Browsing by Author "Laaksonen, Roosa-Maria"

The exclusion starts during early childhood. A child’s withdrawal from their peer group has been associated with social exclusion that has implications for the child’s social and cognitive skills as well as overall well-being. Peer relationships and positive interaction with peers are central to children’s learning. Socially withdrawn children are at risk of being excluded from the social dimensions of peer activities. This thesis examines socially withdrawn children in Finnish early childhood education and especially the effects social withdrawal has on the child’s learning, emotions and physical activity. In addition, the effects of the withdrawn children’s social and self-regulatory skills and need for pedagogical support are examined. Research data was gathered using the Progressive Feedback method. Observations were conducted in 2,651 kindergarten groups from 19 municipalities in Finland from September 2017 to February 2021. The observation data included 201,951 observations of all activities in early childhood education between 8 AM to 4 PM. Observed children’s skills were assessed by the educational staff and children’s basic information (such as age and gender) were included. Quantitative multivariate methods were used to analyse the data. It was found that children’s social withdrawal occurs usually during free play indoors and outdoors. Routine activities included children’s social withdrawal in early childhood education settings as well. Withdrawn children usually had no focus in their activities or they were observed playing with toys. The child’s withdrawn orientation was characterized by low levels of involvement and physical activity as well as neutral and negative emotions. The impact of the peer group was found to be central to the child’s learning and well-being and supporting the withdrawn children in their efforts on joining the peer group activities is an important priority in developing early childhood education practices.