Fleeting moments: young children’s negotiations of belonging and togetherness

Abstract

With the aim of developing new knowledge on inclusive practices for young children in early childhood education, the following research question was explored: what characterises young children's negotiations of belonging and togetherness in a diverse peer group in kindergarten? Data from field work in a young children's group in a multicultural kindergarten in Norway formed basis for the present study's analysis, which was conducted within a culturalhistorical framework. The findings revealed that the two-year-olds' everyday institutional lives were influenced by features in the peer culture and characterised by fleeting moments of caring and sharing, shared joint experiences and ongoing negotiations of mutual bonds, hierarchies and group boundaries. Although the findings did not reveal any differences along ethnic or cultural lines when it came to the two-year-olds' negotiations of belonging and togetherness, the fact that the peer culture already at this age included the application of hierarchies and symbol systems, calls for kindergarten teachers' awareness in order to secure inclusive practices for young children.

Swedish Parents’ Perspectives of Belonging in Early Years Education

“…It may therefore be appropriate to find forms of cooperation that make younger parents feel more involved, perhaps in a stronger collaboration with slightly older parents. In this type of collaboration, staff awareness of the problems is likely to increase (Boldermo, 2020).…”

(Re)imagining Entangled Sustainability: A Human and Nonhuman Theorisation of Belonging to Safeguard Sustainability’s Holism

“…What we propose is departing from a phenomenon associated with one of the pillars and theorising it in a way that embraces and encompasses the other pillars. In this article we focus on the sense of belonging, which is associated with social sustainability [7,8,12,13]. However, when this concept is theorised with posthumaninspired theories, economic and environmental aspects are shown to be meaningful.…”

“…Current distinctions between particular pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic and social) are so well established that even interdisciplinarity connected to sustainability research emerges within rather than across the pillars. By theorising the sense of belonging with the use of post-human inspirations, we try to open up this phenomenon ascribed to social sustainability [7,8,12,13] to economic and environmental aspects.…”

Unfreezing the Discursive Hegemonies Underpinning Current Versions of “Social Sustainability” in ECE Policies in Anglo–Celtic, Nordic and Continental Contexts

“…Categorisation is related to the core of power relations [41] that underpins the criteria for membership. These may either be related to externally established categories of difference, such as gender, social class, ethnicity or age, or developed internally by the group [42]. Boldermo's [42] research shows how children's moments of togetherness not only go beyond the socio-politically established categories of difference but also continually change.…”

“…These may either be related to externally established categories of difference, such as gender, social class, ethnicity or age, or developed internally by the group [42]. Boldermo's [42] research shows how children's moments of togetherness not only go beyond the socio-politically established categories of difference but also continually change. This can be related to the second aspect of belonging, resistance and desire, which triggers the individual to be hostile to the "given" distinctions and develop a new order of membership.…”