Normalised diversity: educators’ beliefs about children’s belonging in Swedish early childhood education

ABSTRACT

The aim is to contribute knowledge about educators’ beliefs about children’s belonging in early childhood education. The study applies parts of Nira Yuval Davis’s theory about the politics of belonging. Six group interviews were conducted with educators from four Swedish preschools. A content analysis is used as a first step, followed by a theoretical analysis. Two main beliefs were identified regarding the ECE ‘community’ and ‘diversity’. The belief in the community included ideas related to both the collective and the individual child. Togetherness and safety appeared as collectiveoriented aspects while the emphasis on a caring and loving approach, and protecting the child’s integrity were individual oriented. To balance between the collective and the individual oriented beliefs emerged as a challenge. The belief in diversity contained aspects related to learning from each other and that different cultures enrich practice. Culture clashes emerged regarding time, outdoor activity, sexuality and identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Belonging
• politics of belonging
• ECE
• educators
• beliefs

Introduction

The overall aim of this study¹ is to contribute knowledge about educators’ beliefs about children’s belonging in early childhood education (ECE). Belonging has become an important issue in times of global changes, increasing immigration, and societal pluralism. Early childhood institutions are arenas where different value preferences meet, with educators, children and parents representing diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds. Thus, it has become more crucial than ever to create and develop inclusive education for all children and to support children’s sense of belonging in ECE. Preventing children’s exclusion and promoting their belonging is on the policy agenda worldwide (Armstrong, Armstrong, and Spandagou 2011; Stratigos, Bradley, and Sumsion 2014). Transnational and national policy documents emphasize the development of democratic skills such as empowerment, responsibility and participation in early childhood education (e.g. OECD 2001; Swedish National Agency for Education 2018). The task for educators is to interpret and transform these values into their own educational practice.

The aim of this study is to identify educators’ beliefs about children’s belonging in early childhood education in Sweden, and to detect challenges related to belonging in everyday practice. The research questions are:

• What beliefs about children’s belonging can be identified in the educators’ talk about everyday ECE practice?

• What challenges are revealed in the educators’ talk?

Previous research

Different challenges related to children’s sense of belonging in ECE practices are revealed in previous research. One challenge concerns educators’ conceptual understandings of belonging and how to transform these views into practice (Tillet and Wong 2018; Adebayo and Ngwenya 2015). Limited views are found, where inclusion is understood as gathering children with special needs together in the same place. This is criticized by researchers who argue for going beyond an understanding of belonging as merely ‘being there’, towards real involvement, i.e. a feeling of ‘being at home’ (Stratigos, Bradley, and Sumsion 2014). Thus, it is shown that educators lack knowledge and skills regarding belonging. There is a need to further develop conceptual understandings to meet the everyday complexity. Instead of focusing on the binary logic of belonging/not belonging, Sumsion and Wong (2011) suggest focusing on the environment, for example, the role played by objects, bodies, words and repeated actions in the continuous politics of belonging. In addition, Stratigos (2015a) stresses remaining open-minded about the role that categories might play in particular activities, rather than assuming that difference always leads to exclusion or that categories are stable and relevant.

Moreover, structural challenges have been identified in previous research. Yosso (2002) and Miller (2016) show that students’ lack of school belonging is rooted in structural policies and practices that privilege Eurocentric values and norms, instead of giving prominence to cultural wealth. Despite the best of intentions, educators reinforced rather than reduced the impacts of whiteness and racism. It is also pointed out that the teaching majority is identified as white, female and middle class (McKenzie et al. 2008). This leads to a homogenising effect, i.e. a similar approach regardless of preconditions and diversity in ECE. There are relatively few studies on how children’s belonging in ECE is embodied, and there are few document analyses about what is articulated in educational policy (Johansson 2017). Despite the growing interest in preventing children’s exclusion and enhancing their belonging, there is still a need for deeper knowledge about how belonging is realized in ECE (Johansson 2017). Therefore, the focus of this study is educators’ beliefs, which are assumed to give a picture of what is prioritized regarding children’s belonging in ECE practice.

