Browsing by Subject "lapsinäkökulma"
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(2020)The purpose of this study is to examine children's experiences of participation in everyday preschool life. Children’s participation is considered as an important part in legal documents regulating the field of early childhood education in Finland. However, previous studies show that child participation is poorly implemented in early childhood education. Barriers to participation have been seen as a various understanding of the concept of participation, and the lack of policies that support children's participation. Children's participation is best realized in play and small everyday moments. Instead, in situations involving children’s basic functions, routines take precedence over children’s participation. (Turja & Vuorisalo 2017; Virkki 2015; Fabric 2016) Methods. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study of one pre-school group. The study involved 19 children aged 6-7 years. The research material was collected using method triangulation. The data were collected through five group discussions of 4-5 children and observations of the group´s daily life. The children also took pictures of things they like in preschool. They shared a reason for the pictures they took. The analysis was guided by abductive reasoning. The study followed the basic principle of childhood studies; Children have their own important self-worth and a wealth of information that can only be obtained by asking the children directly (Alanen 2009). Turja's (2011) model of multidimensionality of participation was used in the analysis. Results and conclusions. Children see adults in a pre-school as limiting their activities. They believe that adults decide almost everything in preschool. In addition to supervised activities and daily routines, adult control extends also to children's free playtime. The children had useful and sensible suggestions for activities they felt needed change. The children thought that the daily rest was a function that needs to be changed. Preferably, they would remove it altogether and exchange it for play. Play was an area where children felt participated. In the play, they were allowed to decide who to play with and what to play with. The nice thing about the play is "That you can do whatever you want." The play and friends gained a lot of importance in the children’s speeches and the photos they took. The activities of pre-school education were strongly planned by adults. However, the consideration of the children's interests and the children's ideas fit within the framework of the plans. These children’s ideas, which strengthen children’s participation, engaged them noticeably. Supervised pre-school activities were fun for many children. However, it should be considered how to enable the full participation of children in early childhood education so that it also goes beyond the planning of activities.
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(2019)The goal of the “new paradigm” in childhood studies and specifically child perspective research is to bring the child into the center of producing information regarding their lives. Various methods based on oral storytelling are considered appropriate for presenting such things that children consider meaningful. Using visual methods aims at increasing children's possibilities in self-expression within the means of the research. From these premises I designed a child perspective narrative study, meant to chart the fourth grader's experience of the school forest. However, new and more acute research problems arose from the data produced in the study: How has the research setting limited, or on the other hand, made possible what is being told? What is expected from the listener for the stories to be heard? 22 4th graders participated in the study in the spring of 2016, and were presented with the question: "What would you like to share with the researcher about the school forest?". To begin with their stories the pupils first photographed the school forest. Photo-elicitated narrative interviews were then conducted with each participant. The material was interpreted by means of narrative analysis, making use of the small stories approach. Reaching the “narrative space” within the research was challenging for the participants. The dominant form of expression was “showing” instead of narrating, or giving narrow descriptions of what is there in the forest: trees, stones, sticks. The narrative quality of the interviews was largely fragile. This resulted in the children's own school forest experience remaining rather distant. Reflexive thinking of the context of the narration, such as the research setting and being in school, brought out several factors prohibiting the narrative space from opening up, such as insufficient informing and the overriding of an explicit consent from the child. So called counter stories within the data were two stories, in which the children's subjective school forest experiences were celebrated. The narrative space was made possible by an inclusive interview interaction. The results of the study can be applied in the planning of ethically solid child oriented research, in which the child's own consent is given the weight it deserves and the challenges of conducting a research in school are consciously met. This is how the potential of children’s free narrating is more likely to flourish.
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(2023)The aim of this Master´s thesis was to study children’s experiences in social participation in day care centers. Children’s participation has long been discussed and researched in early childhood education. However, there are differences in how children’s participation is seen and promoted. Participation can be seen as some separate special tasks implemented at certain times. Social participation gives an opportunity to study participation as a way for a child to be encountered and to be part of his or her own community. This study follows the principles of qualitative research and is made by using child-perspective methods. The 5-year-old children were interviewed by the researcher and their stories are the basis of this study. The children had taken pictures of their days in the day care center and these pictures were shown to them during the interviews to help them talk about the events. The material was analyzed by interpreting the stories themselves and by using narrative analysis. Based on the children’s stories the experience of social participation does not require complicated things that are hard to implement. Children feel that they belong to a group through playing and interacting with friends. The stories showed that some children need adults’ support when interacting with their peers, although those children are not always able to express their need. As a conclusion it can be stated that social participation requires a child-friendly environment where the early childhood educators respond to children’s initiatives, support peer interaction and promote children’s individual abilities to belong to their community.
