Children's Perspectives on Their Learning in School Spaces : What Can We Learn from Children in Brazil and Finland

Vol.:(0123456789) International Journal of Early Childhood (2018) 50:259–277 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-018-0228-6 1 3 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Children’s Perspectives onTheir Learning inSchool Spaces: What Can We Learn fromChildren inBrazil andFinland? Juliene Madureira Ferreira1 · Kirsti Karila2 · Luciana Muniz3 · Paula Faria Amaral3 · Reijo Kupiainen4 Published online: 15 October 2018 © The Author(s) 2018 Abstract In this study, we investigated children’s perceptions of their learning experiences in early childhood education and care using data from two different settings: Brazil and Finland. We adopted a qualitative and cross-national research design. Photographs were used to gather children’s representations of their learning places and spaces and also later to elicit reflections during group interviews. This process of using photographs allowed us to elicit children’s perceptions about their learning. The analysis consisted of content categorization of the photographs, content analysis of the interviews, and juxtaposition of materials in a comparative framework. The children represented and conceived their learning experience in four categories of school spaces: objects, actions, significant others, and cultural practices. By analyzing each of these categories, we identify five core elements of children’s perceptions about their learning: relevance of peer interactions; recognition of learning through play; children’s acknowledgment of their own competence for learning; school spaces as places for learning actions; and present time as the timeframe for learning. Practical implications of these findings are discussed, including the importance and relevance of considering children’s perceptions. Keywords Learning spaces· Children’s perceptions· Cultural practices· Multicultural research Résumé Dans cette étude, nous avons examiné les perceptions des enfants de leurs expériences d’apprentissage dans les services d’éducation et de garde de la petite enfance à l’aide de données provenant de deux milieux différents: le Brésil et la Finlande. Nous avons adopté un devis de recherche qualitatif et plurinational. Des photographies ont servi à recueillir les représentations des enfants de leurs espaces d’apprentissage et également, à un stade ultérieur, à susciter des réflexions chez les enfants lors d’entretiens *Juliene Madureira Ferreira juliene.madureira.fer[email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article 260 J.M.Ferreira et al. 1 3 de groupe. Le processus d’utilisation de photographies nous a permis d’obtenir les perceptions des enfants de leur apprentissage. L’analyse consistait à catégoriser les photographies, analyser le contenu des entretiens et juxtaposer le matériel dans un cadre comparatif. Les enfants ont représenté leur expérience d’apprentissage dans quatre catégories d’espaces scolaires: les objets, les actions, les personnes significatives et les pratiques culturelles. En analysant ces catégories, nous avons identifié cinq éléments fondamentaux de la perception des enfants de leur apprentissage: la pertinence des interactions entre pairs, la reconnaissance de l’apprentissage par le jeu, la reconnaissance par les enfants de leur propre compétence d’apprentissage, les espaces scolaires comme lieux d’actions d’apprentissage, et le temps présent comme cadre temporel d’apprentissage. Les conséquences concrètes de ces résultats sont discutées, notamment l’importance et la pertinence des perceptions des enfants de leur propre apprentissage. Resumen Este estudio investigó las percepciones de niños sobre sus experiencias de aprendizaje en los primeros años de educación en la escuela y centros de cuidado infantil, utilizando datos producidos en dos contextos diferentes: Brasil y Finlandia. Se adoptó un diseño cualitativo y cruzado a nivel nacional. Se utilizaron fotografías para recolectar las representaciones de los niños de sus espacios de aprendizaje, y así mismo, para captar sus reflexiones durante entrevistas en grupo. El uso de fotografías permitió a los investigadores captar las percepciones de los niños sobre su aprendizaje. El análisis consistió en categorizaciones de fotografías, análisis del contenido de las entrevistas, y yuxtaposición de materiales en un marco comparativo. Los niños representaron sus experiencias de aprendizaje en cuatro categorías de espacios en la escuela: objetos, acciones, personas especiales y prácticas culturales. El análisis de estas categorías permitió la identificación de cinco elementos principales en las percepciones de los niños sobre su aprendizaje: importancia de sus interacciones con compañeros; reconocimiento del aprendizaje a través del juego; reconocimiento de los niños de sus propias competencias para el aprendizaje; espacios escolares como sitios de aprendizaje; y el ahora como marco temporal de aprendizaje. Este estudio también analiza las implicancias prácticas de estos hallazgos, incluyendo la importancia y relevancia de las percepciones de los niños acerca de su aprendizaje. Introduction Studies