Browsing by Author "Tuovila, Emilia"

The purpose of the thesis was to examine the moral negotiations that 1st grade elementary school children conduct in a small group strorycrafting situation. The aim was to find out how these negotiations are constructed; what kind of communicational goals are committed by them and which communicational resources children use to solve disputes. Conversation analysis was used to make these processes visual and draw meaning of them. The study represents an ethnomethodological view of morality as a phenomenon that takes place in, and is made visual by, communicational actions in every day interaction. Child is viewed as an active moral agent who uses a wide repertoire of social competences when confronting moral situations. The main emphasis was on children’s moral agency but also the present adults’ actions were analysed. Storycrafting creates the interactional frame to the examined communication. The communicational practises of classroom interaction and its institutional character are considered in the analyse, as the studied interaction takes place in the context of the Finnish elementary school. The data consists of video recorded small group storycrafting of 1st grade school children. The collection of the data took place in the spring 2016. The data shows the course of 10 moral negotiations and the interactional resources used in them. Also, teasing and entertaining practises are made visual by the data. The teasing was mainly motivated by children’s' aim to entertain each other but children’s excluding practises also occurred in the data. The main purpose of the storytelling and teasing practises, however, seemed to be making laughter possible for the participators. The findings of the thesis show, in support of earlier results in the field, that teasing is a relevant part of children's everyday moral life. Especially the response work of teasing is important in defining the framework of teasing. It is important for the educators to familiarize themselves with the communicational practises of children. Especially children’s reactions should be carefully observed if the adult wants to practise a responsible moral agency as a co-working moral actor.