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(2018)Children’s participation as learners and members of the community has become an important pedagogical value in preschool education and in the whole educational system. Hearing children’s views has also been emphasized within the sphere of science but learning has remained a subject and study area mainly defined by adults. The aim of this study is to bring out the children’s own perspective and to describe what kind of things the preschool children are interested to learn and what they themselves tell about learning, transmitted by the pedagogical documentation method. 26 children and two adult interviewers from one day-care center in Uusimaa region participated in this study. The research data consisted of 156 learning wishes drawn by the children and of videotaped interviews in which the learning wishes and children’s thoughts about preschool were discussed, led by the adults’ questions. Based on the inductive analysis process the research was directed at children’s interest and narration about learning. The study was carried out as a case study with child perspective, combining narrative thematic analysis and content analysis methods. The children were mostly interested to learn action-based and visible skills which originated from children’s environment, communities and their own experiences. The most popular were physical skills and the biggest group of cognitive skills was reading and writing, chosen largely by girls. The children were also interested in concrete challenges and ability experiences offered by the preschool exercises. This had narrative resemblance to children’s other positive expressions of their readiness to learn and to develop their skills. Narrated by the children, learning appeared as the increase of skills, knowledge and autonomy, whereas play and exploration had a little role in the children’s own descriptions. It would be useful to support children’s awareness of their cognitive learning in preschool, to reinforce children’s positive self-image as learners. It is also important to strengthen both boys’ and girls’ interest in reading and multiliteracy skills, in ways that are meaningful to children. It is possible to aim at supporting children’s resilience, co-operation, thinking and self-image as learners by their own learning objectives. Children’s objectives also create opportunities to build connections between children’s communities and learning environments, from children’s own perspective.
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(2018)Aims. Children’s voices and views have rarely been heard in previous studies about inclusion and exclusion in the preschool context. In addition, very little is known about children’s sense of belonging and how belonging operates in early childhood settings in general. There is a lack of research in this area, especially from children’s perspectives. Therefore, the aim of this master’s thesis is to examine children`s experiences of belonging and exclusion in their preschool peer groups. The study also examines the ways children build belonging into the stories they tell. The study attempts to investigate children’s voices and perspectives through researching children’s narratives. Methods. This qualitative study used a narrative approach to examine children’s perspectives on belonging. Ten preschool-aged children participated in the interviews (five girls and five boys) during the spring of 2018. A thematic analysis was conducted and small stories were used as an analytical tool. Results and conclusions. Small stories of belonging mainly related to children`s core friendship groups in the preschools. These core groups consist of children who usually play together and spend time together. Adults were not included in these stories. Children’s sense of belonging stemmed primarily from their core friendship groups but also from the community of children in general. Children’s experiences of exclusion usually took place during free playtime outside. They did not experience deliberate exclusion by others rather children described experiencing difficult join play outside. The results show that children build belonging mainly through their core friendship croups. Belonging expressed through we-talk and shared experiences and interests. Small stories also included the use of humor to express belonging.
