary part and four research articles. First, the
analysis focuses on children’s voices in stories that intertwine in classroom
interactions. By defining three inter-related analytical spaces, the study illustrates
how children’s voices are not unitary or ‘authentic’, but emergent, constructed in
reciprocal processes of telling and listening, and contingent on their social,
discursive, material and physical environments and power relations.
Second, the study presents the narrative approach of Children writing
ethnography (‘classroom diaries’) as a way of engaging with children’s lives in
the classroom and in research. Nomadic thinking serves to enable one to see the
children’s writings as emergent knowledge and to embrace the connectivity
among the writings, the classroom reality, the child-ethnographers and the
research, which are seen as mutually producing one another.
Third, the thesis examines time and children in the classroom. The concept of
entanglement is activated to bring time into connection with matter and space. The
analysis concentrates on a music lesson and the musical instrument the recorder
about which two children write. The recorder is seen as organising actions in the
classroom, producing intense moments of now and various enactments of children
and adults. The notion of time as a neutral, ‘outside’ parameter is unsettled and
both children and time are seen as hybrid.
Fourth, the study develops the idea of research with children as an entangled
practice. It presents a post-qualitative analysis that attempts to center children’s
views throughout the research and seeks to do so in ways other than through
representation. The study draws attention to classroom assemblages involving
time and things, as well as to temporality and materiality as parts of the research
process. The study suggests engaging with children’s open-ended narration by
retelling and responding. These engagements highlight particular situations, the
unpredictable and strange qualities of children’s lives, and the significance of
‘tiny’ things in educational environments.
The study suggests that an open-ended narrative space allows children to
produce rich and thought-provoking knowledge about what matters to them in the
school classroom. The idea of entanglement can be employed to engage with that
knowledge in ways that do not reduce the complexities of children’s lives.
Keywords: classroom, Children writing ethnography, voice, matter,
time, space, entanglement, nomadic
... Those expressions all have codes, which are related to the indicators of attribution of meaning in Table 2. We finally selected the expressions with codes, related to the indicators 3 and 4. We have chosen these expressions, as the indicators 3 and 4 provide the most outspoken indications for expressing voice and attribution of meaning ( Kjørholt, 2005;Mayall, 2008;Tertoolen et al., 2012). We then had to compare the list of children's leading expressions with the list of teacher's and parent's expressions, to find out whether correspondences-to some extent-existed between the expressions of the children and adults within our case-studies. ...
... Those expressions all have codes, which are related to the indicators of attribution of meaning in Table 2. We finally selected the expressions with codes, related to the indicators 3 and 4. We have chosen these expressions, as the indicators 3 and 4 provide the most outspoken indications for expressing voice and attribution of meaning ( Kjørholt, 2005;Mayall, 2008;Tertoolen et al., 2012). We then had to compare the list of children's leading expressions with the list of teacher's and parent's expressions, to find out whether correspondences-to some extent-existed between the expressions of the children and adults within our case-studies. ...
School is one of the important educational practices, in which children are actively involved. When we want to contribute to the development of young children’s voices, we need deeper insight into the way children act as they do. Therefore, we have to distinguish how young children’s voices are composed, as we proclaim that all voices are essentially polyphonic. We found children’s expressions which were not corresponding with their own teachers’ and parents’ expressions. Many of the presented examples of non-corresponding expressions by the children, refer to situations in which resistance, one of the identifiers of voice, is shown. This article is part of a larger study we conducted on young children’s voices. In our research we want to explore the content of young children’s voices and the meaning they attribute to the educational contexts they are involved in. We conducted five case studies with young children, aged 5-6, in school. We have analyzed their expressions and presented our findings earlier. In this phase of our research project we are looking for possible correspondences between the children’s expressions and the expressions of their teachers and parents
... Na ânsia de implementar novas ideias, uma armadilha pode ser colocar muita ênfase em perspetivas que consideram as crianças como autónomas, competentes e seres consistentes, subestimando dimensões mais dependentes e vulneráveis. Os problemas associados a uma tal posição foram formulados por vários pesquisadores (Kjørholt, 2005;Eide & Winger, 2006;Seland, 2006;Kjørholt, 2008a), apontando para práticas educativas que estimulam maneiras de ser individualistas, interpretando assim a participação das crianças principalmente como autodeterminação e de escolha individual. Eu concordo com Moss (2007a), que argumenta que os conceitos de escolha podem ter diferentes significados; por exemplo, quando usados em conexão com os processos de tomada de decisão coletiva, como distinta do uso "neoliberal de 'escolha', como a tomada de decisão de consumidores individuais" (9). ...
