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Abstract
In this study we have tried to come close to, and at the same time problematize, what participation in educational practice might be. The overall aim is to study how a toddler's participation can be understood in two kinds of educational activities, where the degree of teacher control differs. The data in this study are video observations of interactions between preschool teachers and toddlers. Two situations are analyzed. One refers to a situation characterized by strong classification and framing, while the other refers to a situation with weak classification and framing. The result shows that strong classification and framing risks restricting children's participation, and that a weak classification and framing can promote children's possibility to participate on their own terms. An important issue for children's participation is a participant teacher who is creating meaningful contexts, where teacher control is about being emotionally present, supportive and responsive.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson and Eva Johansson for their helpful comments on this article. Thanks also to all participants in the course Learning as Participation, given at the University of Gothenburg in May–September 2004, and to helpful colleagues at the University of Kalmar.
Notes
1. Democracy is a complex concept and for reasons of space it is not problematized in this text. The interpretation of democracy in this study should be understood as a participatory theory of democracy with deliberative components. (Englund, Citation2000; Sou Citation2000/2001).
2. Learning can here be understood as ‘… what individuals and groups bring from social situations and use in the future’ (Säljö, Citation2000, p. 13; our translation).