Theoretical framework

The study applies Yuval-Davis’s (2006, 2011) theory about politics of belonging. The concept ‘belonging’ refers to psychological and individual experiences of belonging, explained as a ‘sense of belonging’ like ‘being at home’. It includes shared cultures and values, and relates to other individuals, materials and places (Yuval-Davis 2006, 2011). Stratigos (2014) stresses that belonging ‘is not something that is achieved with any kind of finality; it is constantly in process, being enacted, contested and negotiated in the various times, places and groups in which we live our daily lives’ (p.178).

The politics of belonging is directed towards how belonging operates in society, which can be explained as a political aspect that points to norms, restrictions and regulations. These are contextual and require contextualized definitions (Yuval-Davis 2006, 2011). The concept of politics refers to structures and power relations in society and/or in specific contexts. Therefore, belonging is more than an individual feeling – it is a relational and political issue with collective consequences. Using the politics of belonging gives opportunities to catch sight of social changes and the shifting norms and values within these changes.

Yuval-Davis’s ideas about bordering² processes are used to interpret data, based on her reasoning about social locations and positionalities. Social location refers to people’s belonging to particular categories, such as sex, race, class, age, etc. People are, however, not just categories with different contextual meanings, but ‘they also have positionalities along axes of power that are higher or lower than other such categories’ (Yuval-Davis 2006, 13). Social locations are often marked by different embodied signifiers, such as colour of skin, clothing and mode of behaviour. These processes create borders between people, and that is why politics of belonging relates to bordering processes. It is stressed that ‘bordering has a double character, as a political project of governance and as a political project of belonging’ (Yuval-Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy 2019, 5). This means that bordering operates at the intersection of political projects and belonging, both physically and symbolically, separating the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’. These ‘othering’ processes lead to the creation of both privileged and marginalized categories. Related to this study, the interest is to uncover how politics of belonging operates in educators’ beliefs about children’s belonging in ECE. Our intention is to look for both negotiable and non–negotiable beliefs and how these beliefs lead to transgressions³ or guarding of the borders between categories. At a micro level, the politics of belonging operates in everyday ECE settings and is of concern for educators, children and their parents. An important aspect is what the educators require from a child and/or the parents in order to become entitled to belong to the ECE practice.

Methods

Data consist of group interviews with educators from four different ECE institutions, located in a district in the south of Sweden. Two institutions are located in a city with 20,000 inhabitants, and two in small industrial villages with 1000 and 300 inhabitants. Approximately 90% of the children in the city institutions have another mother tongue than Swedish, and approximately 20% in the village institutions. The institutions enrol children between one to five years old. The intention was not to compare the data between the different institutions; rather to enable variation across the sample.

Each of the interview groups consisted of six to eight educators from the same institution, altogether 40 educators participated. Six interviews were conducted and each interview lasted for 90 minutes. The interviews were semi-structured, with a list of topics to be covered (see interview guide in supplemental material). The researcher asked for clarifications and examples to get a deeper understanding. The study has been approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. Participating educators were informed about the research project, and they gave written consent to be interviewed. They were also informed about confidentiality and utilization of data (Swedish Research Council 2017). All interviews were recorded, transcribed and anonymized.⁴ Transcribed data consist of 120 pages, written in Times New Roman, 12 points and 1,5 line spacing.

A hermeneutic interpretation process forms the basis for the analysis, conducted in two steps. Initially, a descriptive content analysis was carried out, in order to get insight into what the educators were talking about regarding belonging. This entails a step-by-step analysis, following rules of procedure and dividing the material into content analytical units (Mayring 2000). The analysis began with several readings of the transcriptions and noting initial ideas. Thereafter, themes appeared based on patterns in the data. The analysis involved a constant moving back and forth between the entire material and the coded extracts and patterns. Main beliefs emerged. The second step comprised a theoretical analysis of the findings, to construct theoretical explanations, based on Yuval-Davis’s ideas about bordering processes.