The article starts by illustrating how childrens right to participation comes to the fore in legal documents regulating the field of early childhood education in Norway. Issues regarding the views of children, understanding of democracy and of play, which influence how this right is realised in early childhood practice, are taken as a point of departure to discuss possible pitfalls. Based on analyses from an in-depth qualitative study in two Norwegian kindergartens (children aged three to six), two examples are presented to argue an understanding of childrens participation which include more than individualistic choice routines. The article is rounded off by taking a critical look at conceptualisations used in early childhood practice and research, arguing that there is a need for critical self- reflection amongst researchers in the field.
... raises a question that to what extent a child can exercise agency and role of actor. Kjørholt (2005) reinforces the question while reflecting on two narrative texts that stemmed from a publication produced by Danish project 'children as fellow citizens ' (p.152). She reminds about the important challenges which this construction presents for policy and research. ...
Based on the notion of childhood as a social construction this paper aims to present and explore theoretically, the ideas and arguments, being offered by central theories within the paradigm of children and childhood research over the years. Using the approach of literature review the paper reinforces that childhood is socially constructed. It differs from society to society and context to context based on differences in cultures and believes. Also childhood differs even in the very same society depending on other social factors for example gender and social class. Not all societies in the world have the same concept of childhood, which proves that childhood is neither universal nor natural. In exploring about childhood as social construction, it has been attempted to explicate certain of the conceptions at the heart of social studies of children and childhood. So the essay begins with the basic conceit of childhood studies: what is a child? The very basic notion of “child” is connected to further through historical perspectives of childhood which further leads to accentuating the importance of childhood as a social construction. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n2p75
... In engaging questions of children and childhood in this way, we challenge strict dichotomous understandings and treatments of children and adults while simultaneously addressing current concerns and issues surrounding children's agency. Be(com)ing children Increased concerns surrounding children's agency (Kjørholt 2005;Skelton 2007;Bosco 2010;Curti and Moreno 2010) and questions of the impacts of globalizing media (Buckingham 2000Buckingham , 2008) highlight the importance of exploring how consumption of and interactions with media objects contribute to, inform, transform, and become part of children's social lives. This engagement with media objects holds particular relevance in light of recent work that has stressed the importance of understanding the social as 'more-than-human' (Whatmore 2002;Latour 2007;Curti and Moreno 2010) and objects and technologies as more than just material and virtual (Bennett 2010;Nieuwenhuys 2011). ...
With increasing concerns surrounding children's agency and questions of the impacts of globalizing media, it is imperative to critically explore how interactions with media objects become part of children's social lives. Working through Deleuzian-Guattarian ideas of what bodies are and do, we approach child–media interactions as horizontal components of becoming. Through this, we argue that media objects can be important social elements of the emergent nature of ‘affective networks-at-play’ and illustrate this by creatively working through two narratives of media object relations: one, drawn from the actions of Tomohiro Kato on 8 June 2008 in Tokyo, Japan; the other, of a child named Juana and her interactions with the Latin American version of the Disney educational show Manny a la Obra (Handy Manny). In engaging child–media relationships as mutual and affirmative elements in becoming, we challenge strict dichotomous understandings of children and adults while addressing debates surrounding children's agency.
... Mange har de siste årene rettet interessen mot barns medvirkning i barnehagesammenheng, og begrepet kan oppfattes på mange forskjellige måter og medføre ulike resultater i barnehagepedagogisk praksis (Bae 2006(Bae , 2009a. Eksempelvis har Kjørholt (2005) pekt på at barns deltagelse kan praktiseres slik at individualisme og manglende felleskapsorientering blir resultatet. Barn kan også oppfattes som så selvstendige at voksnes ansvar for beskyttelse og omsorg kommer i bakgrunnen. ...
Lov om barnehager slår fast at barn skal ha rett til medvirkning (§3), og rammeplanen gir retningslinjer for hvordan dette skal forståes. Opplevelser av at det finnes mennesker rundt barna som deler deres engasjement og prøver å forstå, er grunnleggende for at barn kan medvirke som subjekter ut fra egne premisser. Men ikke alle samspillserfaringer bidrar like konstruktivt i denne retningen. Hensikten med artikkelen er å drøfte hvordan kvalitative aspekter ved voksen-barn samspill skaper forutsetninger for barns deltagelse. Med utgangspunkt i en undersøkelse av dialoger mellom førskolelærer og barn, drøftes barnehagekonteksten som bakgrunn for samspill, og det pekes på utfordringer barn og voksne står overfor når de skal komme inn i konstruktivt samspill. Kvalitative aspekter ved samspillsmønstre som girulikt rom for barns medvirkning beskrives. Avslutningsvis diskuteres noen sentrale aspekter opp mot annen forskning.
