Children's negotiation tactics and socio-emotional self-regulation in child-led play experiences: the influence of the preschool pedagogic culture

ABSTRACT

Early Childhood Education (ECE) typically positions the child at the centre of their own learning, with a high degree of child-initiated and child-led experiences. As such, ECE is often characterized by ‘free play’ during which children are provided with opportunities to manage and negotiate their socio-emotional interactions. This process of self-regulation is carefully moulded by a complex preschool Pedagogic Culture. Drawing on data from two projects that investigated children's social and creative play through exploratory qualitative observations, interviews and child-centred play-based methodologies, this article describes how children interpret cues in formal ECE settings to determine how they manage and regulate their play experiences and socio-emotional interactions. Findings demonstrate that children interpreted four elements of the Pedagogic Culture: Child-Centred Pedagogies, Structural Hierarchies, Rules and Regulations, and Agency and Power. Children manoeuvred these elements of the Pedagogic Culture to shape their negotiation tactics and socio-emotional self-regulation.

KEYWORDS:

• Socio-emotional
• self-regulation
• pedagogic culture
• child-centred play
• negotiation

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are extended to the children, early childhood centres and families involved in these studies. A great thanks is also extended to my research partners from the second project, Deirdre Grogan and Pauline Duncan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Lorna Arnott is a Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. She is the convenor of the European Early Childhood Educational Research Association Digital Childhoods SIG. She is the editor of Arnott, L (2017) Digital Technologies and Learning in the Early Years, London. SAGE. Her work focuses on young children's play experiences in early childhood, with a special interest in children's technology use, creative and social play. She also has a keen interest in consultation methodologies for young children.

ORCID

Lorna Arnott http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0304-778X