Agency, guidance and gender - interrelated aspects of early childhood education settings

Social interaction is one of the many things what preschool life is about, and how social life is constituted is of importance to understand. In early childhood education settings, children are guided and fostered by teachers and by each other in different directions. The overall aim of the article...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Education 3-13 2020-05, Vol.48 (4), p.483-493
Main Authors: Rantala, Anna, Heikkilä, Mia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
children's agency
Discipline
Early childhood education
educational work
Ethnography
Foreign Countries
Gender
Gender Differences
Gender Issues
guidance
pedagogiskt arbete
Power Structure
Preschool
Preschool Children
Preschool Teachers
Resistance (Psychology)
Sex Stereotypes
Social interaction
Student Behavior
Student Empowerment
Teacher Behavior
Teacher Influence
Teacher Role
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Summary:Social interaction is one of the many things what preschool life is about, and how social life is constituted is of importance to understand. In early childhood education settings, children are guided and fostered by teachers and by each other in different directions. The overall aim of the article is to make a contribution to a deeper understanding of how children's agency is performed as a constantly gendered social activity and how this is affected by the guidance they receive from teachers. The relationship between agency, gender and guidance is scrutinised. By using Foucault's concepts discipline and power in combination with understandings of childhood and gender order this is explored. The empirical material consists of ethnographic observations in two preschools, and the results show how agency, gender and guidance need to be understood as relational processes when highlighting aspects of children's social life in ECE.
ISSN:0300-4279
1475-7575
1475-7575
DOI:10.1080/03004279.2019.1620305