The article explores child well‐being in Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC) during the time of COVID‐19. A phased reopening of Denmark occurred in spring 2020 under strict health ...guidelines. Two ECEC institutions were followed first‐hand to observe the impact of the pandemic on pedagogy and child well‐being. Observations and interviews were conducted with follow‐up interviews and an online survey a year later. The findings suggest that the pandemic caused pedagogues to work in a more child‐sensitive way with elevated staff/child ratios and children in small, fixed groups; however, child well‐being was not negatively affected, despite the acute situation
The consideration of child-centred participation in childhood research is a topic that draws heavily on human rights, and participatory childhood research is performed in a variety of ways. The paper ...explores issues of adult-child roles in early childhood education with an intention to involve young children in the research as much as possible with reference to Hart's ladder of participation. A drawing-elicited interview was conducted with four children, 3-5 years of age, regarding their views on favourite adult professionals. The children were encouraged to express themselves through drawing and stories, while the researcher strove to follow child-led initiatives along the way. In the process, the children started to generate crazy stories, to laugh, and experiment with the researcher's authority and engage in playfulness. The analysis points to ways in which adult researcher-child relationships are negotiated in research, suggesting that the adult engages in playful interactions with children in order for true participation and sharing of perspectives to take place. The study emphasises how improvisation, share of control, and playful interactions with children are important elements to consider in participatory early childhood research because it is crucial in forming a research relationship with young children.
In Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC), fun is often emphasised as a key pedagogical tool but is used rather unreflexively. While well-being and happiness have been studied in various ...ways, the potential of fun is not included in theoretical discussions regarding happiness and well-being, although most people identify having fun as a fundamental reason for being happy. A researcher and three student assistants spent six months in three ECEC settings with a focus on episodes characterised by fun and laughter. Participant observation and interviews were conducted. Empirical data illustrate how fun appears in ECEC as laughter, smiles, attentiveness, intensity and ecstasy. Fun arises momentarily in a sense of lightness and freedom, as a means of communication, in physical play, when rules and expectations are broken, in frivolous references to lower body functions and in experiences of excitement. Pedagogues use fun based on child sensitivity, improvisation, courage to let go of control, informality, energy and a sense of humour. Danish humour philosophy distinguishes between small humour and big humour. Pedagogues with the ability to practice big humour are preferred in order to establish an ECEC culture characterised by fun, laughter and episodes of small humour that promote well-being in children.
Europe is often characterized as being divided into four blocks of countries with their own distinct cultural, historical, political, and economic characteristics. The geopolitical diversity within ...the EU is also recognized in a wide variety of different traditions for ECEC and upbringing of children. Nowadays, new reforms and policy initiatives are trying to introduce common ECEC quality framework. These recent developments might produce tensions, as the ECEC traditions seem to be incompatible with the new reforms to different degrees and might either slow or accelerate the political initiatives. This article aims to illuminate how different traditions affect everyday ECEC practice with examples from Eastern and Nordic ECEC. The recent development of economics-based approaches introduction of a common ECEC quality framework are critically discussed with reference to Danish and Slovak early childhood pedagogies. The method used is a comparative case study.
The article reports findings from a study that explored the potential of digital media to create new possibilities for professional caregivers to encounter 10 vulnerable children (7–17 years old) as ...subjects (rather than objects) and participants in their own lives. Five professionals received training in media pedagogy and experimented with new ways to communicate with children. Digital communication was found to expand the children's ability to engage in dialogue. Professionals need to find the courage to engage in digital communication on a child's terms as it helps generate a relationship that offers children new opportunities for raising their voices.
This special issue presents a selection of current research on Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC) aimed at an international audience. The Nordic tradition of child-centred, local and ...holistic pedagogy is dominant within the Danish educational culture, but the Danish pedagogical approach is the focus of an ongoing dialogue involving political preoccupations with ECEC quality and what is best for the children’s development and learning. Since 2004, Danish ECEC settings have been obliged to work on children’s learning based on a pedagogical curriculum organised around six previously established themes prepared at each local ECEC centre according to specific guidelines. In 2018, a more detailed description of the content of the curriculum and a common pedagogical foundation was introduced in a strengthened curriculum – partly because the previous curriculum led institutions too far away from the existing pedagogical culture. The strengthened curriculum points to key elements such as play, child-centredness, communities of children and a broad concept of learning – to constitute the understanding and approach to work on children’s well-being, learning, development and formation in ECEC. New research from Danish professionals is presented, revolving around key areas in the strengthened curriculum in order to invite further dialogue with international colleagues about children’s play, fun and well-being, quality cultures, children’s communities, transitions, aesthetics and vulnerability.
Succeskriteriet for en vellykket skolestart er, at alle børn oplever trivsel i skolen og finder motivation for at deltage engageret i skolens aktiviteter. Med afsæt i et empirisk studie af 95 ...kommende skolebørns og 12 dagtilbudspædagogers deltagelse i fem legeværksteder på den lokale skole viser artiklen, hvordan børn i deres møde med skolens forventninger handler, udveksler og tager del i de rammesatte konstruktionslege – og derigennem aktivt skaber relationer og trivsel. Artiklen argumenterer gennem deltagelsesteori og klassisk antropologisk teori om social udveksling for, at børn kan mødes som aktører og skolestart anskues som en bestyrkende begivenhed. Indsigterne viser nødvendigheden af, at professionelle har blik for børns sociale udvekslings- og deltagelsesstrategier med henblik på at støtte dem i skiftet fra børnehave til skole ud fra en bred forståelse af ’passende’ deltagelse.
Photo‐elicited interviews indicate that children hardly ever mention educators when asked about elements in preschool that make them feel happy. Happiness is found to occur in activities in the ...‘underlife’ of the ECEC institution. Children challenge adult rules and norms in order to create status in the peer‐group, while at the same time, they seek to construct social identity and maintain a positive relationship with their educators. A child that manages to balance both adult expectations and what is needed to participate in the underlife among peers, experiences happiness and thus, is in a good state of well‐being.
Mange studier har vist, at børns trivsel skabes i relationer internt i børnegruppen, men få har udforsket de voksnes rolle. Jeg vil i denne artikel vise, hvordan børns perspektiver på glæde i ...børnehaven fører til en beskrivelse af trivsel som noget, der sker mellem børn, men som ligeledes indbefatter en balanceakt. Børn balancerer mellem at være en del af et børnefællesskab, udfordre de voksnes regler og samtidig bibeholde en god relation til både børn og voksne. Trivsel kan ikke eksistere uafhængig af voksne, men den kan opstå i børnenes ’aktiviteter under aktiviteten’, hvor god balancekompetence er lig med god trivsel.
Danish early childhood professionals (pedagogues) are responsible for the well-being of all children in their care, but it is not clear what well-being implies. The article presents an analysis ...showing how pedagogues observe and categorize the well-being in children. Well-being is a state that pedagogues recognize by using special' seeing-techniques', related to their ideas of how children are supposed to behave in a certain context. The body of a child is culturally created, depending on the indoor or outdoor surroundings. The ideal of a happy child is an attuned child, who is able to adapt to adult expectations, while the physical surroundings are co-determining what the pedagogues 'see'.
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