focused on exploring children’s perspectives have gained prominence since the late 1990s. In general, such studies have identified children as important contributors to the investigation of their own reality. Listening to children’s voices enables researchers to understand social phenomena with greater clarity (Sant’Ana 2010) and to access an entirely new world of meanings about the lives of children (Trautwein and Goncalves 2010; Pálmadóttir and Einarsdóttir 2016). Colliver and Fleer (2016) argued that understanding young children’s perspectives can provide educators with concrete information to effectively guide their practices toward improving 261 1 3 Children’s Perspectives onTheir Learning inSchool Spaces:… children’s learning outcomes, as expected by contemporary curriculum frameworks across the globe. Nevertheless, when it comes to defining learning and reflecting on its processes, younger children have been historically left out of this conversation. A substantial body of research argues that young children are incapable of understanding what learning is and reflecting on their own learning process. Metacognition is considered to be an ability that does not develop in children who are less than 4years of age (Larkin 2010; Powell etal. 2011). Additionally, current studies in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) prefer to investigate learning by focusing on its outcomes, which are particularly linked to the effectiveness of educational programs or practices aimed at the acquisition of specific knowledge or skills (Burger 2015; Goodrich etal. 2017; Helal and Weil-Barais 2015; Landry etal. 2017). For such reasons, the focus on children’s perspectives of their learning experiences is not a topic that has been extensively explored. We consider it important to understand learning processes from the perspective of children. Similar to the significant advances that have been made to overcome the methodological challenges in children’s participation in research (Clark 2005), we believe that efforts should be made to reduce the conceptual gaps between adults’ acknowledgment of children’s competence and understand children’s perspectives about learning. In this study, we address learning from the perspective of experience, which is defined by Larrosa (2002) as something that happens and transforms us. The learning experience is a process by which situations are able to influence the way we are constituted in a certain time (moment of life) and space. Therefore, a particular focus is given to how the contextual elements play a role in defining the learning experience. As learning can happen in different social contexts, time, and space, in this study, we clarify that we are interested in the learning experiences in ECEC context and in the school as a learning space. We investigate children’s perceptions of their learning experiences in the contexts of early childhood education (i.e., daycare centers or schools) by addressing the following research questions: 1. How do children perceive their learning experiences in ECEC settings? What ideas do children use to express what they understand of their own learning experiences? 2. What associations do children establish between their learning and the spaces in which they learn in ECEC contexts? 3. To what extent do cultural differences influence how children perceive their learning experiences in ECEC? School asaLearning Space To reflect on the idea of learning spaces in ECEC, we draw on Soja’s (1996) concepts of Firstspace, Secondspace, and Thirdspace, which offer a more multidimensional and relational idea of space and point to an integration of human and 262 J.M.Ferreira et al. 1 3 environmental constituents. According to Soja (1996), space is not identified or defined solely by its material elements or geographical position; space has different dimensions, all directly related to culture, ideology, social rules, values, and human activity. Soja’s interconnected dimensions of Firstspace (i.e., physical structures that compose the environment), Secondspace (i.e., personal meanings about the physical environment), and Thirdspace (i.e., cultural and social aspects that influence individual interpretations of space) are primal and connected to the individual. This understanding of space highlights how human action creates and defines space; at the same time, space provides affordances to certain actions in a dialectic process of constitution. When we rely on these concepts of space to reflect on the learning experiences of children in ECEC, we recognize that children are a part of the construction of ECEC spaces and vice versa. Previous studies addressing children’s perspectives of school space have focused on the use of physical space (Einarsdottir 2005), children’s participation in the process of space construction (Vuorisalo etal. 2015), and children’s agency in certain spaces or learning environments (Emilson and Folkesson 2004). Such studies have shown how adults and children relate to space jointly, and how children play an important role in defining the use of materials and physical spaces. The findings call for increased participation of children in the decisions that affect their