Findings

Table 1 provides an overview of the findings related to the research questions concerning identified beliefs and challenges.

Table 1. Results overview.

Main belief (Q1)	A belief in the community	A belief in diversity
Aspects of main beliefs (Q1)	Togetherness Safety A caring and loving approach Integrity	Learning from each other Different cultures enrich practice
Challenges (Q2)	Balance between individual and collective interests Majority versus minority language	Culture clashes regarding time, outdoor activity, sexuality and identity

Two main beliefs about children’s belonging emerged from the analyses, here presented as a belief in the community, and a belief in diversity. Each main belief includes different aspects and challenges emphasized in the educators’ talk about children’s belonging in an ECE context.

Belief in the community

The educators strongly connect children’s sense of belonging in ECE to being a part of the community. They partly talk about the importance of the collective, and partly of the importance of seeing the individual child in relation to the collective. Thus, the belief in the ECE community is both about collectivity and individuality. Identified collective oriented aspects are togetherness and safety, while individual oriented aspects emerge as encountering each child with a caring and loving approach and protection of the children’s integrity.

Togetherness in the community

The educators seem to strive hard to unite the group of children and create togetherness in the ECE community in the process of creating a feeling of ‘we’. They emphasize that every child has the right to a sense of belonging in the ECE community, based on his/her capacities. This seems to be a crucial argument for their work towards togetherness.

There is a ‘we-feeling’ … that there is a community … We are here together. All children have a right to belong, based on their abilities … Everyone contributes … (Group 5)

A concrete expression of supporting togetherness is the learning of each other’s names.

We noticed that the children did not know the names of the children in the group. We took that for granted. So, we became aware of the need to practice the names, to name the children all the time. It is so important for the community. (Group 6)

We provide different activities to strengthen the group. Co-operation to get to know each other. Everyone’s name is a big thing, to be noticed and seen. (Group 4)

Moreover, to enable togetherness they highlight the importance of communication and a common language. A common language appears as a prerequisite for creating togetherness in the ECE community. If the children cannot communicate with each other, they argue it can be difficult to make friends.

Language is very important/…/Communication is central to create a community with peers. (Group 2)

The Arabic children who learn Swedish have it much easier to enter the group. (Group 5)

In the data it becomes obvious that the educators put much effort into teaching Swedish, which is viewed as a key to becoming a member of the Swedish society. Thus, to support children who do not have Swedish as their first language, the educators stress the importance of teaching the majority language.

The problem is to learn Swedish … You have to learn … because you know that if you are to live in the Swedish society, you need to speak Swedish. (Group 1)

Communication difficulties can, however, also be due to other causes than diverse mother tongues, like different disabilities. Therefore, the educators use images and sign language in order to stimulate and include all children when striving to create togetherness. Thus, it seems that togetherness also is about making sense of everyday practice. To understand the context of which you are a part appears to be an important aspect for children’s sense of belonging in the ECE community.

Much work is done to include the children … with iMAGE⁵ support … so they understand their everyday context. You become included if you understand what happens around … much structure and clarity … ‘This is my community’. (Group 1)

Children’s safety

The educator’s belief in the community appears closely connected to children’s sense of safety in the community. They talk much about safety as related to an awareness of children’s different needs and their diverse abilities to connect to other children. Organizing small groups of children within the large preschool community to support their sense of belonging is highlighted.

Some children feel safe when they are part of a small group, and they become unsafe in a bigger group … // … If four children play, each child can flourish. (Group 6)

To encourage children’s safety in the community it seems as if the educators try to widen the understanding of normality so as not to marginalize any child.

