Participation and responsiveness: children’s rights in play from the perspective of play-responsive early childhood education and care and the UNCRC

ABSTRACT

While children’s rights to play is stated in the UNCRC, this study investigates children’s rights in play through an analysis of narrative play in preschool. Play-responsive early childhood education and care (PRECEC) is a recently developed theory that provides analytical tools for investigating participants’ communicative coordination and reorientation in mutual activities. By empirically trying out four interrelated elements – space, voice, audience, and influence from Lundy’s rights discourse, the aim is to further develop the theory of PRECEC by differentiating the meaning of responsivity. Video-recorded data from an early childhood education and care setting provide the empirical foundation for the study. What we find analytically is how responsiveness in narrative play affords children to express themselves, be heard and be responded to, and what this entails. In the activity, children are included and recognised as contributing participants, having agency to co-narrate the development of the play.

KEYWORDS:

• UNCRC
• PRECEC
• narrative play
• responsiveness
• agency

Introduction

Play is an integral part of children’s daily lives, and it has a given place in early childhood education and care (ECEC). This is also stated in the almost universally endorsed United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Narrative play is one form of play that has been given particular attention in preschool settings, due to its potential for contributing to children’s learning. Narrative play here refers to a mutual, imaginary activity that is interchangeably talked about and in other ways enacted into being by participants. It is a form of play that is developed through telling and enacting a story, an interrelated sequence of events. Narration is a communicative genre driven by agents’ intentions, and it plays out in a sequence of events woven together in time and space (Bruner, 2006). It is a basic form of creating meaning collectively, and in play activities, children are given the opportunity to meet and take over the narrative genre, where the children themselves are agents (see, e.g. Bruner, 2006). A narrative can be seen as the script for the play that emerges and is negotiated during the play activity (Sawyer, 1997). Narrative is therefore critical to the development of play, since telling play scenarios constitutes imaginary worlds for children to play within (and beyond, and thus, potentially learn about what goes on in the world of lived experience outside play and imagination, an important premise of ECEC; see Fleer & Kamaralli, 2017; Pramling et al., 2019).

However, when narrative play is enacted in an educational setting, such as preschool, there is a recurring argument that adults are ‘hijacking’ children’s play (Pyle & Danniels, 2017). (In the present study, preschool denotes educare – that is, an integrated view on education and care – for 1- to 5-year-olds.) Today there is a tense, even polemic scholarly debate, concerning the place of early childhood professionals in children’s play. Some scholars are promoting more space for so-called free play, where adults take a step back from play, conceived as children’s domain. Others argue for instruction in preparation for school and view play as a method for ‘playful learning’ (cf. Pyle & Danniels, 2017). In the latter approach, play is used for educational purposes. However, in order to support children’s development and appropriation of the narrative genre, it is important that teachers are able to interact with children in line with children’s rights. Murray (2019) calls for studies that illustrate how the rights of infants and young children up to 8 years are translated from policy into practice. Here, it may be critical to scrutinise children’s rights in play – whether they are included, recognised as participants, have agency to contribute to the development of play and are supported in learning to play in ways that are recognised by other play partners. Such a rights perspective to play in an environment or institution where play is recognised, perhaps even taken for granted, and held in high regard, can illuminate important processes of ECEC. Arguing in a partly similar way, Holzscheiter et al. (2019) advocate a bottom-up perspective that focuses on the meaning-making of children’s rights in everyday lives, which in turn affects their subjectivities and agency. The present study provides such an analysis of original empirical data from ECEC. In other words, we translate policy recommendations into educational practices (Lundy, 2012) by analysing an exemplar of play in ECEC. In this way, we aim to further develop the theory of PRECEC (see below), by differentiating the meaning of responsivity in and to play.

We ground the study in a recently developed theorisation of teaching in preschool, namely, Play-Responsive Early Childhood Education and Care (PRECEC) (Pramling et al., 2019). PRECEC is characterised by teachers and children being mutually engaged in activities responsive to play; that is, the participants switch between imagining something and talking about what is actually the case, and relate these modes of participation to each other. In the context of this theory, we see a need for applying the perspective of children’s rights – to express their views and have them given due weight – in ECEC in order to differentially clarify the meaning of responsivity in and to play. In Sweden, where the present study has been conducted, and in many other countries, the central activity in preschool is play. A point of departure in children’s rights to express themselves and be listened to is the participation of adults in children’s play, so that they can listen to – and respond – to the narratives children create. Informed by, and to further develop, PRECEC, we empirically investigate how children’s rights to express themselves and be listened to are exercised and are managed by participants when the teacher participates in play in a preschool setting. The study addresses the following research question:

How are key principles of the child’s right to express him or herself, as stated in the UNCRC, actualised and responded to in play in which children and ECEC personnel participate?

