Culturally and linguistically diverse children’s participation and social roles in the Finnish Early Childhood Education – is play the common key?

ABSTRACT

Children with non-Finnish cultural or linguistic background face challenges to interact socially in the early childhood education (ECE) context in Finland. The present study aims to clarify (1) what kind of social roles children typically have in ECE, and (2) what sort of activities and play are typical to children with Finnish and non-Finnish cultural or linguistic background. The research data is systematically sampled large-scale observation data (1147 children, 22,149 observations) of 5–6-year-old children. According to our findings, non-social roles and less participative actions were found to be more common amongst diverse background children than with Finnish background children. Children with diverse background were found to be more involved especially in rule play but they were less participative in role play. The results suggest that ECE educators could pay specific attention to play-based interventions and to the shared cultural creation.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education
• participation
• culturally and linguistically diverse children
• social roles
• play
• Finland

Acknowledgements

The study is a part of Arvola's dissertation studies of multicultural Early Childhood Education in Finland. Kyttälä is a supervisor of the dissertation and Reunamo is a research leader of the Orientate Project. Pankakoski is a PhD student at Cardiff University School of Welsh and her research looks at multilingual children in Finland and Wales. Authors would like to thank all Orientate Project participants for their input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The study is founded by Alli Paasikivi Foundation (Alli Paasikiven Säätiö) and Wihuri Foundation (Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation) [grant number 00180022]. We are grateful for the financial support.

Notes on contributors

Outi Arvola

Outi Arvola is a PhD student. This study is a part of Arvola’s dissertation studies of multicultural Early Childhood Education in Finland.

Kaisa Pankakoski

Kaisa Pankakoski is a PhD student at Cardiff University School of Welsh and her research looks at multicultural children in Finland and Wales.

Jyrki Reunamo

Jyrki Reunamo is a PhD, Docent, Principal investigator, University lecturer.

Minna Kyttälä

Minna Kyttälä is a PhD, Docent (i.e. Adjunct Professor), University lecturer.