In Denmark, a process of defamilising has taken place since the expansion of the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector in the 1960s, in the sense that children now spend a large part of their childhood outside the family. Nevertheless, parents are still seen as key figures in children's upbringing and as having primary responsibility for the quality of childhood, implying a simultaneous process of refamilising. Based on ethnographic fieldwork we show that parents are not only held responsible for their children's lives at home, but also for ensuring that ECEC staff have the best possible opportunity to support children's development at ECEC institutions. We analyse how ECEC staff offer guidance on how to be a responsible parent who cooperates in the right ways, and on how to cultivate children's development at home. Parents willingly accept such advice because of a strong risk awareness embedded in diagnostic forms, positioning ECEC staff as parenting experts.
I en kommentar til Barnekonvensjonens artikkel 31 advarer FN (2013) mot et økende læringstrykk. Enkonsekvens av dette er at vilkårene for den frie, spontane leken forringes og at barns frie lek settesunder press. Med dette som bakteppe vil vi gjennom en inn- og utlesning undersøke hvordan lekensrolle i skolefritidsordningen/fritidshjem kan forstås i styringsdokumentene i Danmark, Norge ogSverige. Vår innlesning viser at det finnes tolkningsrom som åpner for å forstå styringsdokumenteneut fra et dominerende perspektiv på lek som noe instrumentelt. Utlesningen viser at tvetydigheten ogsåinviterer til en perspektivforskyvning der lek kan betraktes som noe som har egen verdi.
Denmark has a tradition of kindergarten pedagogy focused on children's play, sociality and individual interests. Political emphasis on global competition, however, has led to reforms in early childhood education and care (ECEC) since 2004. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at three kindergartens, we analyse how the ECEC-reforms have affected the priorities of parents and pedagogues regarding school readiness. To understand how this is negotiated, we draw upon Lareau's distinction between childrearing as "concerted cultivation" or as "the accomplishment of natural growth" (2003).We show that parents and staff consider the social as the most important thing for kindergarten children to learn and as something that the adults must cultivate -often in a disciplinary manner. Meanwhile, parents and pedagogues state that academic competences are not important to cultivate because an interest in academics will naturally grow. Adults just have to support academic activities through play when the children choose to engage in them. However, academic competences are actively cultivated in practice.
Denmark has a long tradition of public provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) as part of what is known internationally as the Nordic welfare model. Both traditions and transformations within Danish ECEC are parallel to the establishment and development of this model. The emergence of child-centered pedagogy, so characteristic for Danish ECEC, is part of specific historical processes. Since the 1960s, the ECEC sector has undergone significant expansion and in 2020, most children in Denmark between the ages of 1 and 6 attend an ECEC institution. This expansion has positioned ECEC as a core universal welfare service, including a special focus on preventing injustice and inequality and on taking care of the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Early 21st-century international discourses on learning and early intervention have influenced political reforms and initiatives addressing ECEC institutions and the work of “pedagogues” (the Danish term for ECEC practitioners with a bachelor’s degree in social pedagogy). Since the 1990s, there has been growing political interest in regulating the content of ECEC, resulting in various policies and reforms that have changed the nature of Danish ECEC by introducing new learning agendas. This has been accompanied by an increased focus on the importance of the early years of childhood for outcomes later in life and on the role of parents in this regard. These tendencies are embedded in political initiatives and discourses and shape the conditions for ECEC, perceptions of children and childhood, the legitimacy of the pedagogical profession, the meaning of and emphasis on young children’s learning, the importance of inclusion, and the changing role of parents. These changes in social reforms and pedagogical initiatives interact with national historical processes and international tendencies and agendas at different levels.
I det følgende skal jeg på baggrund af et etnografisk forskningsprojekt blandt børn og voksne på et dansk fritidshjem (Kjær 2005), anlægge nogle æstetiske og kulturelle perspektiver på hvordan børn bearbejder og forholder sig til rollen som barn og positionen som fritidshjemsbarn. Tilgangen tager afsæt i et folkloristisk begreb om æstetik. Det indebærer at det æstetiske betragtes som et fænomen der befinder sig i et krydsfelt, hvor teksten eller talehandlingen forbinder sig med form og indhold, som igen forbinder sig med den sociale sammenhæng. Det er i dette perspektiv muligt at afdække børnenes æstetiske handlen og den betydningsproduktion som bliver resultatet af den.
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