Browsing by Author "Ansamaa, Marika"

Objectives. The research on compassion has been studied in many fields but in the context of early childhood education, especially in conflict situations, study of compassion is still missing. The aim of this study, in the light of interaction based “practise perspective” theoretical framework, is to find out the ways in which compassionate acts occur in kindergarten 2 to 5-year-old children`s group in conflict situations, and what enables or hinder compassion in early childhood context. The interaction based theoretical framework shows how compassion is built and develops in interaction with people in different cultural contexts. This study has been conducted as part of “Constituting Cultures of Compassion in Early Childhood Education” (CoCuCo) research project. Methods. The data of this study was gathered by observation in a kindergarten setting over ten days period, approximately five hours per day. 26 children and five adults participated in the study. The current study has implications of collective ethnography due to its naturalistic setting and having, at times, up to four observers in the field at once. Having more than one observer gave opportunities for reflective discussions. 57 conflict situations were found from the data after using qualitative research analysis methods. Compassionate acts were analysed from those conflict situations. Findings. In a kindergarten 2 to 5-year-old children`s group compassionate acts occurred in 15 conflict situations. Compassionate acts, which were helping, defending and comforting, received a child from a teacher, a child from another child and a teacher from a colleague. Verbal forms of compassion were the most common. Teachers ways of dividing tasks and recurring practices in working methods enabled or hindered the ways compassion was expressed. The ways teachers organize kindergarten groups activities, seems to impact the ways compassion occurs in interactional situations.