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This article presents a study in which we began with a question "how to teach theoretical reflectivity in teacher education, and ended with a sentence "there is theoretical diffraction in teacher education". The research presented in this paper took place in the context of a university course in which we have been involved for the past two years. During the course we simultaneously pursued to teach theoretical reflection and to analyse what was happening as we taught theoretical reflection. For two years we asked, 'What are students doing while we are trying to engage them in theoretical reflection?' We noted that students are engaged in theory, but not in ways easily readable to the educators, and that the process could rather be called theoretical diffraction than reflection. Theoretical diffraction during the course was patterned by existing discursive practices: 1) disciplining emotions and focusing on control and answers, 2) personalising school as the teacher and personally defending it, 3) prioritising practice over theory and seeing both as dogma.

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The study draws on a relational and intersectional approach to young children’s belonging in Finnish educational settings. Belonging is conceptualized as a multilevel, dynamic, and relationally constructed phenomenon. The aim of the study is to explore how children’s belonging is shaped in the intersections between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of young children’s education in Finland. The data consist of educational policy documents and ethnographic material generated in educational programs for children aged birth to 8 years. A situational mapping framework is used to analyze and interpret the data across and within systems levels (macro-level; meso-level; and micro-level). The findings show that the landscape in which children’s belonging is shaped and the intersections across and within the levels are characterized by the tensions between similarities and differences, majority and minorities, continuity and change, authority and agency. Language used, practices enacted, and positional power emerge as the (re)sources through which children’s (un)belonging is actively produced.