Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction - Explorations during team ethnography in a Finnish kindergarten

journal of pedagogy 1/2018 45 DOI 10.2478/jped-2018-0003 JoP 9 (1): 45 – 64 Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction – Explorations during team ethnography in a Finnish kindergarten Mari Vuorisalo, Raija Raittila, Niina Rutanen Abstract: Children’s autonomy is a cultural ideal in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC). In this article we examine autonomy in spatial terms. The theoretical background is developed by applying spatial sociology. Our starting point is that space is relationally produced, thus, we understand space as continuously negotiated, reconstructed and reorganized phenomena. In this article, we investigate the production of space by different actors in ECEC and seek to show how autonomy is also continuously produced and re-produced in the negotiation of space. For this investigation we use data collected as part of a team ethnographic project in a Finnish kindergarten. The project included conducting observations and interviews with parents and educators. Our research shows that autonomy is developed in multiple ways in kindergarten spaces. Educators as well as children and parents continuously produce and reproduce the kindergarten space within which children’s autonomy variously unfolds as linked to independence, freedom and responsibility in the cultural and ideological setting of a Finnish kindergarten. Keywords: space, autonomy, early childhood education and care, team ethnography. Introduction Children’s autonomy is a cultural ideal in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC), and in this article we will examine autonomy in spa- articles journal of pedagogy 1/2018 46 tial terms. We aim to show through our investigations of the empirical data how autonomy unfolds as spaces are produced in ECEC. For the purposes of this article, space is understood as relationally produced in social relations. Similarly, we understand autonomy as a controversial concept, with multiple meanings and interpretations. Our starting point is that Finnish ECEC has been shaped historically and relationally, and carries traces of various ideals and values that have been underlined in education practices. Children’s autonomy is one of these topical ideals and characteristics of Finnish ECEC. For example, Strandell (2012), in her analysis, characterizes Finnish ECEC as valuing children’s independence, autonomy and agency. Being capable, independent and agentic are linked to having and showing respect and responsibility for others around us. For example, the National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (2017, p. 17) stresses that one of the aims of ECEC is to guide children towards “acting responsibly and sustainably, respecting other people and becoming a member of society.” Therefore, becoming a skilled team worker and a person with interaction skills, as is also described in the curriculum, involves valuing and taking others’ views into consideration. As Broström and colleagues have said (Broström, Skriver Jensen & Hansen, 2016), in the Nordic context, autonomy is seen as a basis for educating children to develop democratic values and for fostering participation in society both today and in the future (also Vallberg Roth, 2014; Gulløv, 2011; Bennet, 2010). To investigate how autonomy is constructed in practices we utilize relational approaches to space. We understand space in the sense that Fuller and Löw (2017) and Massey (2005) do: as continuously negotiated, reconstructed and reorganized phenomena. In this ongoing production of relational space, the physical environment, personal interpretations of physical and cultural space, and culturally and collectively shared views of space entwine (Soja, 1996; Raittila, 2008). Understanding that human action produces meaningful space (Raittila, 2012; Fuller & Löw, 2017) makes it possible to explore how children and adults produce space relationally by combining personal interpretations and shared views of kindergartens as physical and cultural spaces. By approaching kindergarten as a relational space that contains cultural and educational ideals and values, we explore how autonomy is produced by children and adults in educational institutions. It is expressed and lived in diverse ways, and has links to independence, freedom and responsibility. journal of pedagogy 1/2018 Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction – explorations during team ethnography... 47 Thus, in this article we focus on how different actors construct and perform kindergarten as space, and how, as a result of this construction, autonomy unfolds in the cultural setting of a Finnish kindergarten. In our analysis, we will use data from an ethnographic project conducted in a Finnish kindergarten. This ethnographic data generation process has involved various data collection methods with diverse participants (parents, children and educators). The joint discussions and both the theory and data driven reflections within the team of researchers has enabled us to investigate the process of constructing space from various perspectives, as an ongoing phenomenon and as a process of formation. Space and Autonomy in Finnish ECEC In line with spatial sociology (Fuller & Löw, 2017) and with the view on relational space, we are interested in the ways spaces are produced and the consequences of that. Olwig and Gulløv (2003, p. 10) note that space can be “used as an analytical tool to understand the social life of children.” This points to personal, social and political