Dialogues of Joy: Shared Moments of Joy Between Teachers and Children in Early Childhood Education Settings

Abstract

The study focuses on teachers' and children's shared moments of joy in early childhood education settings and contributes new knowledge in educational research by exploring joy as a relational rather than an individual phenomenon. The theoretical and methodological framework draws on a narrative approach and Martin Buber's dialogical philosophy. Data were gathered through video observations and diary notes in open ECE groups in Finland, with children from 2 to 6 years. The scenes of everyday life in ECE appeared to radiate an overall positive atmosphere. However, the relationship between shared joy and dialogue was multifaceted. On one hand, joyful moments between teachers and children provided opportunities for dialogical encounters. On the other hand, there were variations in how children could participate in joyful moments. The study challenges educators to reflect on the significance of joy in pedagogical practices. The study revealed that dialogical, joyful encounters do not occur due to purposeful planning. Instead, they require that teachers value the daily, bursting-forth moments as important spaces to create reciprocal, respectful relationships with children. Keywords Buber • Dialogue • Early childhood education • Narrative inquiry • Shared joy Résumé L'étude se concentre sur des moments de joie partagée entre enseignants et enfants dans des contextes d'éducation de la petite enfance (ÉPE). Elle contribue à de nou-* Satu Karjalainen

Place, Peers, and Play: Children’s Belonging in a Preprimary School Setting

“…Photo-telling enables us to capturing related feelings about photos and the dialogical interactions that occur among children, photographs, places, and researchers. Other research has shown the dynamic and fragmentary nature of children's storytelling and how children fluently move from one topic to another while photo-telling (Karjalainen et al 2019;Puroila et al 2012a). Although we acknowledge that children's authentic experiences ultimately remain inaccessible, photo-telling can provide insights into what they find meaningful in their everyday lives in preprimary school.…”

Educación infantil y calidad docente

“…Findings in Ikegami and Agbenyega (2014) suggest that children's happiness should be the most important goal in any ECEC program and should thus have a prominent place in every early childhood curriculum. The work of Karjalainen et al (2019) found that joyful moments between teachers and children provided opportunities for conversational encounters that demand from teachers an attitude whereby every day moments are valued as ideal spaces for creating reciprocal relationships with children based on mutual respect. The findings of Ebbeck et al (2020) regarding how ECEC teachers can contribute to preparing their students for before, during and after any type of disaster are very interesting in this regard.…”

Unfolding joy in young children’s literacy practices in a Finnish early years classroom

“…Implications of this understanding are that there is no separation of entities prior to intra-action and that humans are not the only agentive actors in the research scene (see Sheridan et al, 2020). Some scholars have discussed the challenges in how to define joy and how to differentiate joy from other (positive) emotions or affects, and there is no generally accepted definition of joy in the research literature (see e.g., Karjalainen et al, 2019;Zembylas, 2007). We attended to affects as more than personal and individual feelings or emotions, rather like intensities that can amplify or diminish the capacity to act, and which emerge in encounters with (both human and nonhuman) others (Dernikos et al, 2020).…”

“…In the context of Finnish early childhood education, joy has attracted research attention. For instance, Karjalainen et al (2019), examined shared moments of joy between teachers and children as a relational rather than an individual phenomenon. The study shows that joyful encounters occur unexpectedly, and they require teachers to value the mundane moments as important spaces to create reciprocal, respectful relationships with children.…”