Play, Learning, and Children's Development : Everyday Life in Families and Transition to School 9781107348189, 9781107028647

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P L A Y , L E A R N I N G , A N D C H I L D R E N’S D E V EL OP M EN T This book explores the dynamics of children’s daily lives as they move between school and family, where their motives change in relation to the new challenges they meet. Professors Mariane Hedegaard and Marilyn Fleer follow children in four families, two in Australia and two in Denmark, over periods of up to a year. Using these case studies, they articulate the ways in which everyday activities and the demands of both family and educational contexts influence children’s play, learning, and development. Inspired by Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, the authors formulate an analytic approach that includes and accounts for children’s perspectives. Through theoretical and empirical work, Hedegaard and Fleer convincingly show how children’s development occurs through participation in everyday activities. Mariane Hedegaard is a professor of developmental psychology and head of the Centre for Person, Practice, Development and Culture at the University of Copenhagen. Her recent publications include Motives in Children’s Development (Cambridge University Press, 2011), coauthored with Marilyn Fleer and Anne Edwards. Marilyn Fleer holds the foundation chair for early childhood education at Monash University, Australia, and is the research director for the Child and Community Development research group. Recent publications include Early Learning and Development: Cultural-Historical Concepts in Play (2010) and Play in the Early Years (forthcoming), both from Cambridge University Press.

Play, Learning, and Children’s Development Everyday Life in Families and Transition to School

MARIANE HEDEGAARD Copenhagen University

MARILYN FLEER Monash University

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107028647 © Mariane Hedegaard and Marilyn Fleer 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Hedegaard, Mariane. Play, Learning, and Children’s Development: Everyday Life in Families and Transition to School / Mariane Hedegaard, University of Copenhagen; Marilyn Fleer, Monash University. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-1-107-02864-7 1. Child development. 2. Families. 3. Play. 4. Learning. I. Fleer, Marilyn. II. Title. hq772.h415 2013 305.231–dc23 2012031865 isbn 978-1-107-02864-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

section 1: a wholeness approach to the study of children’s everyday life 1 Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings 2 3

3

The Conditions that Family Practices Create for Children’s Learning and Development

17

Societal Conditions Shape Family Practices

25

section 2: family activity settings 4

Morning Routines in Families

47

5

Walking to School

59

6

After-School Settings and Homework Activities

72

7 Relaxing at Home – Unstructured Times in Families

89

8

The After-School Period – Play at Home

101

9

Evening Meals

116

Bedtime Routines

136

10

section 3: children meet new demands in school practice 11 Entering into School Practice 12

153

How Schools Create Conditions for Being a Successful School Child

v

170

Contents

vi

section 4: theorizing children’s activities in families and in school 13

Children’s Everyday Life in Families and across into School

References Index

191 219 227

Acknowledgments

This book is a study about children during the period when they transition into school. The inspiration to start this research came from the study of Barker and Wright of children growing up in a Midwestern USA city in the 1940s. We, however, wanted to combine their ecological ideas of this research with the cultural-historical tradition formulated in Vygotsky’s theory of development, orienting the research foci toward children’s activities and what they were engaged in in their everyday life. As researchers, we wanted to be active in following children in their everyday life, including their activities with other family members, as well as their activities outside the home, in school, and after school. The intensity of this approach restricted the number of families that we could observe. We chose to follow children in two families in Denmark (in the city of Copenhagen) and two families in Australia (in the state of Victoria), documenting their everyday lives over an extensive period. This approach allowed us to explore the diversity of how children grow up in contemporary Western communities with similar social conditions. It was challenging to bring together the material that forms the basis of this book, which formulates a conception of children’s learning, play, and development using a wholeness perspective. We are very grateful to the families for the way they treated our presence. In the Danish context, the children took a lot of responsibility for the researchers, as we followed them around, telling their friends that we were their researchers and ensuring that we felt comfortable wherever we went with them. The research assistants for the Danish observations, Louise Kryger and Kasper Hanghøj, contributed to the research process through their engagement in the family project. Their participation was supported by a grant from BUPL’s Research Fund (Børne-og ungdomspædagogernes landsforbunds vii