The answer to this question will provide empirical foundation for further developing the theory of PRECEC and discuss its pedagogical implications as an approach to ECEC.

Research review of children’s rights and narrative play in ECEC

There is an expanding research literature on children’s rights to play in ECEC, built on a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodologies. One example is analysing documents to illuminate how institutions respond to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (Lundy, 2007; Rico & Janot, 2021). Findings generally show that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has an impact on education policy, but that children’s rights could be more emphasised. Many researchers argue that children’s playtimes today are not much valued and accepted from an educational politics point of view, which instead emphasise the increase of instructional time (e.g. Wallace & Hesterman, 2021). For example, Mroz and Woolner (2020), based on questionnaire data on children’s views of playtimes in English primary schools, show that they are generally positive about their playtimes but that they give expression to noticing social expectations of playtimes being challenged. The children also indicated that they appreciated adults taking part and supporting them towards successful relationships. In another study of children’s perspectives on children-adult play, Nicholson et al. (2014) interviewed 98 children to examine how they understood play activities. Most of the children believed that adults play with their children, although the majority ‘reported that adults do not play enough, a phenomenon they critiqued’ (p. 136).

In their research review, Colliver and Doel-Mackaway (2021) argue that children’s right to play is to a large extent a forgotten right, partly due to an uncertainty about how to define play. From their point of view there is a need for considering children’s perspectives on what activities they consider to be play or not. In their review, they identify ‘three universal findings from research with young children over the last 31 years: child choice, lack of adult control, and peer inclusion’ (Colliver & Doel-Mackaway, 2021, p. 573). While the authors emphasise the importance that adults’ presence in children’s play does not restrain children from making choices, their research showed that ‘adult presence did not preclude an activity from being defined as play if adults provided children’s autonomy’ (p. 578). Furthermore, they conclude that facilitating children to express their choices in an autonomous manner is consistent with fulfilling children’s rights to participate, their freedom of expression and right to play. This review reveals the importance of adults’ presence in children’s play, critically contingent on them listening to children’s perspectives. However, merely listening is not enough, Lundy (2007) argues. Making an important contribution to the understanding of Article 12, she argues that, even if teachers tacitly encode this right in education, there is a risk that ‘the phrases which are commonly used to refer to Article 12, such as “pupil voice”, have the potential to diminish its impact as they provide an imperfect summary of the full extent of the obligation’ (Lundy, 2007, p. 927). She therefore proposes a new model for conceptualising Article 12 with four key elements: space, voice, audience, and influence. In line with this argumentation, Bae (2009, 2012) illustrates empirically how children’s rights to participate in ECEC come to the fore. She shows that children’s participation includes more than individualistic choice routines. She emphasises how relational qualities and communicative aspects between teachers and children in the setting of her study, Norwegian early childhood education, create premises for children’s participation. She concludes that ‘play and playful interaction can be interpreted as a practice where children exercise their freedom of speech and thought’ and, consequently, children and adult play can contribute to a ‘democratic atmosphere’ (Bae, 2012, p. 66).

The relationship between play and narrative is a recurring topic of empirical and theoretical studies in early childhood education research (e.g. Fleer, 2021; Ødegaard, 2006). For example, Hakkarainen et al. (2013) studied the function of adults in supporting children’s play. As an interventional study, Hakkarainen et al.’s work shares a research interest with the present study. They used the tool of a play-world model (see also, Fleer, 2021; Lindqvist, 1995, 2001), where adults and children co-create an imaginary world as they interpret and dramatise a theme in the classroom. They conclude the following about adult intervention in children’s play: importance of catching and expanding children’s play ideas, to be involved and to reach togetherness.

Cremin et al. (2018) designed a training programme for early years’ professionals to conceive how children’s narratives are co-constructed during adult-child and peer interactions. Their work examines Vivian Paley’s approach to storytelling and story acting with 18 case studies of 3- to 5-year-olds in England, through a discursive and multimodal analysis of their interaction. The findings, they argue, ‘reveal discursive co-construction “in action” and illustrate how the child storytellers, story actors and practitioners co-construct narratives through complex combinations of gaze, body posture and speech in responsive and finely tuned interactional patterns’ (p. 3). In this line of research, narrative play is understood as an activity where different participants’ actions (collaboration) as well as different semiotic means (modalities) are coordinated.

