Building community in a context of
individualization
Karen Prins, UCC Denmark
NFPF Conference Göteborg 5/3-2015
It makes sense to look at the midday meal and the
mealpreparation in early childhood institutions as an
important everyday life ritual. And by doing so we
can become aware of the community building
possibilities that the meal holds.
The study
• Part of a larger study on Everyday care situations in early childhood
institutions as learning environments, A project in UCC dept.
Learning and Didactics.
• Video recordings of everyday care situations with 7 groups of
children in 5 different institutions, and carried out groupinterviews with the participating professionals; 3 within the city of
Copenhagen,2 in the suburbs, and 2 outside of Copenhagen in a
smaller commuting town.
•
I played the recordings for the participating professionals and
asked for the explanations behind the concrete practice played out
in the recordings, and for the greater intentions for the
everydaycare situations in the institution. I specifically focused on
the midday meal.
Last year I presented my reflections on methodology
and specifically focused on videorecording.
This year I will present the first attempt of an analysis
Theoretically I draw on Bruner and Sennett a.o.
An Indiviudalized approach
From the interviews:
An understanding of children as unique and different and therefore in
need of, and entitled to, an individual approach, rather than a universal
one-size –fits-all concept.
This individual approach is by the pedagogues seen as crucial to
children’s individual learning paths as well as to their possibilities for
participation in the community in the institution.
experimenting with the spoon
child’s ability to concentrate
this child today was very tired
child were going through a hard time
They were trying in many different ways to meet the individual child.
They also reflected on new or younger children’s juggling with getting
to know when to do what, and figuring on how to master what they
called meal-competences.
I want to focus on the midday meal and community building aspects, as it
was pointed out in the interviews as one of the intentions for the midday
meal, at the same time as the vast majority of the arguments for the
concrete practice was connected to meeting the individual child in
various ways.
With Neo liberal influence in early childhood and a strong focus on
learning outcome, competences and schoolpreparation and a pedagogical
approach that seeks to meet the individual child in its many forms – we
may loose sight of community building.
Meals as Rituals
Rituals are fundamental acts of cooperation(Sennett)
Rhythm, roles, gestures, turntaking
Repetition and symbolic meaning
:Mutual exchange and participation
The Tablesetting scene
Waitingtime
Worrying for the individual child
•
If we understand this as an important everyday ritual, I suggest that
what we see is this;
• The children are all of them contributing by mutual exchange to the
preparation of the common meal, that they will enjoy together. They
are contributing to and form part of an important ritual that binds
them together.
•
The mealpreparation and the following meal itself follows a repetitive
order, that is predictable for the children, with different roleparts to be
played which they take runs in performing and with a transformation
of food and the process of eating into the important social ritual of a
meal.
• The meals have a plasticity in the sense, that they are flexible
Understanding the mealpreparation and the
meal itself as a ritual, might open the eyes of
the professionals for community building
aspects.
Professionals with the intention of
community building could ask themselves
whether the ritual of mealpreparation and
meal in their institution is based on mutual
exchange that gives the children possibilities
for contribution?
Does the ritual imply possibilities for the
children to move the habits ingrained? And
does the ritual at the same time give space to
the needs of the individual child?
Maybe that waiting time isn’t so bad after all.
Next step
Everyday life rituals in early childhood institutions and
possibilities for contribution and participation,
Community and community building
An ideal, an observable phenomena, a subjective feelling, a
structural order?
References
Ahrenkiel, A et al (2012): Daginstitutionen til hverdag: Den upåagtede
faglighed. Frydenlund. København.
Andersen, Johannes 2012: ;Måltidet
Andersen, Peter Ø. (2013): Pædagogiske læreplaner, dokumentation og
evaluering. Hans Reitzel, København.
Gulløv, Eva og Laura Guilliam 2012; Civiliserende institutioner.
Hviid Jacobsen, Michael@ Anders Petersen(red) 2012: Samfundsteori og
Samtidsdiagnose. Pædagogisk Sociologi. Unge Pædagoger – Forlaget UP.
Krogh, S, Smidt, S, Stæhr, M (2013): Midtvejsevaluering. Klynger i udvikling 2.
UCC. København.
Olwig, Karen 2012: i Gulløv og Guilliam 2012.
Plum Maja 2011: Dokumenteret faglighed: Analyser af hvordan pædagogisk
faglighed produceres gennem læreplanernes dokumentationsteknologi .
Ph.D. thesis, Københavns Universitet.
Sennett, Richard 2003; Respekt i en verden af ulighed. Hovedland
Sennett, Richard 2012:Together – The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of
Cooperation. Penguin Group
Kr
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