questions of childhood. Carefully analysing reciprocal relationships in physical surroundings and in relational space-making makes it possible to discover the positions children can achieve in society (Olwig & Gulløv, 2003) and, particularly, children’s possibilities for acting and defining everyday space. Space does not simply exist, but is created in action. Children’s spaces in kindergarten are shaped in relations that go beyond here and now contexts. Relations refer to those contexts and networks from which we learn to see and interpret the built environment and the different discourses about space sedimented in the social relations and structures of our lives. Relations include power structures and individual choices, as well as reciprocity and interdependencies between actors (Pierce et al., 2011). Every child, educator and parent constructs the kindergarten space from their own position in society, with the knowledge and ‘pre-interpretations’ they have taken on in their own networks (see Pierce et al., 2011). Linked to this process is the social and cultural aspect of relational space that refers to the values, rules and symbols of culture, politics and ideology (Soja, 1996; Raittila, 2008). For example, kindergarten space is ‘determined’ as a space for education and care in society. People, including the children in the kindergarten space, have cultural and social knowledge about this space, such as how it could be organized and used (Raittila, 2012; Vuorisalo, Rutanen & Raittila, 2015). articles journal of pedagogy 1/2018 48 In this article, we approach kindergarten as a relational space that contains cultural and educational ideals and values, including autonomy. We understand space as being socially constructed, interlinked and embedded in cultural and ideological frames that offer definitions of that space. Space is constructed through a continuous process, thus the ideologies, ideals and values in that space present particular constraints, boundaries and possibilities for defining that space. (Soja, 1996; Löw, 2008) When a particular process of constructing space is in focus, such as that in the kindergarten space, the cultural ideologies are intertwined in this construction. In this article, we will investigate how central aspects of autonomy appear when space is negotiated. The concept of autonomy has deep roots in education. During the Enlightenment, the autonomous subject became the subject of education (Readings, 1996). The function of education was to form rational, self-governing, knowing and free subjects, who made responsible judgements in society. Dahlberg and Moss (2005) recognize that these same values guide education today. They summarize the aim of education: “the subject, in short, must be formed to be able to exercise freedom and responsibility” (p. 20). The core act of autonomy is usually seen to be a capacity to make responsible choices where relationships and interdependence between humans and things are evaluated (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005). Rose (1999) adds a further aspect in emphasizing people’s capacity to recognize their desires and fulfil their potential as features of autonomy. However, autonomy is an ambiguous phenomenon. The other side of the coin is control and autonomy always has its limits in society (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005). A responsible participant should know these limits while acting autonomously and utilizing his or her freedom of choice. Our interest in children’s autonomy in kindergarten arose initially from the clues in the empirical data. We combined the empirical cues with our theoretical starting point that space is imbued with ideals and ideology (Soja, 1996; Massey, 2005), and with previous research (e.g. Strandell, 2012) that understands autonomy as one of the values and ideals present in the negotiations of space. This cultural ideal and the value of children as autonomous actors enables particular negotiations but delimits others. The starting point for autonomy is that an actor that seizes the opportunities offered by the space, is active and shows initiative, and is free to use and construct that space by using the resources and opportunities it offers. However, this should all happen in a responsible way within the jointly constructed limits. For example, as we will show later, children recognize particular opportuni- journal of pedagogy 1/2018 Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction – explorations during team ethnography... 49 ties in the daily events and routines in ECEC. They recognize the moments for freedom and how much freedom they have to make their own decisions about activities. They also recognize and identify the moments when they are expected to follow more tightly the preplanned schedule and particular routines. These degrees of freedom alternate during the day. However, in autonomy the question is not only about freedom, but also about responsibility. In the everyday flow of events, the actors learn first the boundaries and restrictions, and then start to maneuver their way around the activities and adjust their actions to these boundaries, and even challenge boundaries. If we focus on investigating the aspect of responsibility in freedom, it becomes obvious that children themselves participate in actualizing the ideologies and ideals in ECEC (e.g. Millei & Imre, 2016). This occurs when their actions fit into the structure and routines in ECEC, but they are also able to seize their freedom in those moments in which there is no place for it. In other words, they are able to use and construct that space for