An interaction analysis that focuses on how a teacher scaffolds a play activity is reported by Lagerlöf et al. (2019), which is a part of the same research project as the present study. Unlike contemporary discourse on play that interprets teachers’ involvement as preventing children’s agency, this study highlights the relationship between children’s agency and teachers’ participation in terms of play-responsive teaching. Through empirical analysis of a play activity, the researchers show that agency does not necessarily develop naturally, arguably due to its dependency on mediation. The study shows empirically how the teacher is central in contributing to children’s development of agency.

A shortcoming among studies on children’s rights per UNCRC, particularly if seen in relation to Lundy’s model, is that they generally are conducted in informal contexts such as children’s centres and not in institutional contexts such as preschools (cf. Davey & Lundy, 2011; Moore, 2020). The review of previous research also points to the need for eliciting children’s participation and making their voices heard (in contributing to children’s development of agency) in ECEC. Further, it implies that teachers play a key role in scaffolding children’s agency in a responsive manner and that play narratives are meaningful activities for co-construction of meaning between children and personnel in ECEC. However, given the centrality of play to children’s socialisation and learning, it is necessary to clarify what children’s rights in play means – in addition to the previous emphasis on the child’s right to play – and how it can be supported through co-narrative in ECEC.

To contribute to the understanding of these closely related matters, and specifically to differentiate the meaning of responsivity in and to play, we build on a theoretical perspective which contributes with conceptual tools for analysing the establishing, negotiation, and carrying out of (mutual) activities such as narrative play. We present this theorisation in the next section.

Conceptualising and analysing play as a responsive situated activity

The theoretical framework informing this analysis is PRECEC (Pramling et al., 2019). PRECEC views teaching in early childhood education as inherently responsive to play. It highlights the importance of studying closely how participants are responsive towards each other’s contributions on an action-for-action basis (or if speaking, on an utterance-for-utterance basis). Teaching, from this perspective, is an activity co-constituted by participants’ responsive actions (and which has certain features that will be discussed below). Thus, a teacher cannot teach by herself; in other words, instruction is not synonymous with teaching from this perspective.

Establishing a play frame is understood as a way of engaging children in a narrative (a make-believe world or scenario) within and from which they can then play on. Participants do so by alternating between speaking and acting in different modes of as is (culturally established knowledge) and as if (how it could be instead) (cf. Vaihinger, 2001). This is typically done within the frame of an evolving narrative. Building pedagogy on the theory of play-responsive teaching entails developing play (make plays more inclusive and developable for all participants) and giving children access to a wider repertoire of plays and play roles, and at the same time allowing children to learn about what transpires outside the imaginary world of play. Phrased differently, important ambitions with such pedagogy would be to support children learning to play, in play, and from play.

For analysing whether and how participants create a common activity rather than separate ones, the concept of intersubjectivity is useful. Simply put, to play together, participants need some consensus on the content of the play activity (the narrative of the play) and, more fundamentally, even that they play (i.e. that what they do together is playing). In contrast, alterity indicates that the activity is taken in a new and, for other participants, unexpected direction – as indicated by their responses – away from what the participants have explicitly or implicitly agreed on about their play. In this study, we analyse how alterity is handled and how intersubjectivity is established and restored (cf. Linell, 2014; Rommetveit, 1974) in order to clarify processes of responsivity to children’s different contributions in and to play. Triggering as a concept denotes an action typically in the form of an utterance that can initiate, for example, a play narrative and that when responded to – which is a necessary criterion – allows for engaging in new imaginary action (Wallerstedt et al., 2021). Whether children can offer such contributions that are responsively recognised indicates their degree of agency. From this point of view, the concept of agency, ‘alludes to the capacity of humans to distance themselves from their immediate surroundings and it implies recognition of the possibility to intervene in, and transform the meaning of, situated activities’ (Mäkitalo, 2016, p. 64, italics in original). Hence, participants’ contributions to and response patterns in mutual narrative play can be conceptualised with these theoretical tools. Our empirical interest is in how children’s participation and adults’ responsiveness come into play and are managed by participants in preschool. We use key conceptions of the UNCRC to structure our analysis.