To highlight differences between the educators and the children. We are all different and it’s OK. It’s important to show, to create safety in the group. (Group 2)

Moreover, the educators relate children’s safety in the community to the parents’ trust in the educators and the preschool as an educational institution. If the parents feel safe, the educators believe, the children will be able to experience safety in the preschool community as well.

If they (parents) feel safe, they transfer this feeling to the child. We have to spend much time creating this feeling, so that they want to leave their child with us. (Group 1)

To support children’s sense of safety the educators stress the importance of listening to parents, respecting and addressing their potential anxiety. Thus, to create safety, they stress that they have to attend to both the children and their parents to support children’s belonging to the ECE community.

It’s important to listen, all the time, but mostly in the beginning. To let them tell us about their child, if there is something extra they want us to do with the child or if they are afraid of something … (Group 1)

A caring and loving approach

The educators’ belief in the ECE community as important for children’s sense of belonging do not only relate to the collective, but also to the individual. They emphasize the uniqueness of every child, which embraces the idea about supporting each child through a caring and loving approach. They talk about the importance of paying attention to each child from the very beginning of the day and showing that they really like them.

I think, it’s important, already when the children arrive in the morning, that they feel noticed. That you say, ‘Stina, how nice to see you’. It’s easier to enter the room when you hear ‘wow, they have looked forward to seeing me’. (Group 2)

I have said ‘hello’ to everyone and given all of them a hug. (Group 3)

The educators stress that their caring and loving approach to the children also needs to be communicated to the parents, to show the parents that they really care for their child.

Even if the parents don’t understand a word during schooling, they may at least notice how we greet their child … ‘It will go well for my child because they will give him/her a kiss and a hug’. (Group 4)

The caring approach means, according to the educators, to be sensitive to what each child needs. They do not talk about children with special needs, rather children in special needs. This indicates an idea of adapting the environment to the child rather than vice versa. Special needs apply to all children and not only to specific disabilities or problems.

We usually say: the child should have what she/he needs. If a child needs something special in our group, then we try to adapt … so this child can participate from her/his particular conditions. // … // If we manage, we have succeeded. (Group 3)

Another aspect of being sensitive to each child and their needs is to boost the child to feel trust in his/her own abilities, qualities, and judgments. It deals with the child’s self-image. Thus, the educators seem to put an effort into making children confident, encouraging them to try new things, play with new peers and rely on themselves.

We want them to feel satisfied and safe so they can challenge themselves to try new things. You can’t do anything wrong. It is a permissive atmosphere; we work for that a lot. … // … We are all different and that is OK. Confident in their own abilities. That they manage and make progress all the time, even though they say ‘it is ugly when I paint … you paint. No, try … you will manage! Wow, I could!!’ (Group 2)

Protecting children’s integrity

Since many children spend a lot of time in ECE, the educators highlight the importance of protecting children’s integrity. Integrity is here related to the sensitivity to children’s emotions and privacy. They emphasize that children need to withdraw sometimes, which means that being alone does not necessarily contradict their idea about children’s sense of belonging in a community.

Sometimes it is fun to be together with many children, but sometimes you like to be in your own little world. – Yes, many children have very long days and need some time for themselves. // … // As adults we need to be observant of this. (Group 5)

Children’s integrity is also talked about in terms of a sensibility to their expressions. They highlight the importance of taking a step back and giving opportunities to practice relationships in the community.

If an educator sits down in a room where the children are playing, the children might say: No, go away. Then they think it is too much; they feel controlled. It has happened to me; I came too close. (Group 2)

To create belonging is also to step back as an educator! Otherwise they may not learn building relationships. (Group 2)

To protect children’s integrity seems to be to recognize children’s different emotional expressions and to respect their privacy. Educators particularly mention the right to show anger.