school routine and the importance of considering peer relations in the context of ECEC. However, they do not address questions on how children live and understand their learning in the school space. Therefore, instead of examining the physical space, our aim is to focus specifically on the process of meaning making by which the experiences of learning are signified while in the school space. We aim to understand these experiences as the element that transforms the school in a learning space. In line with the notion of Thirdspace, it is possible to focus on individual learning experiences and explore possibilities that a certain environment (in this case, ECEC) in different cultural settings offers for learning processes. In this sense, children’s representations and perceptions of the school space reveal elements of their subjective and social life and experience, and these elements are part of how this experience is produced and negotiated in a shared process. Methods Study Contexts: Brazil andFinland In Brazil, as in Finland, ECEC is recognized as a universal right of all children since birth. Rutanen etal. (2014) have highlighted similarities between the two countries regarding the central value of human dignity, the understanding of the child’s right to life and full development, and the upholding of the child’s right to daycare services before compulsory schooling. In Brazil, ECEC is governed by the Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA, Ministry of Education of Brazil 1990) and the Law of General Guidelines for Education n. 9.394\96 (Ministry of Education of Brazil 1996), and this service is to be provided 263 1 3 Children’s Perspectives onTheir Learning inSchool Spaces:… by daycare centers (0–3years old) or pre-primary schools (4–5years old) under the pedagogical responsibility and budgetary administration of the municipalities (Ministry of Education of Brazil 2006). According to the Brazilian National Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education, ECEC should provide the conditions to ensure recognition, appreciation, respect, and interaction among children, promoting their integral development and respecting their individual needs (Ministry of Education of Brazil 2010). Like in Brazil, Finnish ECEC is regulated at the national level, but municipalities are responsible for its organization and provision (Act on Early Childhood Education and Care 2018/540). In Finland, ECEC is based on an integrated approach to education and care, the so-called “educare” model. Finnish legislation defines ECEC as a planned and goal-oriented entity of education, nurture, and care, with an emphasis on pedagogy. However, despite a similar understanding of the role of ECEC in the child’s development and recognizing it as a universal right of all children, Brazil and Finland have materialized this service in very distinct ways. While in Finland the participation rate in the fairly equal and homogenous ECEC system is around 75% among the 3–5-year-olds, in Brazil this figure is still below 50% (INEP 2016), frustrating the expectations in the National Plan for Education (Ministry of Education of Brazil 2016). Additionally, in Brazil, the entire educational system is plagued by social inequality and inequity, which results in different ECEC services according to locality, income, and race. Albeit it is evident that both nations face different problems, it is also true that they aim to enhance children’s participation (Santos 2010; Carvalho etal. 2009) and share the concern to find innovative ways to promote significant learning while avoiding “schoolification” of ECEC. There is a significant investment on reviewing internal policies and practices (Hietamäki etal. 2017; Simões and Lima 2016), which by culturally contextualizing international debates on ECEC, Brazil and Finland have evidenced their commitment to diminish social inequalities by investing in quality education. Therefore, the rationale of choosing these countries is that we recognize and value the distinct cultural characteristics of Brazil and Finland, interpreting them as an element that can enrich the investigation of a complex phenomenon such as the learning experiences of children. Methodological Approach This study adopted an abductive process of reasoning (Okasha 2002) in which scientific thinking prioritizes information that comes from data rather than seeking to confirm a specific theoretical hypothesis. Furthermore, we base the analytical process on the principles of qualitative methodology presented by González-Rey (2009). These principles focus on the study of subjectivity by considering the constructive–interpretative and singular character of the production of scientific knowledge and by understanding research as a dialogical process. The constructive–interpretative methodology allows a nonlinear relation with the field of research and its participants. Data are not taken from the participants, but rather produced and interpreted considering reflections, dialogs, and an entire communication system that 264 J.M.Ferreira et al. 1 3 grants centrality to those involved in the research (González-Rey 2014). Thus, we allow for the non-standardized in the