As mentioned earlier, Lundy’s (2007) voice model provides a theoretical and practical understanding of Article 12, which is the general principle concerned with the child’s right to be heard, based on four interrelated elements: space, voice, audience, and influence. The model supports adults working with children to create an open listening climate (Moore, 2020). We use these concepts in our analysis to explore how Lundy’s (2007) model is relevant to the play activity in focus. A premise of the present study is that in order for narrating to become generative, responsivity is critical – it is arguably and from our theoretical point of view important that children’s stories are not only listened to but also responded to in ways that trigger (Wallerstedt et al., 2021) further narrative play. Thus, children will have space for making their voices heard and be responded to by an audience (or co-narrators; e.g. Skantz Åberg, 2018; Theobald, 2016), including, importantly, play partners. This has important implications for children’s further development into active agents who participate in and contribute to mutual activities (in play and beyond).

Empirical study

The play activity analysed in this study comes from data (>100 video observations) generated in a larger combined research and development project. This study has been carried out because the researchers (along with preschool teachers and heads) wanted to generate new knowledge about the relationship between play and teaching in early childhood education. The play activity analysed in the present study is representative of the larger corpus of data. Having worked with the larger corpus for three years, we can state that the nature of the processes we analyse here and what we make evident in our analysis are representative patterns. Video recordings of the activities have been made by personnel working at the preschools involved in the project. The teachers were asked to participate in play activities, for example, by establishing a narrative play frame and by being responsive to what the children recurrently and presently played. In this work, we are specifically interested in how these activities develop, how the children express themselves and how the preschool teacher’s responses to their initiatives and perspectives are consequential to the development of activities and the children’s agency in those activities.

The activity analysed here plays out in a playroom at a preschool in a larger city in Sweden. The children come from what could be described as middle-class, Swedish-speaking homes. Empirical excerpts are analysed according to the principles of interaction analysis (IA) (Derry et al., 2010; Jordan & Henderson, 1995; Wallerstedt et al., 2022), that is, as sequentially unfolding responsive – and potentially anticipating – interaction.

The study follows the prevailing ethical guidelines developed by the Swedish Research Council (2017). The participants (and participants’ caregivers in case of children) have been informed that their participation is voluntary and that they could, at any time, withdraw from the study. The preschool staff as well as the children’s caregivers have signed a written informed consent form to permit the use of the empirical material for research purposes. All participants and settings have been given pseudonyms.

Findings

The findings are presented through an analysis of four Extracts from the video data. The participants in the play activity are the teacher (called GUNN), Siri (5 years old) and Sam (3 years old). The play event is video recorded by a colleague of GUNN and lasts for 15 minutes. The findings will be presented chronologically, and the extracts are named in accordance with the four key elements of Lundy’s (2007) model for conceptualising Article 12 of UNCRC (as clarified above). Some of the definitions of the key elements are however slightly developed to align with the perspective of PRECEC to highlight children’s rights in play through responsiveness.

Extract 1: Space: Giving children the opportunity to express viewsGUNN (the teacher) enters the room where two children, Siri and Sam, are playing with cushions and plastic toy animals.

1.	GUNN:	Shall we play something?
2.	Siri:	We’re already playing.
3.	GUNN:	What are you playing?
4.	Siri:	We pl … we play ANIMAL HOUSE.
5.	GUNN:	Animal house! Can I join for a bit?
6.	Siri:	SURE! (Looks at GUNN and then at the camera)
7.	GUNN:	Aaa (.) What.. (looks around) animal house? Who lives in the house then?
8.	Siri:	Elephant (.) dog (.) gi(raffe).. (shows large plastic animals) Do you do you know know know where the elephant is? The elephant is in the house.
9.	GUNN:	In the house? Is it this here that is the big house? (points at a building made of cushions)
10.	Sam:	=Vovo vovo vovo (moves a plastic dog forth and back towards GUNN and tries to get her attention)
11.	Siri:	=yes it is, it was so crowded so we built an extra room.
12.	GUNN:	=Ahaaa ow are there so many animals in the house?
13.	Sam:	=Vov vov (barks higher and looks at GUNN, tries to get her attention)
14.	GUNN:	(turns towards Sam and the dog) What does that dog do then?