For example, integrity is the right to be angry … The children are different … Some get really angry. Integrity is ‘I can see that you are angry. You can go away if you wish. We can hear and see that you are angry. We can help you’. (Group 1)

Revealed challenges related to the belief in the community

A challenge identified within the belief in the community is how to balance between collective and individual interests. In the educators’ talk, we can identify a worry about a prevailing individualism, which is viewed as problematic in relation to the heterogeneity in the child groups. How to create a united group of children, characterized by togetherness and safety, and at the same time respect and care for the children’s different voices and wills, is stressed as a struggle.

There are lots of wills, and many children are used to doing as they want. (Group 1)

It’s easy for them (some children) to get much attention … They require a lot. The educators flock around this child … .(Group 1)

The educators seem to experience a focus on children’s individual rights, while they rarely discuss their obligations in relation to the collective. To be an individual in a collective is related to both the right to participate in the collective and the obligation to contribute to the community, which sometimes means adapting to the social order.

In the educators’ discussion about individualism, they also refer to children’s integrity. It seems to be difficult to balance between protecting children’s integrity and satisfying their individualistic desires.

Often, we discuss the balancing between integrity and getting to do what you want. Integrity is important, but there are way too many children who have a need to do as they want. Balancing is difficult … (Group 6)

Thus, there seems to be a challenging task to care for children’s integrity and at the same time encourage some kind of adaptation to the collective. The quote implies that educators worry about an increasingly individualized society, including early childhood education.

Another identified challenge concerns the relation between the majority (in this case Swedish) and minority language. Even if the educators really emphasize that the children need to learn Swedish to be integrated and included in society, the data also comprise a reasoning about the importance of being able to speak the mother tongue to support a sense of belonging. The challenge seems to be to ensure that language does not become a barrier between children. If the children decide, they often choose to play with peers who speak the same language, according to the educators.

It’s difficult. We have more Arabic children than Swedish … and it’s hard to get them to play with each other. We have tried for several years. (Group 5)

We have just a few Swedish-speaking children in the group, and sometimes it’s a challenge for them to find someone to play with. (Group 6)

Thus, how best to support children’s language development appears as challenging. To encourage the children to speak their mother tongue can lead to both inclusive and exclusive processes. By speaking the same language, a sense of belonging might occur for the included children, but the opposite occurs for the children being excluded. If several languages are present, the group also risks being divided into many sub-groups.

According to the educators, the segregated society is problematic. Some explained that their institution is located in a neighbourhood where almost no Swedes live. The foreign families have no Swedish neighbours, which makes it so much harder to learn Swedish. The educators may be the only Swedish people these families meet.

It’s a problem to learn Swedish./…/Now you don’t have to learn … Your peers speak Arabic and at home they speak Arabic. You may be born in Sweden, but you still don’t speak Swedish. You have been at home with your parents, and then you speak your mother tongue. (Group 1)

The educators stress that the ability to speak Swedish is important for the sense of belonging in society. A challenge in their work for belonging is therefore how best to support the learning of Swedish, not only for the children but also for the parents.

Belief in diversity

The other main belief identified in the educators’ talk about children’s belonging is the belief in diversity. According to the educators, diversity is viewed as an asset in their work for children’s belonging, and it is described in a very positive way. They especially emphasize that diversity and different cultures enrich educational practice and that learning from each other is highlighted. These aspects are intertwined but are presented separately to clarify their emphasis on partly diversity in general and partly cultural diversity in specific.

Learning from each other

The educators’ belief in diversity includes the idea of organizing mixed groups according to age and abilities. By using mixed groups, they encourage children to play with various peers and to become aware of different needs. They seem to be convinced that mixed groups inspire the children to help each other and not focus on deficiencies. Belief in diversity embraces the idea of learning from each other’s competencies.

I have observed how the older children have helped the younger ones, have shown them and helped them and so on. They learn a lot from each other. The older children learn to take the younger children into account. (Group 4)

They (children) are great at helping each other, both helping younger children and children with special needs. They are very understanding and not judgmental. They see the person, I believe, they do not see the ‘problem’. (Group 2)

The educators encourage the children to avoid the idea of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The aim is to draw children’s attention towards variations in a comfortable way. Making children aware of both similarities and differences seems to be highly valued. Thus, diversity appears as an asset that is important to acknowledge. The educators emphasize equality, regardless of appearance, ethnical background or any kind of classification. This is viewed as crucial for children’s belonging.