their own benefit. Thus, autonomy assumes a certain independence. In summary, we approach autonomy as an interrelated combination of freedom and responsibility, where freedom refers to an individual’s independence and responsibility existing in relations as a negotiated attribute of social living. This notion of relational space has helped us in our attempt to investigate empirically the unfolding of autonomy, in terms of children’s possibilities for defining space, for acting and utilizing their freedom of choice within the boundaries of the jointly constructed space. We move away from a concept of autonomy as an individual capacity, and instead investigate how autonomy unfolds as a spatial construction. Theories of space offer tools to investigate how ideologies form and shape in space and in relations. Thus, autonomy is constructed by diverse actors who have different roles and responsibilities in ECEC and in young children’s lives, and also by children themselves. Ethnography and the Analysis This article is based on team ethnography (e.g. Lahelma, Lappalainen, Mietola & Palmu, 2014) conducted in a kindergarten in Finland. The broad focus of the project was to investigate how daily practices, culture and pedagogical spaces are constructed. All three authors of this article and one research assistant collected the ethnographic data in the same kindergarten (see Rutanen, Raittila & Vuorisalo, forthcoming; also Paavilainen, 2017). Over a period of about half a year (2–3 days a week), we followed the everyday activities in the kindergarten, in three groups, one consisting of under- articles journal of pedagogy 1/2018 50 threes and two groups of three to five year-olds. In addition to the observations and our written notes, we also made video recordings of selected events during the day and conducted interviews with educators, children and parents. Throughout our team ethnography, we held regular meetings to discuss the data collection and our individual observations. The data were handled confidentially and only shared within the research group. All names used in this article are pseudonyms. The data are examined in light of the perspectives on autonomy described above, including, particularly, the aspects of freedom and responsibility in action, which are also related to independence and the individual’s ’opportunities for choice-making. After a preliminary reading of the data, the analysis focused on episodes that offer rich events where these central features of autonomy could be interpreted. In analysing the observational data, we focused on, on the one hand, children’s free choice and independence, and, on the other hand, how children negotiate or even exceed some of the boundaries set by their physical environment and adult expectations. In the data from the interviews with educators and parents, our analytical gaze focused on negotiations of autonomy as expectations related to the child’s independence. With these different gazes on the diverse data, we shed light on how autonomy unfolds in the process of negotiating kindergarten space and everyday life in ECEC. Autonomy Unfolding in Kindergarten Space In our illustration we start by discussing a selected episode. Our analysis of an indoor morning session after breakfast demonstrates that the foundations of children’s spaces are constructed at the crossroads between the (pedagogical) practice of daily life and the free flow of children’s action. This episode is followed by accounts from educators and parents that illustrate how the construction of space and autonomy is also linked to their views and accounts of the children’s independence and distance from the parents. Autonomy as negotiated within pedagogical practices and children’s freedom The institutional starting point structuring the actions in the daily practice in this kindergarten is guided by a schedule determined by the educators. The schedule is presented to the parents and children in many ways. In this particular setting, the daily (Figure 1, on page 52) and weekly timeta- journal of pedagogy 1/2018 Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction – explorations during team ethnography... 51 bles and pedagogical programme were displayed on the wall in the entrance hall. The basic structure of the day was presented in picture form for the children (Figure 2, on page 52). Timetables and pedagogical programmes are agreements between educators about how the (pedagogical) practice of kindergarten is organized; these indicate the order of the events and how long each activity is planned to last. This general time structure is crucial for directing children’s actions and explicitly indicating some of the spatial boundaries regarding their freedom. At the same time, the children have their own opportunities to select and ‘shape’ their spaces. This is illustrated by the following extract from an observation of a morning with a group of three to five year-olds (10-17 children) and three educators: At 8:50 ten children and Niilo (educator) come back to the classroom from the dining room after having had breakfast. Niilo asks who would like to do arts and crafts with him first. Elsa, Aino and Satu are keen to participate and they go to sit at the table the educator has prepared for arts and crafts. Other children freely choose different activities. Roni, Olli, Aimo and Ossi mark off their play area in the corner of the classroom with chairs. Eerik shows the Batman print on his t-shirt to Olli, while the other boys construct their play corner. After getting the corner ready Roni, Olli, Aimo and Ossi start to browse through a Lego catalogue and to