The teacher approaches the children, asking whether they should play (turn 1). The children respond that they are already playing (turn 2). Answering the question of what they are playing (turn 3), Siri clarifies that they are playing ‘ANIMAL HOUSE’ (turn 4). Having established what is being played, that is, establishing temporarily sufficient intersubjectivity (Linell, 2014), the teacher makes another attempt to become a participant (turn 5). Siri readily grants the teacher permission to participate (turn 6). Thus, the teacher gains access to and becomes a participant in the play. She looks around at the play scene and asks who lives in the animal house (turn 7). Siri responds by naming the animals (turn 8), while showing each toy. Siri then asks the teacher if she knows where the elephant is. However, before GUNN can reply, Siri tells her that the elephant is in the house (turn 8). GUNN checks if what she has before her is what Siri is referring to as the house (turn 9). In this way, she contributes to aligning what is (what the children has built) with as if (what this represents, should be taken as) (Pramling et al., 2019), making sure there is intersubjectivity between participants. The other child, Sam, moves a toy dog, making onomatopoetic sounds (turn 10). However, this play action is not acknowledged or responded to. Instead, Siri answers GUNN’s question about the large building and elaborates by saying that there were so many animals that they had to expand the house (turn 11). In her response, the teacher meta-communicates (Bateson, 2000) about the play within the play frame, and she acknowledges this contribution by rhetorically asking whether there are indeed that many animals in the house to warrant an expansion (turn 12). Sam makes a new attempt at getting the play partners to acknowledge her play action by raising the volume of her onomatopoetic ‘woof woof’ (turn 13). This time she succeeds, and the teacher responds through turning to her and asking what the dog is doing (turn 14).

By asking if she could participate in the children’s play, the teacher provides an opportunity for the children to express their views on, in this case, what the play activity is all about and what the play narrative constitutes. To establish a shared play context is a way to give children space and incentive for narrating. The teacher acts by meta-communicating about the play. She gives the play sufficient legitimacy by communicating and coordinating as is and as if, and the children mandate as narrative participants (co-narrators); collaboratively, through their responses, the participants establish intersubjectivity.

Hence, what is showed through the analysis of this first sequence of the play, is that when the teacher and the children come together in a collaborative play, in this case a narrative play, a space is created where the children have the opportunity to express their views. What the analysis also shows is that this space is not only a physical one (playing together in a room, so to speak), but a semiotically mediated room, built on the participants’ success in establishing intersubjectivity.

Extract 2: Voice: Facilitating expression of children’s views.The narrative play about the animal house commences, and the participants negotiate about the animals they can allow inside the house. Siri picks up another animal and identifies it as a tiger.

46.	Sam:	(takes the elephant and holds it against the tiger) namnamnamnam
47.	GUNN:	And here comes the elephant. He has lost his trunk. What happens then?
48.	Siri:	Eeeh, mmm (.) the eleph, the elephant thought it was ((rubbery)) which looked like a knife (.) eeh. It was a knife that was on the floor. It fell towards it and cut off its trunk.
49.	Sam:	=Wähh Wähh (holding the elephant in one hand and picking up the tiger in the other, and letting the tiger chew on the elephant)nam nam nam
50.	GUNN:	=Oh, that was horrible, right? (while holding Sam’s arm) poor thing! Shall we maybe let him ride to the elephant hospital?
51.	:	(..)
52.	Siri:	The bad thing is that the trunk blew away

Sam takes the elephant and holds it against the tiger, making onomatopoetic sounds that mimic the sound of eating (turn 46). The teacher now initiates a new topic, which is generative for how the activity plays out (turn 47). Rather than simply observing that the plastic toy elephant has lost its trunk, the teacher uses the information as a stepping-stone to trigger (Wallerstedt et al., 2021) a narrative (‘What happens then?’). A new obstacle is thus introduced, and since a narrative critically consists of a series of interrelated events – challenges posed and taken on – this contribution is vital to how the play evolves. Siri addresses the challenge posed, suggesting that the trunk was cut off by a knife that the elephant fell on (turn 48). That the teacher’s question poses a challenge to Siri is evident from her speech becoming more hesitant. After some pondering, she offers an explanation about the missing trunk. However, what will happen, rather than what has happened, remains undecided. Sam joins in with animal sounds, while holding the elephant in one hand and picking up the tiger with the other and letting the tiger chew on the elephant (turn 49). Talking over Sam’s contribution, GUNN responds (because of the overlap with Sam’s utterance, it initially seems to be a response to Siri’s explanation in turn 48) by suggesting that they can let him ride to the elephant hospital (turn 50). As we see in how the play evolves, Sam’s suggestion that the tiger ate the elephant is not picked up by the other participants. Instead, Siri says, ‘The bad thing is that the trunk blew away’ (turn 52). With the explanation, she adds an event that relates to the previous account of the elephant losing its trunk. In this way, the narrative is developed.

