Children's participation and teacher control

Case study on teachers’ contribution to children’s participation in Finnish preschool classrooms during structured learning sessions

“…Through their professional role, teachers are the central figure in determining the learning opportunities available to children (Hännikäinen, de Jong, & Rubinstein Reich, 1997;Pianta, 1999) and also how those children are encouraged to participate. According to recent studies the essential features that encourage children to participate are when teacher's interest comes close to children's own views (Emilson & Folkesson, 2006), when rules are negotiated and shared (e.g. Bohn, Roehrig, & Pressley, 2004;Hännikäinen, 2005) and when teachers provide children with a feeling of being part of the group and of being listened to (Hännikäinen & Rasku-Puttonen, 2010;Johansson & Sandberg, 2010).…”

“…Thus, I sought to investigate the naturally-occurring variation among a smaller sample of four Finnish preschool teachers by identifying teachers' key-practices and exploring the unique combinations of these practices that can be seen to provide ample support and opportunities for children to participate in different classroom contexts. In the field of participation studies, Emilson and Folkesson (2006) have studied how teachers' control, in terms of classification and framing, affects children's participation. The current study aimed to widen the perspective from teacher control to classroom interaction more broadly, since participation occurs in a socially shared network of interactions between adults and children.…”

“…This study was set to explore teachers' contribution to children's participation, i.e., children's right to experience respect and confidence in partnership with adults (Cockburn, 2005;Emilson & Folkesson, 2006) in Finnish preschool classrooms for 6-year old children. According to sociocultural approach interactional processes are the key elements for learning and development (Vygotsky, 1978;Mercer & Littleton, 2007), so participation is also enabled in the interaction between teacher and children.…”

Playing a part in preschool documentation : A study of how participation is enacted in preschool documentation practices and how it is affected by material agents

“…Teachers' role for children's participation has been brought up by some researchers (Emilson & Folkesson, 2006;Karlsson, 2009), but not always as the main theme. Generally children's participation seems to be connected to the ways adults interact with children (Bae, 2009).…”

“…Studies of children's participation presented in this paper focus on the complexity of the concept, the teacher's roles and how children's participation is accomplished (Emilson & Folkesson, 2006;Karlsson, 2009;Bae, 2009;Westlund, 2011;Eriksen Ødegaard, 2007;Sheridan & Pramling Samuelsson, 2001;Hamerslag, 2013). Studies of documentation have also shown documentation to be a complex concept, focusing on documentation as assessment, surveillance or as a tool for democracy (Vallberg Roth, 2010;Lenz Taguchi, 2000;Sparrman & Lindgren, 2010;Bjervås, 2011;Buldu, 2010;Vallberg-Roth, 2012).…”