chat about their favourite things in it. Eerik peeps into the boys’ corner every now and then from under the table, but does not get invited to join the group. Sanni sits alone at the desk and starts to arrange Hama beads following a pattern. Vilma remains on her own at first, but then Anu arrives and they start to build a mermaid’s hut. At 9:35 Roni, Olli and Ossi start building something with the Lego blocks and Aimo continues reading books. These four boys continue playing together for over an hour. At 9:40 Annette (educator) comes and asks some of the children to join her for a painting workshop in the dining room. Anu, Vilma, Erkka, Eerik and Reko follow Annette and they paint a post box for the children’s group. While I was momentarily watching the painting workshop, Robin and Joona came into the classroom and started playing together. I continued to observe in the classroom where Erja (the third educator) came in at 10:15 and immediately began to finish the Hama bead pieces by ironing them. By this time, three children had joined in to make things with the Hama beads. At 10:30 Roni said he was bored. Niilo replied articles journal of pedagogy 1/2018 52 saying that sometimes life is boring and suggested that Roni go and lie on the big cushion and read books. Roni didn›t take up the suggestion. At 10:35 Annette comes back from the painting workshop with the children and the finished post box. Now, there are 17 children and 3 adults in the room and the children are doing different activities. Reko starts reading books. Anu and Vilma go back to their mermaid’s hut. At 10:40 Erja (educator) takes seven children to the other room for gym. Niilo chats with Reko who is reading alone. At 11:05 the gym group comes back and Niilo starts to organize circle time for the whole group. The description above shows what happened over two hours and 15 minutes. In general, the description gives a very dynamic picture of early childhood education: there is a wide variety of activity going on. The morning is usually the time for planned pedagogic activity in Finnish kindergartens. The space is at least partially predesigned and controlled by the educators and children often have less freedom than during other moments of the day. However, this example shows that these pre-structured activities, and the Figure 1 Figure 2 journal of pedagogy 1/2018 Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction – explorations during team ethnography... 53 more controlled spaces relating to them, can also be optional. All three educators, Niilo, Annette and Erja, openly invited the children to participate in more structured activities and the children had the freedom to decide when and if they wanted to take part in adult-led or suggested activity. During that particular morning, the children who did not join the adultled activities were free to move from one child and activity to another at their own will. Some children, like Vilma and Anu, used this opportunity to independently and repeatedly reconstruct their spaces during the morning without educators’ influence. The space frames varied in terms of physical space, the participants in the space, or the activities performed in space and the nuances of those. Some children moved between an adult-led pedagogical space and a more clearly self-constructed space. The varied aims of the different activities also led to the construction of separate spaces and the variation in autonomy discussed below. Some of the activities organized by the educators were clearly structured from a pedagogical orientation. For example, the arts and crafts workshop and the painting workshop were both aimed at developing children’s hand and fine motor skills, creativity and concentration. However, pedagogical goals and spaces also appear when the children are allowed to construct activities following their own interests. That morning, Sanni chose to work on her own with the Hama beads. This kind of work demands good concentration skills, especially in a room where more than ten other children are working. This is an example of how children are able to create pedagogical spaces without intervention by an educator or through adult-led activities. In this kind of situation children also utilize their freedom in a responsible manner. The length of time the children’s freely chosen play spaces can exist for is limited by the predesigned schedule (Figure 1). On that particular morning Roni, Olli, Aimo and Ossi succeeded in constructing and maintaining the same play space for an hour. The boys had extensive freedom to organize their physical and social space. They marked their physical space out by separating it from the rest of the room using chairs. The social space changed as the boys decided to do two different activities: Aimo read a book and the other boys built things out of Lego. The boys’ autonomy was actualized in the relational space where social and physical spaces intertwine. Eerik tried to enter their play space by peeping in now and then, but they paid no attention to Eerik’s efforts. In this way, they defended their play space so that it was just for the four of them, and they kept their distance from the others. articles journal of pedagogy 1/2018 60 (Eerola-Pennanen, 2013). The former refers to knowledge about how to participate in adult-led small group action and how to organize the independent action freely, parallel to the guided activities. The latter refers to the possibilities that space offers with its different kind of objects, such as the shallow shelves or other furniture and toys available. In the process of constructing the space, the children