This example highlights that an important task for the teacher is to facilitate the narration. Here, the teacher verbalises what is happening in the play activity and asks questions about what will happen next (i.e. meta-communicates). She triggers (Wallerstedt et al., 2021), that is, opens up, the narration and makes room for the voices of the children. The teacher’s responses show that she is aligned with the premises of the play, allowing the participants to establish temporarily sufficient intersubjectivity, even if it takes unexpected turns (a case of alterity; Pramling et al., 2019) to carry the narrative play forward.

The theory of PRECEC has contributed with the concept of triggering to enlighten the process of supporting children to engage in the unexpected and unpredictable. What this analysis shows is that the process of triggering also is a way to facilitate children’s expressions of their views, that is, in Lundy’s terminology, to give them voices. Through the teacher’s triggering actions, the children are invited as co-narrators, and this is a clear way of facilitating children’s expressions of their views.

Extract 3: Audience: Listening to children’s perspectives

53.	GUNN:	Oh! (opens her mouth and looks surprised) Did it blow away?
54.	Siri:	Mmm
55.	GUNN:	Where did it end up? In a wastebasket or (while looking around)
56.	Siri:	Nope! It ended up really far out in the ocean
57.	GUNN:	Really! What shall we … shall we take a boat and go?
58.	Sam:	(swiftly getting up to get another animal) I know!
59.	Siri:	I know, our house can be transformed into a boat
60.	GUNN:	YES, shall we go on a trunk-trip and see if we can find the trunk?
61.	Sam:	=(Trying to get GUNN’s attention, says something inaudible)
62.	Siri:	There’s a camera in the floor of the boat that has already discovered it is just to open a small hatch in the floo.. in the floo … in the floor
63.	GUNN:	OH! But who can drive the boat then?
64.	Sam:	=(points at herself): XXX (inaudible)
65.	Siri:	I can drive the boat!
66.	GUNN:	(to Sam) Do you want to come along on the boat … to the sea?
67.	Siri:	Everyone can come along!
68.	GUNN:	Aaa! But should we bring all our animals on the boat?
69.	Siri:	Yes, we cannot leave the animals here!

Siri adds an event that relates to the earlier account of the elephant having lost his trunk. In this way, the narrative is developed (turn 52). This alterity (Pramling et al., 2019) is picked up, which is indicated by the teacher’s response (‘oh’, and facial expression, turn 53) and surprise, and deemed worthy of telling (a story typically involves some surprise or unconventionality, making it worth telling – stories are not ordinarily about the ordinary and expected). Through such responses, the teacher subtly meta-communicates to the children what may be worth telling. Building on the suggestion that the trunk was blown away, the teacher asks where it ended up (turn 55). Rejecting the suggestion, Siri responds, ‘Nope! It ended up really far out in the ocean’ (turn 56). Thus, a new, related event is added to the evolving story. By responding, ‘shall we take a boat and go?’ (turn 57), the teacher initiates a further development – that they should go by boat to recover the trunk. Again, the teacher’s question acts as a trigger (Wallerstedt et al., 2021) that presents the children with a problem to solve within the framework of the play: what can work as a boat, how can the boat trip be staged? This prompts Sam to swiftly get up and bring another animal, saying, ‘I know’ (turn 58). Before Sam can clarify what she knows, Siri cuts in with, ‘I know, our house can be transformed into a boat!’ (turn 59). The transformation of the play from where it started is now complete; the house becomes a boat. The teacher readily acknowledges this change suggesting a ‘trunk-trip’ (turn 60). Siri adds that there is a camera on the floor of the boat that has already discovered (the trunk, presumably) (turn 62). Having decided to go on a trip to recover the missing trunk, the play continues with the participants negotiating about who will play the role of the driver of the boat, and Siri is given the role. This is implied when the teacher follows up by asking Sam if she would like to join the boat trip. Siri offers, ‘Everyone can come along!’ The teacher confirms and asks whether they should also take all their animals. Siri responds, ‘Yes, we cannot leave the animals here!’ It is evident, as exemplified by Siri’s suggestion, that the children in the activity possess the agency to take the evolving play in other directions (cf. alterity). The teacher is merely a participant in the play, and not the one deciding how it should go or where they should end up.

This extract clarifies how the teacher listens to and responds to the children’s suggestions, analytically showed through instances of alterity. Such responsiveness in the co-construction of the narrative demonstrates how the children are listened to in the play and how their imagination gains legitimacy when the teacher supports the direction that the child has suggested. In this way, the teacher can be viewed as an audience in the play. At the same time it is important to acknowledge that, by showing interest in and listening to the children’s perspective, she also becomes a co-narrator of the play.