context of research, emphasizing the quality of the information produced and placing the researcher in the midst of interpretations. In the following sections, we outline the way in which we undertook this methodological path. Participants The participants consisted of forty 3–6-year-old children from one ECEC school in each country. Participants were randomly selected from a total of 225 and 52 children in the Brazilian school and the Finnish daycare center, respectively. Children were only included if they manifested a wish to participate in the study and if their parents consented to their participation. It is important to add that both ECEC schools had children from different social backgrounds, which resulted in a heterogeneous group of children. In the Brazilian context, cultural diversity is a characteristic feature of the society, and the different socioeconomic backgrounds of the children added to this heterogeneity. In the Finnish context, diverse economic backgrounds contributed to the heterogeneity, in this case, because there has been a significant increase of foreigners in the educational system. Thus, the sampled groups included children from different classes: middle, low-income, and upper-middle. Ethical Considerations The ethical committee of the Federal University of Uberlândia (CAAE 43646815.2.0000.5152) and municipal authorities approved this study. In line with the guidelines of responsible and ethical research with human beings, data containing the real names of the children or the school were kept confidential. Children’s names were replaced by fictitious ones, and pictures containing images of people (e.g., other children, teachers, or staff members) were altered to prevent identification. To ensure that the parents of all children involved were aware and supportive of the research, formal written consent agreements were obtained. Additionally, children were consulted and took part of the study only if interested. They were also able to leave the study whenever they wanted. Data Collection Participants were divided into three groups of six to seven children according to their age (3–4-year-olds; 4–5-year-olds; and 5–6-year-olds) for the discussion groups. Data were then collected by a two-step process, which was applied in both settings similarly. The first step explored children’s representation of the connections they created between learning and the spaces that they used, constructed, and lived in the school. This procedure consisted of a group session in which children were invited to talk about what it meant to learn in school, and immediately after to walk around the school and photograph the spaces, objects, people, or situations that they thought 265 1 3 Children’s Perspectives onTheir Learning inSchool Spaces:… were related to learning. Photographs have been used in sociological (Allen 2012), psychological (Blackbeard and Lindegger 2007), and educational studies (Harcourt and Mazzoni 2012; Loughlin 2013). They are a powerful tool to capture individual representation, enabling, for example, children to present their views through a means of other than just language (Clark 2005; Cook and Hess 2007; Einarsdottir 2005). During the walk around the school, in pairs, children could autonomously use the camera (provided by the researchers) and were permitted to take as many pictures as they liked (67 in the Brazilian groups and 250 in the Finnish groups). Later, the researchers organized these photographs and excluded the ones that had exactly the same content. Thus, each group from each country had about 10–30 pictures. In the second step, children’s reflections about the learning processes and the contents in those particular spaces photographed by them were sought. In this case, photography was used as a tool to establish a dialog with the children, contextualizing the content of their perceptions, and allowing their voices to be expressed. For this step, researchers conducted a group interview session and used the chosen pictures of each group to initiate the discussion. They guided the reflections with using questions such as: Why did you choose this picture? Where are you? What happens when you are in this place? What can you do in these places? Do you think you are learning something when you are there? What would that be? Who are you with when you are learning? The interviews with the children were audiotaped and transcribed for the content analysis. All data collection procedures were administered to each group of children separately; and it is important to note that the same research protocols and instructions were used in both countries. Analysis The data collection generated two different sets of material for analysis: children’s pictures and the transcripts of children’s reflective narratives. We focused only on the most obvious meaning of the pictures, without applying any technical or artistic measurements (Thinker 2013). Through this process, we created a map of children’s representations in each age group according to the following categories that emerged from the analysis process of the content of the pictures: (a) inside/outside and (b) object, person, place, and scene (i.e., place with people doing something). Next, content analysis was used to examine the interview transcripts of all the groups. Thought the study used an abductive approach, questions were used as (pre) structured topics to guide the interview. The dimensions for the analysis were as follows: (a) Where I learn; (b) What I learn; (c) When I learn, and (d) Who I learn from/with. Thus, the coding process involved identifying elements that were directly related to these themes. The results were grouped into four categories that emerged from the content analysis, revealing how children perceive their learning experience in those particular school spaces: objects, action, significant others, and cultural practices. 