Practices of peer inclusion

Abstract

This paper explores children’s practices of social inclusion by focusing on their recruitment of peers into play activities. Utilizing data of naturally occurring interaction in Swedish and Japanese preschools, it details four episodes in which children deployed multimodal resources in recruiting peers to begin or join play. The analysis reveals how children can lay the groundwork for recruitments through pre-sequences aimed at securing peer attention and availability. It shows how, when faced with rejection, they can transform their recruitment strategies. The analysis also reveals how children collaborate in recruiting peers, and how they deploy certain strategies, such as the assignment of roles in ways that treat the peer as a willing participant. The findings are discussed in relation to peer inclusion as potentially having a reciprocal nature: in attempting to include someone, one also tries to be included in shared activity.