It’s an asset that we have all kinds of children. They grow up with the fact that there are all kinds of people, thick and thin, dark and light skin. There is nothing strange about that … (Group 3)

This strong belief in diversity appears as a political and ideological stance that must not be criticized. When diversity is normalized, the educators seem to believe that the children become more accepting.

If you work in mixed groups, the children get an understanding of each other. They don’t say ‘you can’t do this because you are like that’. (Group 2)

Different cultures enrich practice

Commonly, the educators connect diversity to many different cultures coming together.

I think it’s both different languages and different cultures. Then it’s much more … We talk about that we can live in/have different families even though you come from the same country and the same culture. Of course, you can find diversity here, too. But first I think that it’s many different cultures that come together. (Group 6)

The educators talk about different cultures as something that enriches practice, is closely connected to the idea of learning from each other, and is concretized as learning words and phrases from the different languages present.

We have ‘word of the week’ in Arabic, Polish and Swedish … They are so interested in each other’s languages. They create their own fantasy language. (Group 6)

They also describe a curiosity among the children to learn new words from each other and to experience new things in general.

I work with the young children, and they are so curious. It is so exciting to play with her toys and screw on her wheelchair. It’s natural that she lies beside them on the floor. (Group 4)

Revealed challenges related to the belief in diversity

Due to the strong belief in and positive approach to diversity some challenges could be identified in the data. These concern diversity related to culture and are expressed as culture clashes. They describe how a strong belief can suddenly be challenged by another belief about the same phenomenon. The examples embrace different ideas about Time, Outdoor activity, and Sexuality and gender identity. These differences refer to clashes with the parents’ beliefs rather than the children’s. Some educators express a concern about how these clashes might have an impact on the children’s sense of belonging.

Time appears more or less as a culture clash between the educators and the parents. To be on time to preschool is important to the educators, and they express frustration when this is ignored by the parents. Even if the educators get frustrated when the agreed time is not followed, the second quote indicates that they reflect on their own approach to time. They express an understanding for perceiving this punctuality as crazy. It does not mean, however, that they are ready to re-evaluate their view.

It’s hard to create good planned activities if the children do not arrive on time. You should arrive at 9:00, and then you arrive at 9:45 instead. Then everything collapses … (Group 5)

The parents think that we are weird with all our talk about being on time. (Group 4)

Another challenge refers to the positive approach to being outdoors irrespective of the weather. The educators emphasize that the parents must bring appropriate clothing, so that the children learn to play outdoors. This can be perceived as strange by parents with another relationship to outdoor activities and nature. Being outdoors, especially in nature, is strongly valued in Swedish ECE in general, which is also evident in the current data. The educators’ interpretation is that the parents do not value outdoor activities if it is cold or rainy, and because of that they do not prioritize buying appropriate clothes. This may lead to their children staying at home because of the weather, which in turn can affect children’s sense of belonging to the ECE community.

Maybe they do not have the understanding of what it means to be outdoors … with clothes; there can be some deficiency … (Group 2)

When it is cold outside, they stay at home … (Group 3)

Another challenge deals with issues related to sexuality and gender identity, which can be sensitive subjects according to the educators, especially for parents with another ethnic background. They refer to a group discussion with the children about love and whom you can fall in love with. The children had many ideas and discussed if two boys or two girls can fall in love. This provoked some parents.