could stretch the boundaries between the adult-led and self-organized spaces. The concept of autonomy was empirically associated with the attributes of freedom and responsibility that we identified in our first example. There was an openness to initiative-taking and spontaneity within the overall structures, which are often, but not always, predefined. It is in the encounter between freedom and responsibility and within their tensions and negotiations that the space and children’s autonomy are constructed. Here we follow on from previous research into children’s spaces and places that shed light on how places organized for children and children’s own places intertwine with each other (Rasmussen, 2003; Raittila, 2008). Educators continuously construct kindergarten spaces not only through their actions but also through their accounts and reflections. The interview data showed how they evaluate the child and children’s behaviour in relation to the structures and the routines in the setting and their own work. A child who is able to use the structures to construct his or her own space and agency in relation to the potential and available opportunities ‘does well’, both socially and emotionally. Similar to the observational data on practices, the educators’ verbal accounts emphasized freedom and responsibility. They also stressed that children’s developing independency and selfmanagement skills within the routines and rhythm of the day are important resources for children. The parents are observers and play a part in ECEC practices through their accounts; thus, they also produce and reproduce the children’s autonomy in the kindergarten space. However, they themselves position ECEC as a distant, separate and unique place to which they do not have full access. It is the child’s own world, outside the home, beyond parental knowledge and influence, reach, and control. The parents acknowledge the limits of their knowledge and, thus, of their participation in the world of the child that was previously shared and embedded in the private sphere of the home. The parents are nonparticipants rather than participants of the daily practices of the kindergarten. The children also recognize this tension and utilize their autonomy as freedom to keep the kindergarten as their own space. They choose journal of pedagogy 1/2018 Kindergarten space and autonomy in construction – explorations during team ethnography... 61 what to tell the parents and they know that their parents do not have the same knowledge of daily practices as they have. This is part of the relational construction of the children’s autonomy where the children have an active role, and the parents are engaged with the ideal of the independent child. The experience of autonomy is lived through everyday action in the kindergarten and by the educators and children together. This analysis shows that achieving autonomy is not only an educational goal, but that it also affects the way space is organized, through the experience of daily life in ECEC. As an ideology and ideal, it envelops the space of kindergarten practice and, as a value basis, it overlaps simultaneously with everyday practices and accounts of how kindergarten space is determined. It is inevitable that through these practices children also learn broader political ideologies, such as democracy, rights and the responsibilities of members of society (Millei & Imre, 2016; Strandell, 2012). On the basis of our investigation, we understand autonomy as extending from separate actions and producing an ‘ethos’ of the space where the practices indicate a joint awareness of the diverse opportunities and limitations affecting children’s and adults’ ability to participate in the production of that space. The child moves through these accounts and narratives of the various actors. It is a space that is future-oriented and that is continuously constructed based on previously created experiences and meanings. It is both simultaneously being constructed whilst constructing further social relations. In conclusion, theories of space offer tools to investigate how ideologies and cultural ideals are formed and shaped in space and in relations and how, in turn, space shapes them. Ideologies, ideals and goals are present in this, guiding our doings and thinking and spatial approaches offer productive tools for illuminating how these values and ideals operate in educational practices. This article has merely sketched out one perspective that should be developed further. Acknowledgements We are grateful to the editors and reviewers for their helpful comments on our article. This article is based on the data collected as part of the ‘Children’s paths in early childhood education’ project at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. We are grateful to the kindergarten, and, particularly, to the children, educators and parents who allowed us to conduct the ethnography in their center. 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Constructing relational space in early childhood education. Early Years, 35(1), 67–79. Williams, P. (2001). Preschool routines, peer learning and participation. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 45(4), 317–339. Authors: Mari Vuorisalo, Ph.D. University of Tampere Faculty of Education Tampere FI-33014 Finland E-mail: [email protected] Raija Raittila, Ph.D. University of Jyväskylä Faculty of Education and Psychology P.O. Box 35 FI-40014 Jyväskylä Finland E-mail: [email protected] Niina Rutanen, Assoc. Professor University of Jyväskylä Faculty of Education and Psychology P.O. Box 35 FI-40014 Jyväskylä E-mail: [email protected]