Participation – a wish or a demand: how to underpin children’s participation and participation breaks in Danish kindergartens

This research aims to uncover 3-5 years old children’s perspectives on participation in selforganized playcommunities. Research has shown that children’s participation can be challenged in the institutional everyday life (Jensen, 2005; Palludan 2005; Warming, 2001). These challenges impact peer relations and selforganized play. The theoretical framework for this study draws upon a praxeological understanding (Bourdieu, 2008) to view connections between “the
child’s time” and “childhood time” ((James et al, 1999), and the selforganized play as a field to get access to children’s perspectives (Warming, 2011) of participation. The study was conducted within a qualitatively reflexive sociological
paradigm (Bourdieu & Waquant, 2004) with a non-participant-observational study for 16 months in two kindergartens.
The analysis was conducted through a phenomenological-reflexive approach. Consent was agreed with the municipal participants and information sheet was provided to all groups of participants. The parents to the children involved were
given opportunity to withdraw their children from the study at any time. Pseudonyms have replaced the names of all participants. The findings demonstrate children’s participation in playcommunities depend on child cultural
understandings according to as well as refusing the institutional choreography. The findings demonstrate new understandings of participation, - as a need for flexible possibilities for children’s participation according to their perspectives in institutional choreography. These findings suggest new institutional choreography understandings in practice and policy to underpin children’s participation.