... Som demokratisk praksis kan medvirkning vaere et mål i seg selv for å bidra til den enkeltes selvrealisering, men det kan også vaere et middel som sikrer den enkelte medbestemmelse i et fellesskap (Rasch, 2004 ). I barnehagesammenheng har det vaert stilt spørsmål ved om barns rett til medvirkning har vaert vektlagt for sterkt som et mål for det enkelte barns selvrealisering, og om dette kan begrense barnets muligheter for å vaere deltaker i fellesskap med andre (Kjørholt, 2005; KD, 2006 ). En annen fallgruve som forskning har vist til i det pedagogiske arbeidet i barnehagen, er at barns medvirkning begrenses til tidspunkt eller rutiner der de for eksempel får velge hva de vil gjøre i visse aktiviteter, og der dette lett kan overskygge verdien av barns deltakelse i form av egeninitiert lek (Bae, 2009b). ...
Title: Disagreement as democratic praxis in mealcommunity in nurseries
Abstract: Children’s participation and democracy are concepts in need of being discussed from several angles in the setting of early childhood education. This paper is based on empirical materials from seven research conversations with four groups of staff in Norwegian nurseries. The conversations keep a focus on the social dimension of the meals in nursery. The purpose of the paper is to explore how different discourses in the conversations construct episodes where either adults or children, as participants in a meal challenge and break the structures of the meal community. Using concepts from the theory of the Radical Democracy, the paper discusses how two discourses in the conversations can make different conditions for conflicts as democratic processes during meals in nurseries.
... ere innførte en ordning der barnehagene tilbyr smørelunsj. En praksis der alle barn har det samme mat-og drikketilbud gir større rom for barns deltakelse og medvirkning i måltidet enn når barna har med mat fra hjemmet. I norsk kultur er matpakken privat (Døving 2004), som i liten grad deles med hverandre; verken fysisk eller verbalt (Aadland 2011). Kjørholt (2005) peker på at en ordning med matpakke kan bidra til individualisme og manglende felleskapsorientering. En endring fra en praksis med medbrakt mat til tilbudt mat vil kunne gi barna betydelig større fellesskapsfølelse, og dermed gi økt pedagogisk mulighet for laering og danning på matområdet. Når en barnehage går fra en ordning med medbrak ...
The purpose of this article is to put focus on food and meal situation in the kindergarten. We have carried out a case study in two kindergartens and the data material consists of observations and interviews. The results showed that the physical structures such as the food and drink offer, structural facilities and the physical community are important for the food and meal provision in the kindergarten. The provision of food and drink varied between the two cases, this can be explained by how the kindergartens organized the preparation of the meal. Emphasis of the dining environment was different in the two cases, which in turn created a different atmosphere around the meal. It was also different practices whether the staff ate together with the children or not. When the staff ate the same food as the children, the meals were in a greater extent characterized by the adults' needs, including increased demands on hygiene, more delicate garnished food, greater food selection and the increased focus on the dining environment. The distance to the nearest grocery store had little impact, while on the other hand, cooperation with food suppliers had great importance for food and meal provision in the kindergarten.
Sammendrag: Case studien har sett på fysiske faktorer som kan hemme eller fremme muligheter for helsefremmende handling i barnehagen. Resultatene viste at mattilbudet i barnehagen var påvirket av hva som tilbys av mat/drikke, bygningsmessige fasiliteter og det fysiske nærmiljøet. Barnehagene hadde ulik praksis med å spise med barna. Når voksne spiser samme maten som barna, ser det ut som måltidene blir formet etter voksnes behov. Som økt krav til hygiene, at maten er delikat servert, større matvareutvalg og økt krav til trivelig spisemiljø. Nærhet til butikk hadde liten betydning, mens derimot samarbeid med grossister for levering av matvarer, hadde stor betydning for mattilbudet i barnehagen.
... We need to ask children and adolescents what they experience and think, and we need to trust each individual's experiences and competencies (Follesø, 2006). It will be essential to develop our capacity to listen to each individual in order to attend to the voice (Falck & Winswold, 2011;Kjørholt, 2005;Skivenes & Strandbu, 2006). There is a need for more research that can help professionals to develop strategies that give structure to and facilitate such capacities. ...
