Browsing by Subject "syli"

Objectives. A child's cry can be recognized as an everyday phenomenon in early childhood education. Although responding to a child's cry is recognized as an adult's professional duty in early childhood education, there has so far been little scientific research about the matter. Previous research has shown that the lap is a significant resource both when dealing with a small child in general and in comforting situations in early childhood education. The purpose of this study was to deepen the understanding of what kind of resource a teacher’s lap is when encountering a crying child and in which contexts the lap interaction is constructed. Methods. This qualitative interaction study was carried out by observing video material and analysed by using multimodal interaction analysis. The research material was a partial material (5 h 26 min 47 s) from a video material filmed in a kindergarten in 2016, from which 14 crying episodes were located for analysis. The participants in the data were a group of children under 3 years old, where at the time of the research there were 13 children, 3 members of the educational staff and one assistant Conclusions. The results showed that the lap had a versatile function in encountering a crying child. The lap served as both a comforting, holding close and activating space. The function of the lap was constructed in relation to the reactions of the crying child, the group of children, and the ongoing activity. With the results, the lap appears as a dynamic space that thus serves several purposes in the face of crying. The construction of the lap’s function is above all the result of the negotiation between the crying child and the adult who is facing it. This result can be seen as highlighting the child's active agency in an interactive and emotional situation. The results of the study can enable the development of interaction practices in early childhood education.