266 J.M.Ferreira et al. 1 3 To ensure thoroughness in coding, both materials were analyzed first in the country of origin (Brazilian data analyzed in Brazil and Finnish data in Finland), and subsequently, by the partner country. However, for juxtaposition of the data and cross-cultural understanding of the phenomenon, we added another phase in which the whole corpus was discussed by a multicultural group of researchers. In this process, we analyzed divergent results and incorporated translations of cultural elements that were essential to contextualize and understand each dataset. While crosscultural comparison only shows differences and similarities, juxtaposition allows their integration, revealing the core elements of the phenomenon. Results The first steps of the data analysis resulted in a map of children’s representations (see Table1). This map shows how the children in each age group in each country represented the relations between the learning experience and school space with their pictures. Brazilian children represented their learning experiences with pictures that chiefly focused on objects or places. Pictures of objects included swings in the playground, stairs, taps in the toilet, books from the library, plants from the greenhouse, and decorations in the classroom. The places registered by the children covered not only their classroom, playground, and yard but also the cafeteria and the green area that surrounded the school, which the children referred to as the “magic forest.” This variety of images suggests that the children understand their learning processes as something that also happens outside of the traditional classroom environment; the processes do not relate exclusively to academic activities structured by the teacher. Finnish children also represented their learning experiences by mainly focusing on objects and places. Indoor places registered by the children included entrance halls, toilets, corridors, and rooms for various activities, such as sleeping, gymnastics, handcrafts, and morning circles. Outdoor places represented in the pictures consisted of the playground and the yard. Among the pictures of objects were chairs, Table 1 Summary on the content focus of children’s photographs Three groups of six to seven children participated in the study from each country and were grouped within the research for the discussions according to their age (3–4-year-olds; 4–5-year-olds and 5–6-yearolds) Age group Inside spaces Outside spaces Objects Persons Places Scenes G1—Brazil 2 12 5 1 7 1 G2—Brazil 4 6 2 0 5 3 G3—Brazil 8 6 3 0 6 5 G1—Finland 29 2 6 3 20 2 G2—Finland 26 3 7 0 21 1 G3—Finland 18 7 9 0 14 2 267 1 3 Children’s Perspectives onTheir Learning inSchool Spaces:… tables, beds, smart boards, books, materials for handcrafts and morning circle activities, letters and written rules on the wall, shoes, and coat racks. In addition, objects used in physical exercises such as outdoor slides and indoor ladders were captured. Pictures taken by the 3-year-old children, to represent their learning experience, also featured other people (children taking photos with an iPad). In contrast, the pictures taken by 6-year-old children more frequently featured various pedagogical objects such as letters and smart boards. This variety of elements photographed conveys that the children understand their learning as something that can happen everywhere in the daycare center, in the material spaces available to them. Further, the analysis of the interview transcripts yielded four response categories that summarized how children perceived their learning experience. We represent these categories in Fig.1, and in the following section, we use them to exemplify children’s perceptions along with excerpts from the original datasets. Category 1: Objects Objects often appeared in the children’s pictures, and their narratives revealed the connection between the learning experiences and the objects in school, both indoors and outdoors: “This way… hmm, like we are going to slide and then to swing and … with one foot go bouncing all the way to the floor.” (Anna, 5years old, referring to the pictures with the slides). Additionally, children referred to their learning experiences when using the various tools designed to create a child-friendly pedagogical environment, such as slides, smart boards, or specific elements from the school infrastructure, such as stairs and water taps in the toilet: “Climb to the ladder and … jump off it and then I don’t know … Still… Oh well… I’m