Extract 4: Influence: Acting upon the children’s perspectives, as appropriate.The participants continue to meta-communicate about how the play should proceed. GUNN continues, ‘Is there a bridge that we can build perhaps?’ (turn 75) and Siri responds, and also develops the idea with, ‘Yes, they can run on me’ (turn 76). To coordinate the suggestions, the teacher meta-communicates, ‘Will you be a bridge?’ (turn 77). Thus, she clarifies whether what is (as is, the child) in the play will be (as if, Siri as a bridge). Siri in response confirms that this is what she intends (turn 78):

78.	Siri:	Yep! (walks towards a table in another part of the room) That is the boat (..) turn the table
79.	GUNN:	Shall that be the boat?
80.	Sam:	(climbs up on and lies down on the table) I can (inaudible) on the boat
81.	Siri:	(Pulls Sam’s legs) you have to get off (turns the table upside down with the help of Sam)
82.	GUNN:	Like that, yes! Suddenly the house was transformed into a boat. That was swell!
83.	Sam:	Like that yes! (goes into the imaginary boat)
84.	GUNN:	Now the animals come walking here

Siri says, ‘that is the boat’ and ‘turn the table’ (turn 78). As before, the teacher points to and coordinates what is (‘that’ and ‘the table’) with as if (‘is the boat’). She exclaims, ‘Like that, yes! Suddenly the house was transformed into a boat. That was swell’ (turn 82). Transforming reality (what is) into something else in fantasy (as if) is fundamental to play (e.g. Schwartzman, 1978). However, whether something in the play can become something else is an open question that play participants may respond to differently, depending on how they understand the play they are engaged in (for an example of where such transformation is negotiated and resisted by children, see Pramling et al., 2019). The transformation is readily accepted by Sam, who says, ‘Like that yes!’ while climbing into the imaginary boat (turn 83). The teacher then comments on the development of the play, ‘Now the animals come walking here’ (turn 84). By phrasing the action in the present tense (‘now […] come’) she places the event in the evolving scenario – what happens – rather than commenting on it, as in directing what will happen. Her utterance thus works as play performance rather than play direction.

The play is further developed in line with the new direction of the narrative: the trunk has disappeared in the sea, and they must go on a voyage. One of the children suggests that the table be turned upside down to be used as a boat (turn 78). In response, not only does the teacher support the story verbally, she also, in her role as an adult, gives the children the space to use what is in the room in new ways. Thus, it is acceptable to turn a table upside down and use it as if it were a boat. This constitutes an important step both for the development of the play narrative and for children’s opportunity to influence.

In this last sequence, it is shown how the collaborative narrative play provides a platform for children’s influence. The teacher can, for example through helping to relate as if and as is, make it possible to act upon the children’s perspectives, which is also one of Lundy’s criteria for enacting children’s rights to express themselves.

Discussion

This study investigates how children’s rights to express themselves and be listened to are exercised and are managed by participants when the teacher participates in play in a preschool setting. Informed by Lundy’s voice model (Lundy, 2007), we have used key principles and conceptions of the UNCRC to guide our analysis of participants’ (preschool children and teachers’) interaction. That is, an understanding of Article 12, based on four interrelated elements – space, voice, audience, and influence – has structured our analysis. Importantly, we have investigated and clarified how narrative play is a way to allow children to express themselves instead of examining if it allows children to express themselves and to be listened to. We have analysed an empirical example from this point of view, and our reasoning is grounded in the findings of previous empirical studies, which lead to the theorisation of play-responsive teaching (Pramling et al., 2019; Wallerstedt et al., 2021). Earlier studies based on this point of view have mainly explored how teaching can be responsive to play – essentially the educational aspect of ECEC. In contrast, this study is not concerned with children’s learning of specific subject matter. Instead, it focuses on the care and rights aspects of ECEC. We argue that it is important for children to be socialised into a relationship of freedom of expression through their dialogues with responsive teachers and friends. Preschool is an important setting for this, and play is central to how a child experiences that their ideas are important and, at the same time, must be coordinated with the ideas of others in order to collaborate, which includes playing together. To allow a play narrative to develop, participants need to consider other participants’ perspectives, lest they cease to participate. We propose a kind of basic democratic education where children are seen as beings and becomings and where adults and children participate mutually and where it is important for maintaining the mutual activity that they share the focus within the frame (premises) of the play.

