The interaction between young toddlers: constructing and organising participation frameworks

Abstract

The study aims at analyzing toddlers' sociability within an early educational context, by adopting a socio‐constructivist perspective that considers ‘school‐nursery’ (Italian ‘nido di infanzia’) as an important natural context that can promote their sociability development. The larger research involved 18 toddlers of 20–40 months of age, who attended an Italian nursery, and their four caretakers. The study used an ethnographical methodological approach: it has been field research within a real life situation and has been based on semi‐participant observation with different observational instruments. Observational data have been analyzed at three different levels, based on the main principles of activity theory, conversation analysis and discourse analysis. This paper focuses specifically on the construct of a participation framework: the analysis showed that toddlers are able to co‐construct complex structures, based on different interactional levels and diverse communicative registers (e.g., linguistic–verbal versus gestural–physical). In other words, by the end of the second year of life, toddlers are already able to find an implicit intersubjective agreement about ‘how’ they co‐construct interactional exchanges and organize their participation, showing the capacity to accept and promote changes and re‐adaptations of interaction.

RÉSUMÉ: Cette étude vise à analyser la sociabilité de jeunes enfants dans un contexte éducatif, en adoptant une perspective socio‐constructiviste qui considère la crèche (en Italien « nido di infanzia) comme un important contexte naturel qui peut favoriser le développement de leur sociabilité. La recherche impliquait 18 enfants de 20 à 40 mois, qui fréquentaient une crèche italienne, et les 4 professionnelles responsables. L'étude a utilisé une approche méthodologique ethnographique : il s'agissait d'une recherche de terrain, à partir de situations de la vie réelle, basée sur une observation semi‐participante avec différents outils d'observation. Les données d'observation ont été analysées à trois niveaux différents, à partir des principales catégories de la théorie de l'sctivité, de l'analyse des conversations et de l'analyse de discours. Cet article se centre spécifiquement sur la construction de cadre de participation. Les analyses montrent que les enfants sont capables de co‐construire des structures complexes, basées sur différents niveaux interactionnels et différents registres de communication (linguistique – verbal versus gestuel – non verbal). Autrement dit, à la fin de la deuxième année, les enfants sont déjà capables de trouver un accord implicite et intersubjectif sur la façon dont ils co‐construisent les échanges interactionnels et organisent leur participation, montrant qu'ils acceptent et favorisent changements et réadaptations de l'interaction.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die Studie analysiert die Soziabilität von Kleinkindern in einem frühpädagogischen Kontext von einer sozio‐konstruktivistischen Perspektive aus, die den, Schulkindergarten' (italienisch, nido di infanzia') als einen wichtigen natürlichen Kontext betrachtet, der ihre soziale Entwicklung unterstützen kann. Die größere Studie umfasste 18 Kinder im Alter von 20–40 Monaten, die einen italienischen Kindergarten besuchten, und ihre vier Betreuerinnen. Es wurde ein ethnographischer methodischer Ansatz verwendet: Es handelte sich um eine Feldforschung in einer realen Lebenssituation und basierte auf einer halb‐teilnehmenden Beobachtung mit verschiedenen Beobachtungsverfahren. Die Beobachtungsdaten wurden auf drei unterschiedlichen Ebenen analysiert entsprechend den Hauptprinzipien der Handlungstheorie, der Konversationsanalyse und der Diskursanalyse. Das vorliegende Papier fokussiert speziell auf das Konstrukt des Partizipationsrahmens: Die Analyse zeigte, dass die Kleinkinder in der Lage waren komplexe Strukturen zu ko‐konstruieren, basierend auf verschiedenen Interaktionsniveaus und kommunikativen Registern (z.B. linguistisch verbal vs. gestisch‐physisch). Mit anderen Worten, zum Ende des zweiten Lebensjahres sind Kinder bereits fähig implizite intersubjektive Übereinkommen zu treffen darüber, “wie’ sie interaktionalen Austausch ko‐konstruieren und ihre Partizipation organisieren, indem sie zeigten, dass sie Veränderungen und Wiederanpassungen der Interaktion akzeptierten und förderten.

