Tensions and dilemmas in body-pedagogy in kindergarten—employees' effort to transform a vocational education programme about body and movement into practice

Abstract

This paper concerns a research-based evaluation of Danish kindergarten employees and their experiences of an educational project ‘Moving Children’ and the learning processes that followed in kindergarten in which they aimed to develop a body-pedagogy in order to increase the physical activity in children's daily life. The study emphasises how tensions and dilemmas arise in the employees' effort to change the existing body-pedagogy that in a Danish kindergarten tradition relate to children's self-organised play. Using the notion of social learning theory and based on a phenomenological frame of reference the study underlines the significance of bringing in the bodily narratives in investigations of body-pedagogy.

Keywords:

• Kindergarten
• Health
• Body and movement
• Communities of practice
• Tension and dilemmas
• Movement analysis

Notes

1. The concept ‘perfection codes’ refers to an understanding and explanation of how power and principles of control in society are translated into pedagogic codes and devices, and how these are embodied and shape our beliefs, attitudes and consciousness.