Does Santa exist? Children’s everyday narratives as dynamic meeting places in a day care centre context

Abstract

The article attempts to answer the question: What is the nature of children's everyday narratives in a day care centre context? The theoretical framework of this study is based on a narrative approach. The research material was gathered through applying the methodology of narrative ethnography. The article is based on observational material collected from three groups of children within day care centres over the course of one year. The material was analysed through dialogic analysis of narratives. For the purpose of the article, one narrative is used as an evocative anecdote to illustrate research findings revealing the emerging nature of children's narratives characterised by fragmentariness, multimodality, collaboration and a complex relationship between narrative and context. The article challenges the predominant formalist discourse on children's narratives, and suggests utilising the pedagogical potential of young children's narratives in the day care centre context.

Young children on the stages

“…Also, silence, resisting, and standing aside may serve as powerful means of narration for children. In line with some previous studies on young children and narrative, the study thus draws attention to the holistic and embodied nature of children's meaning-making (e.g., Ahn & Filipenko, 2007;Engel, 2006;Puroila et al, 2012a;Viljamaa, 2012).…”

“…The study was conducted as a part of a larger research project 1 (see Puroila, 2010;Puroila, Estola, & Syrjälä, 2012a;Puroila, Estola, & Syrjälä, 2012b). The project applied narrative ethnography (Gubrium & Holstein, 2008) as a research methodology focusing on the practices and circumstances through which small everyday stories are constructed and performed.…”

“…Undoubtedly, many of the stories do not fulfill the traditional definitional criteria of a story, which seems to be the case when placing emphasis on small stories (e.g., Bamberg & Georgakopoulou, 2008). The stories included in this study have an emerging nature: they deal with short, even minimal incidents; they are fragmentary; they involve multimodal narrating; and they are created in collaboration between the children and other interlocutors (Puroila et al, 2012a). What the stories have in common is that they deal with children in a day care center environment and there is a narrative intention, expressed by the children, staff members, or myself.…”

Children writing ethnography: children's perspectives and nomadic thinking in researching school classrooms

“…3 The starting points are, on the one hand, the notion of narrative knowing as an alternative to the more usual logical argumentation (Bruner 1986, 11-12) and, on the other hand, an understanding of how this knowing is contingent and affected by social and material circumstances and power relations (Hohti and Karlsson 2014). While taking a critical stance to 'the romance of voice' (Lather 2001, 207), studies of child perspective emphasise the importance of taking up issues elicited by children as the focus of scientific interest (Karlsson 2013; see also Puroila, Estola, and Syrjälä 2012). Within the framework of narrative ethnography (Gubrium and Holstein 2008), this study focuses on children's narratives as knowing, simultaneously challenging representations that are too easy or simplifying.…”

A Study on Young Children’s Narratives with Respect to the Personal experience at home and Shared Experiences in the kindergarten

“…They explored children's everyday narratives in a day-care center context from an interactional and contextual point of view (Puroila, Estola, & Syrjälä, 2012). The developmental level of the narrative can be analyzed by checking its arrangement according to the time sequence, the presence or absence of a high point, the presence or absence of termination and inclusion of the evaluation (Peterson & McCabe, 1983).…”