How is music related to adolescent agency and possibilities for various forms of participation in everyday life? This article is based on interviews of 15 adolescents with experiences of their everyday life in the Norwegian child welfare system. The participants were between the ages of 18 and 23 years, and they have all been living in a child welfare institution. They have also been participants in a community music therapy project, with activities such as playing in a band and writing songs. In this article, we focus on the aspects of these adolescents' experiences of their everyday situation in child welfare and on how they use music as a resource. We analyse and discuss our empirical findings from two theoretical perspectives - a human rights perspective and a sociocultural perspective. The human rights discussion is related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in particular with regard to the concept of participation. The sociocultural perspective highlights conditions that enable participation. The findings suggest that experiences of stigma and lack of constructive dialogue with adults are central to their everyday life experience in child welfare aftercare. Participants in the study were able to use music to structure stories and facilitate dialogue with peers and adults. We discuss these findings in the light of contemporary theories on resources for agency and participation.
... I norsk kultur er matpakken privat (Døving 2004), som i liten grad deles med hverandre; verken fysisk eller verbalt (Aadland 2011). Kjørholt (2005) peker på at en ordning med matpakke kan bidra til individualisme og manglende felleskapsorientering. En endring fra en praksis med medbrakt mat til tilbudt mat vil kunne gi barna betydelig større fellesskapsfølelse, og dermed gi økt pedagogisk mulighet for laering og danning på matområdet. ...
The purpose of this article is to put focus on food and meal situation in the kindergarten. We have carried out a case study in two kindergartens and the data material consists of observations and interviews. The results showed that the physical structures such as the food and drink offer, structural facilities and the physical community are important for the food and meal provision in the kindergarten. The provision of food and drink varied between the two cases, this can be explained by how the kindergartens organized the preparation of the meal. Emphasis of the dining environment was different in the two cases, which in turn created a different atmosphere around the meal. It was also different practices whether the staff ate together with the children or not. When the staff ate the same food as the children, the meals were in a greater extent characterized by the adults' needs, including increased demands on hygiene, more delicate garnished food, greater food selection and the increased focus on the dining environment. The distance to the nearest grocery store had little impact, while on the other hand, cooperation with food suppliers had great importance for food and meal provision in the kindergarten. Keywords: kindergarten, food provision, lunch offers and physical factors in the kindergarten
... This transition has been a lengthy process in both research and policy-making ( United Nations, 1989;James & James, 2004). However, children's participation and influence can be interpreted as struggling for recognition ( Fraser, 2003Fraser, , 2009Kjørholt, 2005;Fitzgerald et al, 2010). According to Mason and Bolzan (2010, pp. ...
Children today face a rapidly changing society with new social, economic, ecological and political challenges. This study attaches special importance to modern childhood, learning and didactics, and citizenship from a child-oriented perspective. Early childhood education for sustainability (as taught in Swedish preschools) is examined and the ways that young children are seen as active participants and agents of change are described. The theoretical framework of this qualitative study is guided by a critical theory approach. The empirical material is derived from 18 applications submitted by preschools to the Swedish National Agency for Education for a Diploma of Excellence in Education for Sustainability. The findings show that education for sustainability in Swedish preschools can be interpreted as a project defining human individual responsibility in a modern, pluralistic and contradictory world. Education for sustainability is seen as an important task in preschool educational activities, as is children's participation in various activities dealing with sustainability issues. Children are described as important actors in relation to their own lives in the present and in the future. In these various activities, hidden structures appear, along with taken-for-granted assumptions in need of reflective study. Children's participation and agency were mostly understood in terms of ‘taking part in’, and even though the overall rhetoric in the texts expressed a children's rights perspective, children were not really recognised to any great extent as active participants or as agents of change. An affirmative approach to change was detected in which underlying structures of inequity and gender inequality, and notions about human connectedness to nature and unsustainable lifestyles, are not problematised. Nevertheless, some transformative approaches are emerging, with children's participation and rights being interpreted and handled as an important part of the everyday practices in the preschools.
... Freedom of choice connects to the neo-liberal privileging of individual freedom at the expense of more cooperative and collective approaches. This has been criticised by several researchers (Kjørholt, 2005; Bae, 2009; Sandvik, 2009; Perez & Cannella, 2010). In the event described earlier, however, freedom of choice works ambivalently towards the assemblage of control; proclaiming freedom of choice – 'You can do anything you want in here. ...
Inspired by a Deleuzian focus on a-personal machineries, this discussion focuses on a challenge to conventional pedagogical relationships and presents the possibility to think about pedagogical control differently. The work of Deleuze also underpins the methodological approach. Drawing on an extract constructed from the author's doctoral project and a painting by the Norwegian artist Lars Elling, the article features assemblages of control and silence that fold and unfold in the resonance of each other, working through destabilising and stabilising elements. The movement between these assemblages challenges the idea/ideal of teachers as the ones in control and command, as it opens to a shifting in between the subjects involved, regardless of their age or status. The article concludes by presenting some of the ethical implications involved when pedagogy is pulled into uncertain and unstable terrains.
