Description
Oral presentation:What makes you feel well in the kindergarten? Asking children the meaning of well-being
Danish legislation prescribes that well-being of children in all public kindergartens, but there is a lack of consensus of how to actually do this. The aim of this study is to investigate how children explicit the meaning of well-being in a Danish kindergarten.
The results are discussed in comparison to earlier studies of childhood well-being from an adult point of view: Koch, A. B. (2012). Idealet om det glade og afstemte barn. Pædagogers blik for trivsel i børnehaven. Nordisk Barnehageforskning, 5(2 (1)), 1-26.
Well-being is conceptualised by a multidisciplinary approach with reference to psychology, anthropology and sociology. Well-being is defined on the basis of positive psychology. Data is analysed with reference to Corsaro 2009, Willis 1977 and Scandinavian child research amongst others
A two month ethnographic field study was carried out in a kindergarten including photo interviews with 16 children, five years of age
The main findings suggest that children are primarily happy in their kindergarten when interacting with peers, establishing identity and experiencing aesthetic elements of the environment. When they have to participate in adult-initiated activities that they are not especially fond of, they create their own 'activities behind the activity'. Children play, create well-being, identity and status participating in the 'underlife' of the kindergarten
The practitioners are responsible for the practice in the kindergarten, but the children themselves actively create their well-being beneath these frames
| Period | Sept 2013 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 23rd |
| Organiser | European Early Childhood Education Research Association |
| Location | Tallinn, EstoniaShow on map |