Small children’s perspectives on inclusive day care practice

The Municipality of Odense, Denmark, has launched a new type of day care centers in order to better support locally distributed inclusive educational settings in which children, with and without a ‘special needs’ profile, can meet, play and learn.
In a current Ph.D.-study the aim is to explore how small children (age 0 – 4), who are immersed in the so called ‘resource day care centers’ (Danish word: ‘ressourcebørnehuse’) are developing agency through their daily activities.
It is a qualitative study, which will follow children and staff over a two year period in two different day care centers. In line with critical psychological practice research the researcher and the staff will, from each their perspectives, be investigating how children get into ‘difficulties’, when children’s engagements and ways of participation are identified as problematic by the professionals, and furthermore why and how the professionals intervene the way they do.
‘Inclusive education’ will be analyzed from an ‘analytical child perspective’, and the insights from this focus will shed light on how different kinds of practice are responding to the needs of the individual child and his/her peers and their communities.
The paper will address the methodological issues of investigating situated professional knowledge related to inclusion and small children’s room for agency as two interrelated phenomena.