Conditions for Children’s Participation in Community in the Context of ECEC

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to study factors that create conditions for children’s participation in community in the context of ECEC. The research question is as follows: What emerges from children’s and educators’ actions and descriptions as the conditions for children’s participation in community? The text is based on a reanalysis of the results from three separate studies, which are created within a qualitative hermeneutic approach, consisting of multiple approaches such as group interviews with five-year-olds, video observations of children and educators and individual interviews with educators in three selected Norwegian ECEC centres. The work is theoretically grounded in Habermas’ social philosophical perspective and Biesta’s notion of democracy. The combined findings from the three studies are further discussed on basis of contemporary norms on the rights of the children. The results from the synthesis indicate that children’s participation in community ECEC requires adults’ consciousness on framing conditions such as trust, acceptance of differences and a general orientation towards the community. The results identify core elements of a practice that can be linked to social sustainability with reference to the idea of living together in a world shared with others.