Here we like playing princesses – newcomer migrant children’s transitions within day care: exploring role play as an indication of suitability and home and belonging

ABSTRACT

Using the concept of suitability to describe newcomer migrant children’s connection to multiple fields of social and cultural relations, we explore a newcomer migrant girl’s transition from an introductory group for migrant children with a refugee background into a mainstream day-care group. Inspired by sociocultural and transitional research, we assume that newcomer migrant children can fall into a liminal phase due to the loss of cultural references. Framed around the situated and contextualised nature of the girl’s remembering and reconstructing of home and belonging through role play, we explore how roleplay discourses might be understood as cultural scripts or laminated productions reflecting particular representations of social and cultural attachment.

KEYWORDS:

• day care
• transition
• newcomer migrant children
• role plays
• suitability
• home
• belonging

Acknowledgments

The research leading to the writing of this article has been funded by The Norwegian ExtraFoundation for Health and Rehabilitation (Extrastiftelsen), and its support is gratefully acknowledged. In addition, we express our gratitude to all the children and practitioners at Kongsvingen day-care institution, without whose time and patience this article would not have been possible.