going to do such balancing things, I do not remember what they are called.” (Terhi, 4years old, referring to the picture of the ladder). These narratives showed how the objects that compose different places of the school environment are part of the whole, and when in contact with these objects, Fig. 1 The four categories that emerged from the data, which revealed how children perceive their learning experiences 274 J.M.Ferreira et al. 1 3 the reference point for different activities. Peer culture is mainly constructed by the sharing of meanings and the (co)construction of play repertoire between children (Corsaro 2003, 2005). In this study, the children not only referred to peers as a reference point but also sought their voluntary and intentional assistance for learning how to do something. Hence, when reflecting on their learning experiences, the children revealed an intentionality that is rarely recognized by adults in peer-learning situations. Our analysis revealed how the children’s narratives of learning were partly influenced by the cultural manuscript of the school. By cultural manuscripts (Tan 2015; Gutierrez etal. 1995), we refer to the cultural values, assumptions, beliefs, and their manifestation in the daily practices of the schools. The national-level regulation and steering documents, as well as broader cultural beliefs, partly influence the cultures of schools. However, each school’s culture is constructed by the everyday activities that involve teachers, children, and other staff members. Thus, given that all the described situations and narratives occurred and were constructed in the actual school environment, it is possible to conclude that the school is a space of learning allows the children to construct themselves and other children significantly in the learning process. The school culture does not enforce learning from a futureoriented perspective but allows them to learn in the here and now. In addition, the children are allowed to use both outdoor and indoor spaces as learning spaces. Conclusion The children’s narratives showed how learning implies action, doing something to be experienced in the “here and now,” contextualized in their immediate interest. This is a vital aspect of how the children in this study represented and constructed the meaning of their learning experiences as independent work, or as work that is different from an adult’s teaching–learning intention. Children are agents of learning as well as producers of their own learning environment within the ECEC settings (Vuorisalo etal. 2015). When we understand learning as intertwined with material objects, actions, significant others, and cultural practices in social spaces—as relational and constructed in individual experiences—we can also see the learning environment as subject to reconstruction. This means that learning is embedded in the immediate relationships of surrounding materiality, teachers and peers as well as shaped by cultural practices, communities, and experiences of individuals (Comber 2016). The implications of these finding relate to the possibility open for children to be invited to imagine, design, and make material changes in their learning environments in ECEC settings, as they recognized their own competence for learning, exploration of places, manipulation of objects, and transformation of their surroundings to potentiate new experiences. The study supports the argument that children must be featured as protagonists in their learning processes. This study utilized the opportunity to listen to children’s voices in two different countries, and given the results, we expect that teachers, experts in education, and other professionals 275 1 3 Children’s Perspectives onTheir Learning inSchool Spaces:… involved in developing alternatives to potentiate learning may glean ideas to reflect upon their understanding of children’s learning, as well as the role of peers and the various spaces within that learning. Acknowledgements The study was conducted with the financial and infrastructure support from the Federal University of Uberlândia and Tampere University. Compliance with Ethical Standards Conflict of interest We here state that throughout the development and finalization of this work there were no situations involving financial and personal relationships that could inappropriately influence (bias) this work. Therefore, we declare no conflict of interest. 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Affiliations Juliene Madureira Ferreira1 · Kirsti Karila2 · Luciana Muniz3 · Paula Faria Amaral3 · Reijo Kupiainen4 Kirsti Karila [email protected] Luciana Muniz [email protected] Paula Faria Amaral paula.far[email protected] Reijo Kupiainen rei[email protected] 1 Faculty ofEducation andCulture, Tampere University, Åkerlundinkatu 5, Office 509 - VIRTA Building, 33014Tampere, Finland 2 Faculty ofEducation andCulture, Tampere University, Åkerlundinkatu 5, Office 303 - VIRTA Building, 33014Tampere, Finland 3 Department ofEarly Childhood Education, Teacher Training School, Federal University ofUberlândia, Rua Adutora São Pedro 41, Uberlândia, MGCEP:38400-785, Brazil 4 Norwegian University ofScience andTechnology, Trondheim, Norway