Play hubs for children’s nomadic settlings during transition from kindergarten to primary school: A design-based study to enrich transition theory and practice

This paper aims at contributing to novel conceptualizations and practices regarding children’s transition from kindergarten to primary school. Pedagogical professionals, children and researchers develop and examine play hubs for children's recurrent dwelling whilst traversing heterogenous institutional settings. Current transition research contests developmental approaches to school-readiness in favor of ecological and sociocultural perspectives (Boyle, Grieshaber, & Petriwskyj, 2018). Studies claim social continuity should be pursued and institutional change less smoothed out (Dockett & Einarsdóttir, 2017; Odgaard, 2018). By approaching play as emergent practice (Skovbjerg, 2021), play hubs are designed to enable children's nomadic (Braidotti, 2011) settling during transitional change. The study asks how strands of play theory and transition research can be merged with sociocultural (Stetsenko, 2016) and new materialist (Braidotti, 2011) perspectives to create new theoretical framework and practices for transitions as nomadic taskscapes (Ingold, 1993). 95 kindergarten children, 20 school children, 20 professionals and 2 reseachers participated in five (be-)weekly play hubs at school. Design-based methods and research through co-design (Jørgensen et al., 2021) were employed within childhood sociological and participationist paradigms. Informed consent was obtained from professionals and children’s parents/caretakers. Children’s in-situ assent (Dockett. 2011) was continuously ensured through dialogue and attentiveness. Findings show how professional learning communities co-design play hubs that constitute entangled taskscapes where play orders (Skovbjerg & Sand, 2022) enable social continuity and exchange, flexible participation, situated child agency. Practical implications arise from this strengthened focus on play as constitutive to transition as entangled taskscapes. This productively challenges infrastructures of institutional alignment and school-readiness.