... Linguistic articulation requires correspondence of language with knowledge, with reality as transparent reflection (or expression) of the reality of social structures. The participation discourse focuses only on what methods should be chosen and what the appropriate methods are (Gallacher & Gallagher, 2008) and conclude that mainly hermeneutic methods are the ones that facilitate participation of children (Jans, 2004;Kjørholt, 2005). Such an approach has the potential to marginalise plurality of methods in research and leads to methodological adult-oriented individualism and a narrow linear conception of children's 'voices'. ...
Over the recent years there has been a shift in the field of early childhood research to involving young children in the research process. A vast body of literature [Evans, P., & Fuller, M. (1996). Hello. Who am I speaking to? Communicating with pre-school children in educational research settings. Early Years, 17(1), 17–20; Clark, A. (2004). Listening as a way of life. London: National Children's Bureau; Clark, A., & Moss, P. (2001). Listening to young children: The mosaic approach. London: National Children's Bureau; Clark, A., & Moss, P. (2005). Spaces to play: More listening to young children using the Mosaic approach. London: National Children's Bureau; Thomson, P. (Ed.). (2008). Doing visual research with children and young people. Abingdon: Routledge; Farrell, A. (Ed.). (2005). Ethical research with children. Maidenhead: Open University Press] discusses methods to be used with young children in research by means of participatory methods and listening to children's voices. A number of researchers mentioned throughout the paper have offered creative and innovative research tools that enable young children to participate in research. While recognising the responsibility to keep the discourse around children's participation alive, there is a need to problematise it as well as the issue of participation of young children is a complex one which requires continuous critical refection. Thus the enquiry I conduct here employed grounded theory and aims to examine the paradigm of children's participation in research. It is suggested in this paper that although participation is a vitally important element in researching young children, the discourse of children's participation should be focused additionally on ethical praxis of the research which should revolve around six key layers: intersubjectivity, indivisibility, phronesis, parsimony, equilibrium and finally the power of relationships and interaction between children and adults. As a consequence of this enquiry I conclude that all methods become relevant to research with children when ethical praxis characterises the nature of the project.
... However, listening does not entail automatically hearing what is being said (Roberts, 2003). A listening perspective in an ideological setting can be analyzed within two extreme positions: child as vulnerable and dependent or as autonomous and competent (KjØrholt et al., 2005 ). Assuming such a contrasting picture, those authors argue that beyond listening, children's voices call for intersubjectivity , relational and interdependent interaction. ...
... n (Christensen & James, 2008; Clark, 2007; Greig, Taylor & MacKay, 2007). Opvattingen ontstaan in een bepaalde situatie, in een specifieke context, waarin naast de leerlingen ook anderen betrokken zijn en bij de interpretatie van wat leerlingen naar voren brengen moet met deze specifieke context rekening worden gehouden (Pramling Samuelsson, 2003). Kjørholt (2005) verwijst specifiek naar de jonge leerling, die zich op een bepaalde wijze in een onderwijssetting gedraagt, handelt en deze setting mede actief vorm geeft binnen een ruimte die al vorm is gegeven met meubilair en speelleermiddelen met het oog op deze kinderen en de architectuur bepaalt zo al voor een groot deel de speelruimte die kinder ...
... Video recordings were made as well. This offers us the opportunity to study the acting and speaking of children from a (micro)genetic approach, whilst also taking into account the social and institutional context in which the children are simultaneously involved (Hicks 1996). As we stated before, children are always and inevitably involved in a context. ...
This article reports on the first phase of a research project in which we looked for the voices of young children, aged 5 to 6, in school. What do children experience in school? What do they see as the meaning of school? What is their motivation? Children have the right to be listened to. The question is which settings, under which circumstances, are appropriate to hear the voice of young children, taking into account that the perspective of young children and the way in which they express their views is multiple and changeable? Children can't be excluded from context; they are determined by it and influence the context as well. In our research project we studied literature looking for the essentials of the concept of voice and attribution of meaning by young children, and for indications to describe indicators of these concepts. We started our research project by testing settings and methods of collecting data, mostly based on the grounded theory approach, to see if we could connect our findings with the formulated indicators of the concept of voice and attribution of meaning by young children.