In this study, PRECEC both constitutes a theoretical foundation to be further developed through this empirical investigation and serves as an approach to strengthening children’s rights in play since their right to play in preschool is well established (in most if not in all cultures). We argue that children have the rights to a communicative (speaking) space, to be heard and acknowledged, and to have their ideas respected (by being responded to), that is, that children are included and recognised as participants, having agency to contribute to the development of mutual activities, such as play. In the analysed activity, the older child, Siri, together with the teacher (GUNN) has most of the communicative floor (speaking space). Sam is two years younger than Siri, and as evident in some of the extracts, some of her utterances are difficult to interpret (for the analysts and the other participants). Since this study is based on verbal conversation, her participation in the play activity is not as visible as Siri’s. However, the teacher’s participation and responsiveness towards both the children – when she turns to them, responds to their actions, and asks questions – enables both to be included in the activity. While our level of analysis has facilitated this observation, we admit that a more granular analysis – including the interactional work done with shifting gazes – would potentially have illuminated responses to her participatory contributions to a greater degree.

Looking in situ at how the participants organise their collaborative narrating (cf. Pramling & Ødegaard, 2011; Theobald, 2016), we can see how giving children opportunities to appropriate the narrative genre allows them to emerge as agents (cf. Bruner, 2006; Skantz Åberg, 2018). The children’s agency is evident in that they have a say in telling and enacting (performing) the story with its evolving narrative; they are not repeating a readymade one or passively listening to one being told. This agentic position is not something the children lose in the activity; rather, it is promoted (cf. Lagerlöf et al., 2019). This study also shows that the teacher plays a central role in contributing to the children’s development of agency (cf. Houen et al., 2016). The teacher participates in the play activity as a co-narrator, rather than as a director (setting up the play) or audience (listening to the story told). As suggested by Hakkarainen et al. (2013), she is responsive to and expands the children’s play ideas by stepping in and getting involved. There is enough intersubjectivity established between the participants (Linell, 2014; Rommetveit, 1974) to allow their mutual narrating in, and thus collaboratively constituting of, the play.

Freedom of expression may be associated with letting children’s voices be heard in care disputes, school choices and the design of playgrounds and other public places for children (Davey & Lundy, 2011). However, it is important that children are also socialised into a relationship of freedom of expression in society – a freedom that, arguably, needs to be balanced with consideration for (acknowledging through response) the potentially altering perspectives of others (alterity). Here, we render how PRECEC (Pramling et al., 2019; Wallerstedt et al., 2021), as an approach to ECEC, has the potential to offer this kind of basic democratic education, where children are responsively recognised and promoted as participants with agency and where adults and children participate mutually and engage within the framing premises of play. We argue that children not only have the rights to play but also the rights to have space, voice, audience, and influence in play. Recognising and supporting children’s abilities to participate in and contribute to mutual activities through playing is one way of promoting socially sustainable early childhood education and care so that children have and develop their agency.

If ECEC personnel consistently avoid participating in play with children, where they are responsive to children’s actions, children will not experience their actions as consequential for mutually engaging activities and thus their rights in play acknowledged. This also has important implications for their development of agency. This is not to imply that the personnel should always participate instead of never doing so; there are many forms of play and play fills many functions for children, and they therefore also have to be allowed to play on their own. What we argue is that play provides a fertile platform for socialising children into agents with rights, in marked contrast to the claim that adults hijack play by participating.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the funding received from the Swedish Institute for Educational Research [Skolfi 2016/112].

Notes on contributors

Pernilla Lagerlöf

Pernilla Lagerlöf works as Senior Lecturer at the Department of Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She has a background as a preschool teacher and holds a Master’s Degree in Special Education. Her PhD thesis is entitled, Musical Play: Children interacting with and around Music Technology, and was written within the international project Musical Interaction Relying On Reflection (MIROR; EU FP7-ICT, 2010-2013), with a focus on technology-transformed music learning in childhood. Lagerlöf has a research interest in communication and play interactions within the framework of the various media ecologies in which children participate. She is particularly interested in how early childhood education responds to children’s variety of experiences from digital technologies and popular culture.

Cecilia Wallerstedt

Cecilia Wallerstedt is a Senior Lecturer and Associated Professor in Education at the Department of Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is also Head of the Department. Her research interest concerns knowledge, teaching and learning in music, and the interaction between teachers and children/pupils. She has conducted research in close collaboration with teachers in several projects in preschool, primary- and secondary school.

Niklas Pramling

Niklas Pramling is Professor of Education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has been and is Director of national research schools for preschool teachers (funded by the Swedish Research Council). His research concerns communication in early childhood education and care settings and beyond.