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(2017)Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate how preschool-aged children themselves experience aggression. The research questions were: 1) How do preschool-aged children describe anger and situations in which they felt angry? and 2) How do children act when they get angry and what helps them to overcome their anger? Child's aggression is often seen as a negative aspect of his or her behavior and previous studies have often focused on children's pathological aggression and only few studies consider children's own experience of aggression. However, aggression is also a resource that helps children to defend themselves and to correct situations that cause discomfort. Therefore, more research effort should focus on constructive aggression of children and on children's individual experience of anger situations. Methods The study was a data-driven qualitative interview from a child perspective. The theoretical framework was built on psychodynamic approach, which aims to discover and examine subconscious thoughts and experiences. The research data was collected during a field study involving 17 preschool-aged children. The data consisted of listening a story, children's drawings and semi-structured individual interviews. The interviews were transcribed and classified into five themes, on the basis of the research questions: describing anger, causes of anger, what anger feels like, reactions caused by anger and the acceptability of those reactions, and how to overcome anger. Results and conclusions Most children who participated in the study described their anger by drawing a self-portrait. In all the pictures the anger was described by facial expressions. Anger or conflict mostly emerged in social situations, when playing with siblings of friends. The feeling of anger was often described as a physical experience in the head, in the stomach or in the legs or feet. Most children found that the interference of an adult or a friend helped them to overcome anger situations. Half of the children felt that outbursts of anger were not acceptable. In conclusion, this study shows that preschool-aged children are able to describe their anger and that they have already developed different ways to handle aggression. The results show that the presence of adults is of great importance for a child in anger situations. This study provides information on how preschool-aged children experience anger and what types of tools they have to overcome anger situations. The results and methods of the study can be used to understand and support the development of a child's aggression.
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(2018)The objective of this study was to examine the experiences that children have of a communal grandparent visiting their daycare centre. The aim was to find out the significance of the communal grandparent by studying the children’s lived experiences. Subjective meanings are seen as socially constructed. The Mannerheim League for Child Welfare organizes the communal grandparenting program, and has previously examined the perspectives of the volunteers working as communal grandparents. Previous studies have shown that intergenerational programs can have a positive impact on for example the social skills and empathy of children. Yet studies also show that it requires planning to make an intergenerational program succesfull. Results of this study can be used to further develop the communal grandparenting program. The research was conducted as a case study. The participants were children of a daycare group and an elderly man volunteering as a communal grandparent in the group. The data was collected by observing the visit of the grandparent and by conducting an interview with several children while they were drawing a picture of the grandparent. Phenomenological and narrative methods were combined in the data analysis process. The data was analyzed from an interactional standpoint as well as meaning making standpoint. As a result four small stories were created based on the observation and seven illustrated small stories were created based on the drawings and interviews. The findings in observational and interview data were partially comparable, but the research also showed that the significance of the communal grandparent to a child varies individually. The significance was related to for example physical contact, playing, games and feelings of joy. To some children other people had a greater significance than the communal grandparent. The communal grandparents have a unique possibility to be present in the moment with a child and listen to what children to say. By evaluating and planning together with the volunteers, children and educators, the communal grandparenting program can be developed further. A more extensive review of the intergenerational programs in Finland is needed.
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(2022)The purpose of this study was to find out how fifth graders understand and define participation. Previous studies have demonstrated gender-based differences in children's degree of participation in school. Experiences of participation have also declined between 2019 and 2021, according to the THL (Finnish institute for health and welfare) School Health Promotion study. The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze, and interpret by using practice architecture theory, how students define participation in school and whether there are differences in the experiences of girls and boys. The study was conducted as an action research in a fifth-grade class in Vantaa. Photographs of different lessons were taken and later used to interview the students. These images were utilized both in individual interviews to activate the student's memory and in the group interview. A total of 13 students participated in the interview phase. The collected material was analyzed using Kemmis' (2008) theory of practice architectures, in which the answers were classified into three categories: 1) cultural-discursive arrangements, 2) physical, economical and material arrangements, and 3) social-political arrangements. These three categories together formed the preconditions for participation. The students’ definition of participation emphasized the social dimension of participation, especially the relationship with peers. Pupils reported experiencing participation especially when working with their classmates. The definitions of participation were classified into four categories: 1) a sense of belonging 2) being heard 3) a positive feeling, and 4) an active role in class activity. Gender-based differences were discovered, especially when students selected photographs in which they felt they had experienced participation. The students also described par-ticipation in different words: the boys emphasized that they got to decide, and the girls emphasized that they had been heard. The results suggest that the social dimension of participation, which includes a sense of belonging, relatedness and positive social interdependence, is central to experiences of participation. This dimension should therefore be taken more into account in teaching. This work demonstrates the necessity and importance of providing sufficient and equal opportunities for participation for girls and boys. These opportunities are crucial in determining how students both perceive and actively engage in school activities.
Now showing items 1-8 of 8