Doing the right thing at school involves moral reasoning about right and wrong that interplays with a sense of responsibility as children move towards being active citizens. In the current study, we investigated how 124 Australian children’s understanding and reasoning about doing the right thing changed over the early years of primary school (age 5–6 years through to age 7–8 years). This study included children’s ideas about how they knew what was right and wrong and how they worked out for themselves what was right and wrong at school. The main finding suggests that children did not believe they were engaged in personal decision-making or reflections about what was right and wrong at school as they progressed through Year 1 to Year 3. Instead of developing autonomy and personal decision-making, children came to rely more on external authorities for knowledge. The implications from these findings point to the need to support children to become active citizens through participatory pedagogies and a focus on democracy.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has led to changes in early childhood education policies and practices in many countries. Taking Norway as a point of departure, it is interesting to note that the national curriculum guidelines emphasize that children’s rights to participation shall be integrated into the work with the content (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research 2006). Reading the official guidelines, it becomes clear that respect for children’s views and various modes of expression shall be an integral part of the work of the pedagogues in Norwegian preschools (Norwegian Ministry 2006). This means that it does not suffice to invite children’s views only at certain times or at specific decision-making or choice routines. Their right to participate must be taken into consideration in various kinds of everyday activities.
This chapter discusses the dynamics between local notions of a (good) childhood, children’s rights to participation and the principle of the ‘best interests of the child’ as stated in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), in the Norwegian context. According to the UNCRC, both Mari and Nadia and their siblings are rights-holders, but what are the implications of this for their day-to-day life and well-being? The Convention asserts that all children are independent individuals endowed with many of the rights that adults have, as well as enjoying a number of special rights linked to their status as children. Participation is one of these and one of the three ‘P’s on which the UNCRC is based (the other two being provision and protection; Cantwell 1993). Thus, Articles 12, 13, 14 and 15 provide children and young people with the right to participate actively in society and to take part in decision-making in the family, the school and the community.
This chapter explores constructions of a ‘good’ or ‘proper’ childhood in Norway, focusing on traditional cultural values and social practices relating to nature and outdoor life and their interconnection with values of independence/autonomy (Gullestad 1997, 1992). In a Norwegian cultural context, outdoor environments in the fresh air, preferably ‘in nature’, where children engage in self-governed play, are central in traditional and contemporary constructions of ‘a good childhood’ (Telhaug 1992; Gullestad 1997). This chapter spells out the significance of such beliefs, with particular reference to day-care services and political issues, which also accord with the family context and beliefs among many parents (Nilsen 1999): as has been noted ‘[t]he majority of parents [in Norway] seem to hold the belief that happy children are children playing outside most of the day irrespective of season and weather’ (Borge, Nordhagen and Lie 2003: 606).
In Norway, traditional constructions of a good childhood ‘in nature’ are repeated in diverse domains, supported by politics, and are in accordance with cultural ideas of a good life for everyone (Gullestad, 1997; Nilsen, 2008). At the same time, childhood today involves an increasing process of institutionalization, which interconnects with the individualization process. Hence the majority of children below six years of age regularly depart from their family and home to attend daycare centres (barnehager). In contrast to localization in natural environments, educational institutions may be thought of as providing a specific and ‘fenced’ childhood space separated from the rest of society. Further, and of relevance in this chapter, such institutions are usually materially fenced-in, adult-organized and structured places of buildings and playgrounds (Nilsen, 2000; Zeiher, 2003). In a Norwegian context, tension may arise between such features of modern childhood and traditional constructions of a‘good’ childhood outdoors related to the spatial realm of home and neighbourhood (Kjørholt and Tingstad, 2007), in which playing in non-fenced places and areas of the natural environment are highly valued (Nilsen, 2008).
This chapter is concerned with exploring the ways in which ideas of ‘childhood’ and the ‘child’ are represented in the educational policies for children aged three to six years old, introduced in England in 1999, as an example of the ongoing construction and reconstruction of English childhood (James and Prout, 1997). However, the purpose of this chapter is not simply to document the particular conceptions and discourses of childhood that are embedded within these new educational policies; more importantly, it is to ask about the ways in which these may potentially shape the everyday experiences of children who attend the various institutions that are now obliged to work within this new regulatory framework. This chapter poses a set of critical questions, therefore, about the cultural politics of childhood (James and James, 2004) that is currently being promoted in England by asking about the kinds of childhoods that are being produced by and for children through these new policies.
Documentation in early childhood education is typically seen as a means to enhance the quality of care and education, and as a way to take account of the child–s view.
