Young children in day and night care: negotiating and constructing belonging during daily arrivals

ABSTRACT

The paper aims at understanding the processes related to young children's belonging during daily arrivals at day and night care. Two aspects of a child's belonging are considered: membership and sense of belonging. Data were gathered by ethnographic observation of 8 children aged from 20 to 36 months in two Finnish day care centres offering day and night care. Arrival episodes taking place at different times of day were analysed qualitatively based on the children's actions and expressions. During these episodes, the children negotiated and constructed their belonging by interacting with adults, peers and material objects. These interactions took place within varying social and material surroundings and according to different daily routines that sometimes challenged the child's belonging. The results underline the importance of sensitive responsiveness by educators to young children's initiatives in supporting children's belonging during daily arrivals at day and night care.

KEYWORDS:

• Young children
• belonging
• daily arrivals
• day and night care
• flexible child care

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the children who participated in this study as well as their parents and educators. We are also grateful to the two day care centres that opened their doors for the purposes of this research. Furthermore, we thank Adjunct professor Niina Rutanen for many inspiring conversations concerning the conceptual framework and the data analysis of the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Eija Salonen is a doctoral student in early childhood education at the University of Jyvskyl, Finland. Her research focuses on the daily life and socio-emotional well-being of young children in the context of day and night care, with a particular interest in methodological and ethical issues involved in researching young children's experiences. She is a member of a research project Children's socio-emotional wellbeing and daily family life in a 24-h economy (Families 24/7).

Marja-Leena Laakso is a professor in early childhood education, especially child and developmental psychology in the Department of Education, University of Jyvskyl, Finland. She has been involved in longitudinal studies on children's early language and communication, intervention studies for supporting young children's self-regulation skills and hearing children in the contexts of educational and psychological services. She is also the leader of the Jyvskyl University project in research consortium Children's socio-emotional wellbeing and family life in a 24-h economy with responsibility for the research on children's social-emotional well-being. At the moment she acts as a Dean in the Faculty of Education.

Eija Sevón is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Education at the University of Jyvskyl, Finland. Her present research interests are focused on daily family life, family relationships and parenting from gender and generational perspectives. She has developed a daily diary method for listening to young, under school-aged children voices on matters related to their daily lives. She is also a member of Families 24/7 research project team, led by Professors Anna Rnk and Marja-Leena Laakso. The project explores daily family life and children's well-being in the context of parental nonstandard working hours.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under [Grant 251410].