Then the children went home and told their parents. The parents didn’t like that. Two girls or two boys cannot fall in love with each other. We have got this question, ‘have you told our child that two girls or two boys can fall in love with each other? We don’t want our child to know about that.’ (Group 4)

Different views on sexuality become visible in this situation, appearing as a dilemma for the educators. According to the curriculum, however, educators should promote an openness towards sexuality, but they should also treat parents’ opinions respectfully. Thus, how to relate to such issues can be challenging in relation to parents whose beliefs may be in contrast to the educators’ professional interpretations of the curriculum. Another example of this topic is parents not accepting that their sons can wear dresses during play.

For them, it is a fear … This is something new. (Group 2)

Then we use our preschool curriculum … Sometimes the text is really good, and we can lean on that and explain that ‘this is the way we have to work with your children’ … but it isn’t easy! (Group 4)

It seems challenging for the educators to explain to the parents how they work towards gender equality and that they combat gender stereotypes. Then, they highlight the curriculum as an effective tool to use. How the educators talk about these issues indicates also a respect for the parents’ beliefs, and they show understanding that their approach to gender equality and openness to sexuality questions can be provoking. Even so, they emphasize that both children and parents must learn about the prevailing culture and norms in Sweden.

It is like this in the Swedish ECE, and you have to accept that. Of course, you have to explain and tell why. But you can’t move back and say ‘no, you don’t have to hold a girl’s hand’. We can’t do that, then we commit a crime against ourselves. You can say that we have to teach them about Swedish thinking … Swedish preschool is still Swedish with all the rules we have. (Group 4)

Thus, in the end, Swedish culture seems to have interpretive precedence when different beliefs clash. Some beliefs and values cannot be compromised.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to identify educators’ beliefs and the connected challenges regarding children’s belonging in ECE in Sweden. Two main beliefs were identified, directed towards the ECE community and diversity. The belief in the community included ideas related to both the collective and the individual child. Togetherness and safety appeared as collective oriented aspects while the emphasis on a caring and loving approach, as well as protecting children’s integrity were individual oriented. The challenges identified concerned power struggles between parents’ and educators’ beliefs. In the following we will discuss the main findings in the light of the theoretical framework about border transgressing and border guarding (Yuval Davis, 2006).

In the findings children’s belonging appears as an ongoing work that includes both border transgressing and border guarding processes. The work seems to be of both long-term and short-term nature. Uniting the child group to develop an ‘us-group’, based on togetherness is central, and the educators emphasise that ‘all children have a right to belong, based on their abilities’. A common language is declared as a prerequisite. With a uniting purpose in mind, the educators seem to work hard to transgress borders between diversities within the child groups to create a pluralistic community based on shared cultures and values (Yuval-Davis 2006, 2011). In parallel with the collectivistic work, the educators put the individual child’s sense of belonging in focus. The educators try to mediate that ‘we are all different and it’s OK’. Through a loving and caring approach towards each child and her/his parents, the educators convey a welcoming feeling. Concerning the parents, the educators argue ‘if they (parents) feel safe, they transfer this feeling to the child’. Thus, promoting children’s belonging appears as a joint enterprise involving children, educators and parents. Protecting the children’s integrity is also important in the work for belonging. Here, the educators sometimes have to guard borders between different child groups to show that they respect the child’s wish. For example, the wish to play with friends talking the same language.

For the educators, there are challenges in balancing between collective and individual oriented aspects of the belief in the community, as well as in learning both the majority language and developing their mother tongue. The arising tension fields described above, also lead to tensions between border guarding and border transgressing. Different ideas are at play simultaneously, which can relate to previous research that emphasizes the importance of intertwining beliefs, attitudes, dispositions and knowledge, understandings, skills and behaviour in educational activities (Schultz, Neyhart & Reck, 1996; Taylor and Sobel 2001). The educators’ balancing becomes evident in their talk about ethnicity. Borders between ethnic groups are talked about as both guarded and transgressed, guarded when the children are allowed to play with friends with the same ethnicity (and talking their mother tongue) and transgressed when the groups are mixed (and they have to talk Swedish). On a system level, a similar example is shown. To satisfy Arabic-speaking children, an Arabic-speaking teacher is employed in order to unite the children through a common language. Nevertheless, for the non-Arabic children, a feeling of exclusion may be a consequence. This can be interpreted in relation to Yuval-Davis, Wemyss & Cassidy’s, (2019) talk about how benefiting specific groups can be interpreted as bordering processes that separate categories from each other (ibid). The extract, ‘we have more Arabic children than Swedish … and it’s hard to get them to play with each other. We have tried for several years’, clarifies the difficulty of uniting children who talk different languages.