Children have increasingly been called upon to participate in the planning of their communities, especially in projects associated with urban nature and outdoor play spaces. Building upon the concept of emotional labor, we critically explore how children become enrolled in such initiatives. Specifically, we focus on the emotional geographies underlining children's participation, including the emotions children exhibit invest, experience and produce in these projects, as well as the ways these emotions are regulated, framed and used by urban managers and policy-makers in participatory planning activities. Our theoretical framework intersects research on emotional labor with recent geographic literature on children, urban governance, and emotions. We explore the idea of children's and young people's emotional labor through an analysis of a collaborative effort between local nonprofits, government agencies, youth organizations and research institutions aimed at addressing the lack of public green space in a disenfranchised urban community in California. The empirical evidence is drawn from a research project in which we engaged a group of 9–11 year old children in a variety of planning activities involving participatory mapping, use of visual media, and focus groups.
Title: The community of peers as an arena for democratic education: What possibilities for participation can be found in play, among peers, in the kindergarten?
Abstract: Children’s formal right to participate in the formation of their everyday life in Norwegian kindergartens, has led to several discussions of democracy connected to young children in kindergartens. This article represents an element in these discussions, based on experiences from fieldwork in a Norwegian Kindergarten. The main focus is the playful community of peers and what negotiation of participation is related to, in this community. Four observations of children’s negotiation of participation provide the content and the structure of the article. The aim is to reveal the problematic and various ways children are constructers and also being constructed as citizens in their community of peers.
The article suggests reconceptualizing the role of 'children's voices' in childhood studies. By taking an institutional setting of early (or rather, earliest) childhood education and care as a test case, it argues for and empirically demonstrates a double shift in research perspectives. First, the principle of 'giving voice to children's voices' is turned from an overarching research objective into a central object of research. Second, the metaphorical and the non-metaphorical meaning of 'voice' are clearly separated in order to relate them anew. Voices are observed and taken into account with respect to their sonic phenomenality before any abstract notions of 'children's voices' come into play. By taking into account that even children with little or no speech mostly do have a voice, the paradoxical formula of 'giving voice to children's voices' gains a renewed sensitizing function in research practice. Analyses of field notes delineate a range of observable vocal phenomena and respective social practices of 'giving voice' in a crèche and detect both various strategies of verbalization as well as strategies of practically dealing with children's hearable voices.
The aim of the study on which this paper is based was to explore in which situations and contexts Norwegian 1–3-year-olds experience subjective wellbeing in day care. The data in this study was collected through qualitative phenomenological observations of 18 children, and an inductive process of analysis was conducted. The results show that 1–3-year-olds express clear wellbeing and pleasure when devoting themselves to social interaction and play, and exploration alone or with other children and staff members. Staff members creating an intersubjective space dominated by high sensitivity and responsivity is also an important factor for toddlers’ wellbeing. Wellbeing is expressed in situations where the child is seen, understood and recognized as a subject with own intentions, needs and preferences, which may be understood as a relational way of participation in everyday life. This study may contribute to developing knowledge about the wellbeing of toddlers by listening to their voices, and enables a better understanding of the content of the wellbeing concept in an educational context for very young children.
This article explores everyday life among Guji children in southern Ethiopia and the place of children in an intergenerational social order. Based on data generated through ethnographic fieldwork among the Guji, we show that work, school and play are significant and intertwined social practices. Local knowledge and skills of importance for sustainable livelihood are acquired through children's participation in these different social practices. Oral tradition represents a key element of local knowledge and social practices in everyday life. However, political and social changes, such as settlement policies and the introduction of schools, affect the dynamic interconnectedness of these practices, as well as relations between different generations. These changes also have implications for local knowledge and local livelihoods.
The Swedish preschool curriculum not only prescribes documentation and quality assessment,
it also requires children’s participation in the documentation process, although it offers no
directions on how the documenting should be done, which can leave teachers unsure of how
to do it. This study differs from research that presents pedagogical documentation as a way
of enabling children’s participation in preschool in that it explores children’s participation in
producing different forms of documentation in a Swedish preschool – and it finds that such
participation is complex. The findings imply that, whether documentation is activity-integrated or
retrospective, different forms of participation are possible
In this article, I approach day care centers as stages upon which various small stories are constructed and performed by young children and other interlocutors. The aim of the article is two-fold. Methodologically, the paper is a tentative application of Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective onto narrative research with children. Empirically, the aim is to explore day care centers as narrative environments that constitute children’s lives and identities. I anchor my analysis and interpretation of research material, collected in two groups of children, in three perspectives. Firstly, I focus on the spatial practices of the day care centers, framing the construction of small stories. Secondly, I deal with the production of small stories between cultural routines and active reconstruction. Finally, I draw attention to children’s identity construction as a continuous process influenced by a variety of individual, material, contextual, cultural, and interactional factors.
