The project will explore how everyday life in kindergarten is interwoven with risk knowledge about body, movement and health. Our interest is how ‘risk’ constructions is deployed and distributed, individually experienced, negotiated and made meaningful among professionals, parents and children in Norway as well as in France. The purpose of the project is to gain knowledge about how ‘risk’ is expressed, manufactured and negotiated in ECEC institutions in the light of policy and academic documents, academia, own professional knowledge and practice or local traditions. Further the project will explore how health and ‘risk’ are understood and practiced in ECEC institutions in Norway and France, how physical activities are organized and performed, how food and meals are organized and performed and how these practices are negotiated and talked about among professionals, parents and children. Finally the project will gain knowledge about what didactical tools and professional practices are chosen, implemented and governed in the ECEC institutions in the light of ‘risk’ discourses.
Learning, shaping of identity and quality of life are affected by children’s background, experiences, the content and quality of teaching, the psychosocial environment and socio-emotional development. ‘Risk’ may be at stake in all these elements. This project aims at contributing to innovation processes in early childhood education and care (ECEC) by exploring the notion of ‘risk’ in a broad context of ECEC. There is a need for knowledge about how cooperation within and across ECEC institutions, parents and children works. Likewise it is of importance to explore forms of collaboration across other professional partners relating to ECEC, like child welfare services and/or health care systems.
Our aim is threefold:
- To explore the discursive fields of ‘risk’ construction and handling in political documents, academic literature and professional guidelines.
- To study how conceptions of ‘risk’ are mediated to the children through the choice and organisation of kindergarten activities and through talk: explanations, motivation, justification, information, etc.
- To investigate how ideas of ‘risk’ are formed and circulated among the kindergarten staff, among other professionals dealing with children and families, among parents, and among children.
METHOD
We will study two kindergartens (écoles maternelles) in urban districts in France, and two kindergartens from two different districts in Oslo, Norway. In order to include children/families having diverse class and ethnic backgrounds, one kindergarten in east Oslo and one in west Oslo will be chosen. The participating children will be 2 – 5 years old. In both Norway and France an ethnographic approach will be employed with fieldwork during 6 months (three short periods of 1-2 weeks) in the kindergartens. Situations involving food/meals as well as organized and unorganized physical activities/bodily engagements will be specially targeted. The encounters between children, professionals and parents at the entrances to and leave-takings from the kindergarten are situations saturated with exchanges of practical, cultural and personal information. Field notes, photographs and video recordings will document the observations of these events.
In addition to a direct comparison of the observations of the practices in kindergartens by the researchers, the project will include group interviews conducted in France and Norway. The interviews will follow the polyphonic ethnographic method developed by Joseph Tobin comparing preschool education in three cultures, using video as a tool to stimulate a multi-vocal, inter-cultural dialogue (Tobin, Wu & Davidson, 1989; Tobin & Davidson, 1990). This methodology has also been used in recent research for international comparisons as well as for exploring different kinds of early childhood settings in France (Brougere, Rayna & Guenif-Soulamas, 2008; Garnier, Rayna, Brougere & Rupin, in press). This method involves showing to the participants various images (edited videos) of chosen episodes of the daily lives of children in the settings in the other country, such as meal time, play outside and inside, and guided activities. The participants are then invited to react and to express what they feel about what they have seen and to discuss and to critically reflect on their own practices as well as the practices of others. Participants will include separate groups of professionals, parents and children as well as at least one collective interview in each setting for each of the different groups of participants. These activities will provide considerable information about the diversity of understandings about issues of physical activity, food practices and prevention. Through the mediation of images of ordinary life in kindergarten, these dialogues will contribute to adding clarity to the normative principles and cultural values voiced by each protagonist in their everyday expressions.
Participants:
Anne Greve (project leader), Victoria Chantseva (phd-student), Marte Eriksen (phd-student), Bjørg Fallang, Pascale Gariner, Liv Mette Gulbrandsen, Sylvie Rayna, Oddbjørg Skjær Ulvik, Ingvil Øien
Funding: Aurora/NFR
Publications:
Engelsrud, Gunn; Nordtug, Birgit; Øien, Ingvil (2016). Kroppens subjektivitet – glemt eller anerkjent i fysioterapifaget? Fysioterapeuten, 84(9), 16-20.
Garnier, Pascale; Greve, Anne; Ulvik, Oddbjørg Skjær; Chantseva, Victoria; Rayna, Sylvie; Fallang, Bjørg; Gulbrandsen, Liv Mette & Øien, Ingvil (2020). Body practices: negotioations of `risk´ in Norwegian and French preschools. International Journal of Early Years Education. DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2020.1848530
Greve, Anne (2016). Norvège et activités de plein air. Une vie saine et «mouvementée» pour les petits Norvégiens: entre tradition et défis. Le Furet, 81, 43-44.
Greve, Anne (2018). Rammer for medvirkning i norske og franske barnehager. Et utenfrablikk på den norske rammeplanen. I: K. D. Wolf & S. B. Svenning (red.) Perspektiver på barns medvirkning i barnehagen (s. 73-89). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Greve, Anne; Garnier, Pascale; Ulvik, Oddbjørg Skjær; Øien; Ingvil; Chantseva, Victoria; Fallang, Bjørg; Gulbrandsen, Liv Mette & Rayna, Sylvie (2019). Food practices and risk constructions in Norwegian and French kindergartens. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 27(4), 494-505.
Presentations:
Greve, Anne (2016). Le systéme d´accueil des jeunes enfants en Norvège. Master Science de l´éducation, Paris: Université Paris XIII.
Greve, Anne (2018). Food and constructions of risk in Norwegian and French kindergartens. International RECE conference, Copenhagen, Denmark.