exclusion, social and emotional development, play, video recordings, early childhood
Abstract
This study examines how children express themselves in play situations that occur in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in the context of their emotional and social development. The main research question was: Which communicative recourses do children use to negotiate in play situations? How is exclusion carried out during play? A qualitative approach was deemed suitable for this study because it offers a way to examine children’s social engagements with both their peers and ECEC staff in their everyday ECEC environment. The study was conducted at eight different ECEC centres and one pre-school throughout the Swedish-speaking regions of Finland. The target group for the observations was children aged 3 – 6 years. At the time of the observations, the groups at the ECEC centres and the pre-school were made up of 10 – 20 children. We identified an overarching category of exclusion, which shows how children limit each other during play; in this article, we analyze how this is done through the imposing of various features of limits, passive resistance, and ignoring and neglecting others. To this end, the article offers detailed analysis of play situations showing children’s social and emotional capacities while also highlighting the need to examine this issue more thoroughly.