The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and especially article 12 has put children’s right to participation high on the agenda in early childhood settings in many countries. Based in a qualitative study done in early childhood institutions in Norway, this article analyses how salient features of dialogues between children and teachers create premises for children’s participation. Qualitative differences are described by the metaphors of spacious and narrow pattern. It is shown that qualities inherent in spacious patters create relational premises for children to exercise their right to participation and to express their views. Neither children nor teachers need to be cast in fixed and limited roles. The findings are discussed in terms of other research describing democratic adult roles, and points to the need for critical thinking on theories on teachers–child relationships.
Kinderen worden net als volwassenen gezien als participanten in een samenleving, die waardevolle opvattingen hebben over voorzieningen of instellingen, waar zij mee te maken hebben. In de Convention on the Rights of the Child uit 1989 staat dat kinderen het recht hebben, als zij daar toe in staat zijn, hun opvattingen in alle vrijheid kenbaar te maken ten aanzien van alle zaken die hen aangaan.
Jonge leerlingen actief en effectief betrekken bij ontwikkelingen in de samenleving waar zij dagelijks mee te maken hebben, stelt beleidsmakers, ontwikkelingspsychologen, pedagogen, leraren en andere bij leerlingen betrokken volwassenen voor een aantal problemen.
Uit de literatuur is af te leiden dat het mogelijk, maar niet eenvoudig is om te achterhalen wat de opvattingen zijn van jonge kinderen met betrekking tot betekenisverlening en dat volwassenen altijd hun interpretatie geven van wat jonge kinderen naar voren brengen. Er zijn vrijwel geen onderzoeksresultaten beschikbaar over hoe betekenisverlening specifiek van jonge kinderen, samenhangt met de opvattingen van anderen, waarmee deze jonge kinderen in interactie zijn.
In dit onderzoek willen we nagaan of vastgesteld kan worden hoe en in welke mate er cohesie bestaat tussen de betekenisverlening van jonge kinderen en de volwassenen bij wie de kinderen nauw betrokken zijn zoals hun ouders/verzorgers en hun leraren. Het onderzoek is gericht op leerlingen tussen 5 en 6 jaar oud in groep 2 van het primair onderwijs.
This article focuses on how kindergarten can encourage children's participation based on the idea of democratic community. The Norwegian Kindergartens Act emphasises children's right to participate and kindergarten is seen as an arena for learning. We discuss planned conversations between pre-school teachers and children during ongoing project-based work, and how the teacher's invitations advanced democratic practice in this educational environment. The research reveals that democratic approach occurred sporadically during the conversations. The choice and type of theme in projects plays a vital role for the children's engagements and language use. Different linguistic strategies were studied related to how teachers used questions, how they demonstrate their ways of listening, how they gave children time to think and how the teachers deal with the different experiences. The teachers often invite by questioning children, though a lot of questions did not seem to contribute the children's participations. This article draws attention to conversations characterised by democratic community and reveals dilemmas that need to be addressed.
This article draws on a research study that focused on young children’s involvement in an environmental curriculum that created for them opportunities to display their competence and confidence through knowing, deciding and acting for the environment within a supportive early childhood setting. When young children are involved in making decisions that affect their lives, including those decisions regarding sustainability and the natural environment, they are capable in contributing to the decision-making that leads them to purposeful action. The research revealed the importance of honouring the young child’s right to know about social and environmental issues; to be part of conversations and possible solutions; to have their ideas and contributions valued; to seek solutions with others in order to be able to take meaningful action. The article explores the notion that when the rights of young children are respected, they are confident advocates for the environment and for a more sustainable world.
The aim of this study is to answer the following question: what do children tell about their well-being in Finnish day care centres? The theoretical and methodological framework of this study is based on a narrative approach. The research material was collected by participating in the everyday life of three groups of children and listening to their narratives. The research material, consisting of observations and tape-recorded conversations, is reflected in a model of well-being developed by a Finnish sociologist, Erik Allardt. This model consists of three dimensions: having, loving, and being. With the intention of understanding children's well-being, the meanings of having, loving, and being are explored. Instead of arguing for one objective truth, this study offers diverse narratives, conveying both positive and negative experiences of children's well-being. The most positive experiences deal with inspiring and enabling material environment, responsive adults, good friends, and opportunities for meaningful activities. Darker shades permeate the narratives characterised by unyielding institutional structures, children's separateness from adults, the exclusion from peer relationships, and not being respected as a subject. This study demonstrates both potentials and limitations involved in narrative methodology when exploring young children's experienced well-being.
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