RESUMEN: El objetivo del estudio es analizar la sociabilidad de los niños pequeños dentro de un contexto educacional infantil, desde una perspectiva socio‐constructivista que considera los jardines infantiles (‘nido di infanzia’ en italiano) como un importante contexto natural que pueden promover el desarrollo de la sociabilidad en los niños. El estudio abarca 18 niños pequeños, de 20 a 40 meses de edad, que atendían un jardín infantil, y sus 4 maestros. El estudio hace uso de una metodología etnográfica: se trata de estudios de campo con observación de situaciones de vida real, basadas en observaciones cuasi‐participativas, con diferentes instrumentos de observación. Los datos observados han sido analizados en tres diferentes niveles, en base a los principios fundamentales de la teoría de actividad, de los análisis de conversaciones y de los análisis de discursos. Este artículo se concentra específicamente en la construcción del marco de participación: los análisis muestras que los niños pequeños son capaces de co‐construir estructuras complejas, basadas en diferentes niveles interacciónales y registros comunicativos variados (por ejemplo lingüista‐verbal versus mímica‐físico). En otras palabras a fines de su segundo ano de vida los pequeños son capaces de encontrar un acuerdo ínter subjetivo implícito acerca de ‘como’ ellos co‐construyen intercambios interacciónales y organizan su participación, mostrando aceptación y promoción de cambios y readaptaciones de interacción.

Keywords:

• school nursery
• early socialization
• interaction
• multimodal transcription
• participation framework

Acknowledgements

The larger research has been realized with the contribution of the Institute of Sciences and Technologies of Cognition of the National Research Council, Rome.

Notes

1. According to Blumer, the field research should be guided by this kind of concept more than by hypotheses drawn from previous assumptions (the so called definitive concepts). ‘A definitive concept refers precisely to what is common to a class of objects, by the aid of a clear definition in terms of attributes or fixed bench marks […] A sensitizing concept lacks such specification of attributes or benchmarks and consequently it does not enable the user to move directly to the instance and its relevant content. Instead, it gives the user a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching empirical instances. Whereas definitive concepts provide pre‐scriptions of what to see, sensitizing concepts merely suggest directions along which to look’ (Ibid., 7). Blumer's main idea was to avoid the risk, for the researcher's gaze, to be ‘limited’ by the abstract construction of hypotheses and to lose important information about phenomena she is going to observe. The author, in fact, distinguished the strict indication of what it is necessary to look at – that is typical of abstract hypotheses – from the suggestion of the direction to follow – that is specifically associated to the sensitizing concept perspective.

2. From a theoretical point of view, the validity of this kind of approach – that is not oriented to study a large number of subjects – is given by the assumption that ‘social actions contain the principles of their own understandability since they are realized in a coordinated and organized way’ (Fasulo 1997, 193). It is important to underline that the ‘results’ of an ethnographical study are specifically interrelated to the observed culture and they do not represent more general situations. However, such as Mantovani (2003) notices, also qualitative researches need to identify some quality criteria that allow the scientific community to distinguish between good and not so good studies. Today qualitative researchers mainly adopt the following criteria: (i) the situativity that connects methodologies, results and interpretations of the study to the scientific context where it develops; (ii) the contingency that permits to consider all the findings of the research as ‘situated’, since they strictly refer to a specific community, to a specific situation and to a well‐defined moment; (iii) the reflexivity that implies for the researcher to be aware about the substantial ‘non‐neutrality’ of her position. Moreover, another criterion that is usually used in order to evaluate a qualitative research consists into the member validation: participants, as members of situated communities, are asked to evaluate the final report and/or to analyze some specific aspects of the research. In our case, this phase of the study permitted to interact with the caretakers who have taken part in our study and to create a dialogue between our findings and their situated points of view (see Monaco, in preparation).

3. In order to construct the multimodal system showed in Excerpts 1 and 2 (see Monaco 2008a, in press), it was necessary to examine the most important instruments used by diverse authors to transcribe and analyze human conversations (see Goodwin 1981, 1993, 1997, 2000a, b; Mondada 2006a, b; Zucchermaglio and Alby 2005).

4. Both Goodwin (1986) and Duranti (1986) underline that the audience has to be intended as co‐author of the interaction and the communicative exchange.

5. In an operational sense, this means to analyze how toddlers – through discourses, gestures and objects – reach (or do not reach) an implicit consensus concerning the specific interactional event. In this perspective, to investigate how social actors create intersubjectivity means to study how they understand each other and how they agree (or do not agree) on the activity – that is often not pre‐defined – they are constructing together. In other terms, it means analyzing how they find an agreement throughout their actions.

6. The videotaped interactions have been transcribed throughout the multimodal system quoted above.