The main belief of diversity relates to many cultures coming together. According to the educators, the child groups are becoming more and more heterogeneous, which challenges the process of moving towards an inclusive and ‘belonging’ practice. Simultaneously, a fundamental idea is that different cultures enrich practice, verbalised as ‘it’s an asset that we have all kinds of children’. Therefore, the educators mix the child groups to make use of the diversity. Thus, diversity seems to challenge the work with belonging, but also the educators’ taken-for-granted opinions. Most of the educators are born in Sweden and familiar with norms highly valued in the ECE context. McKenzie et al. (2008) stress that an overly homogenous educators’ group may be unaware of difficulties and diversities within the group of children and their parents (ibid). Sometimes, culture clashes emerge in the child group and between educators and parents’ different opinions. In their talk, they appear as border guards protecting their opinions, especially concerning time, outdoor activity and sexuality and gender identity. However, the excerpt ‘the parents think that we are weird with all our talk about being on time’, shows an awareness about how such context-bounded beliefs can be perceived as strange. But even so, the educators hold onto their beliefs. The work towards gender equality is strongly emphasised in the curriculum and sometimes the educators use this text to convince the parents. On the one hand the educators express that they want to incorporate the parents’ views, but on the other hand there are opinions which appear non-negotiable. The borders that may arise between the parents and the educators in these situations, can be seen as barriers against the ‘other’ that separate the parents into a ‘them-group’ (Yuval-Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy 2019). The parents and their children have to accept these non-negotiable beliefs to be qualified to join the ECE ‘us-group’.

In this study, the intersection between the macro and the micro level, i.e. how the politics of belonging impacts everyday life in the ECE practice, becomes visible. In Sweden, there is a political governance that emphasizes integration between Swedish-born and not Swedish-born citizens. At the same time, there are other forces that lead to a segregated society. Refugees tend to live in some parts of the city separated from the Swedish-born children/families. The educators have to deal with the consequences of how the politics of belonging operates in society. Mouffe (2005) highlights that changes in society also change norms and values, which challenges the educators’ work towards equality and the children’s sense of belonging. The result can also be understood as an example of the double character of bordering (Yuval-Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy 2019). The political project of governance affects the everyday practice for the educators, which may lead to tensions within the child group. The educators have to make decisions, which in the end becomes a political project of belonging.

Finally, this study contributes to understanding the complexity of belonging. As Stratigos (2015a, 2015b) and Sumsion and Wong (2011) highlight, belonging has to be understood as something more than to ‘belong’ or ‘not belong’. The different beliefs and their inherent aspects that are at play in the educators’ talk, show how belonging processes are embedded in how ‘categories’ within the child group are given certain power positions in different situations and how actions are repeated in everyday life. For the educators, who have to transform the preschool curriculum into everyday practice, there is ongoing work and negotiation to normalise diversity, with respect to both the collective and the individual.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2021.1951677.

Notes

1. The study is part of a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary research project ‘Politics of belonging: Promoting children’s inclusion in educational settings across borders’, funded by NordForsk, 2018 (85,644).

2. The concept ‘border’ is used throughout the text. The concept refers to a bounding or separating line, a real or imaginary limit, and the outer edge of something (authors’ comment).

3. In this study the concept ‘transgress’ means crossing or going beyond conventional borders between categories (authors’ comment)

4. During the analysis process, the chosen extracts were translated into English

5. To communicate with some children, the educators use images to explain a word or a situation