Constructing relational space in early childhood education

2014

This paper examines early childhood education (ECE) by applying and developing relational-spatial perspectives on everyday life in educational institutions for young children. The aim is to investigate the dynamic process of construction of space and to illustrate with selected empirical episodes how this process occurs in ECE. Drawing on authors such as Soja and Bourdieu, the starting point for the analysis is that space is socially produced in everyday interactions in a process that intertwines the physical environment and concrete objects, personal interpretations of physical and cultural space, and cultural and collective views about space in ECE. We illustrate this process with ethnogr…

Clothes

2019

Niina Rutanen, Raija Raittila, Mari Vuorisalo write about Clothes and clothing practices in Finnish early childhood education and care. The adopted approach combines relational sociology and geography and addresses the different kinds of spaces clothing practices create in ECEC. Clothing and clothing practices play an important role in the everyday life of ECEC, but often have a different meaning to educators, to the children and to parents. Niina, Raija and Mari show how these different spaces collide with each other and create one possible story of Arctic childhood. In their understanding, space is a social construction and changes in action. They state how ‘the ‘ideal’ Nordic child is th…

Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction - Explorations during team ethnography in a Finnish kindergarten

2018

Abstract Children’s autonomy is a cultural ideal in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC). In this article we examine autonomy in spatial terms. The theoretical background is developed by applying spatial sociology. Our starting point is that space is relationally produced, thus, we understand space as continuously negotiated, reconstructed and reorganized phenomena. In this article, we investigate the production of space by different actors in ECEC and seek to show how autonomy is also continuously produced and re-produced in the negotiation of space. For this investigation we use data collected as part of a team ethnographic project in a Finnish kindergarten. The project inclu…

Relational analysis and the ethnographic approach : constructing preschool childhood

2021

This article elaborates the relational ontology in an ethnographic study. The aim is to seek relational construction of preschool practice and how children’s positions are constructed in it. The study is based on the understanding that ethnography and relational sociology share the idea that society emerges through repeated relations. The ontological thinking of relational sociology is applied in a micro-level analysis of three episodes from a Finnish preschool. We propose that relations appear in every single ethnographical episode and that carefully analysed repetitive relations can reveal a stabilised organisational structure. The analysis shows how the position of one child is structuri…

Lasten kentät ja pääomat : osallistuminen ja eriarvoisuuksien rakentuminen päiväkodissa

2013

Siirtymäresurssit varhaiskasvatuksen siirtymätilan suhteissa ja muutoksissa

2023

Artikkeli tarkastelee yhden lapsen siirtymäresursseja varhaiskasvatuspolun erilaisissa siirtymissä. Etnografinen, pitkittäisasetelmaan perustuva tutkimusaineisto muodostuu yhden lapsen varhaiskasvatuspolun ensimmäisistä päivistä aina esiopetuksen alkuun. Artikkeli vastaa kysymykseen siitä, millaisia resursseja lapsi hyödyntää siirtymätilassa sekä millaisia muutoksia resurssien hyödyntämisessä tapahtuu siirtymien aikana? Siirtymiä tarkastellaan siirtymätiloina, jotka rakentuvat sekä tilanteisesti että relationaalisesti, eli suhteessa ympäristöön ja muihin toimijoihin. Lisäksi artikkelissa käytetään siirtymäresurssin käsitettä, joka viittaa tilannekohtaisiin tietoihin, taitoihin ja materiaali…

Children’s transitions in early childhood education and care : various combinations of dis-/continuities

2023

This longitudinal multiple case study explores children’s transitions within early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland. In ECEC children typically transition from one group or center to another. This study explores how physical, social and philosophical discontinuities and continuities constitute these transitions. Five focus children’s transitions were followed in and between separate ECEC centers. The data include interviews with parents and educators as well as observations noted. Fabian’s discontinuity division, which argues that transition consists of physical, social, and philosophical discontinuities, was used for content analysis of interviews as primary data. Interpretat…

Ken leikkiin ryhtyy : leikki lasten välisenä sosiaalisena ilmiönä

2004