viii

Acknowledgments

forskningspulje). The research data presented in this book came from a larger project, conducted with Jytte Bang and Pernille Hviid, reported in M. Hedegaard, P. Hviid, and J. Bang (2009), Børneliv på kryds og tværs (Copenhagen: BUPL). In the Australian families, the children were younger; they also greeted the researchers with enthusiasm and were always welcoming. Gloria Quinones went with Marilyn on all the visits to the family homes, and at the end of the research Carol Fleer helped with video recording the children in school. Their participation in the research was supported by the Jean Denton and Lillian deLissa Research Fund for Early Childhood Education. The Danish and the Australian research assistants made important contributions to our study, developing a close relationship with the families and with us. We thank them very much for their contributions. Finally, we are deeply grateful to the children and their families for participating in this study of children’s play, learning, and development in everyday life. Over the course of several years, while researching and writing this book, we cooperated on the writing and editing of three other books, which enriched our conceptions and influenced the writing of this book. The first was Studying Children (2008). This publication gave us the background for coordinating our research and theoretical approach. The second was World Yearbook of Education 2009: Childhood Studies and the Impact of Globalization: Policies and Practices at Global and Local Levels, together with Professor Jonathan Tudge from the University of North Carolina–Greensboro; and the third was Motives in Children’s Development (2012), together with Professor Anne Edwards from Oxford University.

section 1

A WHOLENESS APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF CHILDREN’S EVERYDAY LIFE

Chapter 1 Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings

Children’s development within the fields of psychology and education is now a hotly contested area, with a plethora of critiques having been made over the years (e.g., Rogoff, 1990, 2003). Yet all of the alternatives that are put forward, whether theoretical or empirical, have neglected to look at how the everyday life of children can act as the source of children’s development. The aim of this book is to show how children’s play, learning, and development in everyday family life can be conceptualized within the everyday settings and institutional practices in which children participate. In this book we specifically take account of the child’s social situation of development, theorizing children’s development from a cultural-historical perspective. We begin this theoretical orientation by introducing in this first chapter one of the four families who make up the content of this book of family practices and child development: Breakfast in a Danish family is a shared activity for all family members. It is the early winter-morning period and the Fredriksberg family are assembled at the table eating their breakfast. The family is made up of the mother, father, Laura (10 years), Lulu, (8), Emil (6), and Kaisa (4). It is an ordinary day for a family with school children. It is late autumn and this extract is taken from a four-hour observation that began at 6:30 a.m. The whole family is gathered around the table eating breakfast, either cornflakes or porridge. The researcher asks if the family always rises so early. The mother says that they used to rise at this time, but today they were up a little earlier [because of the researchers’ morning visit]. Emil claims that he also rises at that time when he is off from school. The mother denies that. Then he argues he is the first to rise when they do not have to go to school. Kaisa says that she is the first to rise when they are off from school. 3

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Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

The mother then says they take turns at being the one that rises earliest. The mother tells the researcher that on weekdays they have to rise so early because she leaves for work at 7:15 AM, in order to be able to leave work at 2:30 p.m., to fetch the children from the daycare institutions at 3:00 p.m. While the mother has been talking, Emil has crawled onto his father’s lap. Lulu brings up her music lessons and tells about how the music teacher is annoying, because he never lets them sing a whole song, but stops them and asks them to redo what they already have done. She does not understand why he stops them all the time and they never finish a song. Kaisa tells about how they are singing in the kindergarten, and starts singing a song about the blowing wind. Emil starts singing along. He knows the song better, and Kaisa gets annoyed. The father tells Emil to stop singing, which he does [so Kaisa can finish her song]. The mother asks if it is raining, and Kaisa wonders how it can rain in wintertime [when it is supposed to snow]. (Period 1, Visit 5, November – Autumn) The morning periods in the Fredriksberg family have been followed over nine visits. The morning setting described above is re-created every weekday morning with some variation, depending on the particular concrete conditions. The morning period is consistently structured by the demands of being at school on time. There are often events from school that are taken up by the children in the morning talk, as was noted above when Lulu discusses her music teacher’s approach to singing songs. What both children and adults bring to the situation from their other relationships in school, work, and kindergarten, or when playing with friends, will influence the specific morning setting. In this book we conceptualize a wholeness approach for studying children’s learning and development, and we advocate that to understand children’s development we must also examine the societal conditions and institutional practice along with the children’s perspectives in everyday life settings (Hedegaard, 2009; Hedegaard & Fleer, 2008). These concepts will be discussed in full in relation to the specific concrete examples that we introduce throughout the chapters of this book. To implement a “wholeness” approach when focusing on a child in a single practice (i.e., home practice), one has to be attentive to how other practices (i.e., daycare, school, after-school/ community program, parent’s work) influence the child’s activities in the specific settings. We do this to gain insight into children’s play, learning, and

Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings

5

development at home or in school. Specifically, we have to follow how children participate in several institutions (e.g., family, home, after-school care) within the same day to see how practice in one institution crosses over and influences children’s activities in another institution. When we do this, this constitutes what we mean by a wholeness approach. In specific situations, often several different institutional practices1 influence children’s social situation and activities. For example, we see this when school starting times or parents’ work hours impact how much time is available in the mornings for children to play. Consequently, children’s development can be seen as a sociocultural pathway through different institutions over time (Dreier, 2008; Hedegaard, 2009; Vygotsky, 1998; Elkonin, 1999). The family is the core institution for a child in the child’s early life, but gradually children participate in new institutions, and these influence the activities of the whole family. In Western societies, the most typical institutions that children participate in are daycare, school, and higher education. It is argued in this book that children (as well as adults) develop through participating in the everyday activities in the different institutional practices that make up these societal institutions (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Rogoff, 1990, 2003). Theoretically, we position ourselves within cultural-historical activity traditions (Vygotsky, 1998; Leontiev, 1978; Davydov, 1988; Hedegaard, Chaiklin, & Jensen, 1999). In this theoretical tradition, activity is a central concept (Leontiev, 1978). Leontiev’s conception of activity is extended in Hedegaard’s cultural-historical theory of development (Hedegaard 1999, 2009, 2012) so that the concept of practice is introduced as a particular condition that also shapes children’s development (see Figure 1.1). In this particular conceptualization, institutional practice frames the activities. A person acts within the institutional practice, but the institution gives the cultural frame for the person’s activities. Activities are oriented toward cultural objects and ideals. For instance, when a small child reaches for an object, the object already exists within a practice setting, which creates expectation and conditions for how the object should be handled. In a home practice with breakfast there are different objects, some of which are adequate for a child’s activity of eating breakfast (such as a glass of milk, bread, crackers), but there may also be other objects at the breakfast that are not evaluated as adequate for a small child to handle from the caregiver’s perspective and may even be seen as dangerous for a child (e.g., a sharp knife, 1

Practice is used with another meaning than in the edited book The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (Schatzki, Knorr-Certina, & von Savigny, 2001), where practice is related to a person’s actions. Practice in our terminology is related to institutional traditions: activities we relate, as Leontiev (1978), to a person’s actions.

6

Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

Society Cultural tradition I

Cultural tradition II

Cultural tradition III

Ho e me ar pra yc tice a cti D rac ce p School practice

Person

figure 1.1 A model of children’s everyday life lived through participating across different institutions

a hot teapot). Rogoff (2003, p. 6) has demonstrated this difference in values visually with a picture of a very young child from an African society who is handling a sharp machete to cut a coconut. A North American (Ochs & Izquierdo, 2009), Scandinavian, or Australian (Fleer et al., 2006) young child would never be allowed to handle this sharp object. What are seen as safe objects for a child to handle is evaluated differently by caregivers in different societies. A caregiver will approve and help a child reach for an object the child desires, or the caregiver will do the opposite, depending on both the traditions and values of a particular society. Even when an object is acceptable, there can be objections in relation to how the child’s activity with the object should take place. For instance, one of the Australian families described in detail later in this book (the Peninsula family) has a small vegetable garden at the rear of their house for growing a range of vegetables. The home tradition of preparing a vegetable garden gave specific meaning to the tools for the children: watching their father’s activity using the tools for growing vegetables and also being allowed to use these tools themselves. The gardening tools were easily accessible to the children, and they would play with these adult tools. To the children, these tools were there to be explored, and to use on plants and soil around the backyard. Although the children competently explored these tools in a range of ways, to

Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings

7

the researchers these gardening tools represented dangerous objects, particularly when they were being swung close to children’s heads or near children playing on swings, as described below: Nick (6) and Andrew (5) begin lifting up the gardening equipment, which is very heavy. Nick uses the spade to dig out the basil plant, which later the dad finds and is very cross about. Andrew takes the rake and, after raking the grass, tries to balance it on top of the swing set, as both J.J. (3) and Louise (2) are playing on the swings. The researchers intervene due to perceived safety issues. (Period 1, Visit 6, April – Autumn) As will be shown later in this book, these children were accustomed to exploring everyday objects and being physically active in their home context. They already had a high level of physical and spatial competence to manage exploring what were essentially adult tools. The institutional practice (here home practice) provides the objects and possibilities for what a child can do; the activity is what a child does within the frame of possibilities. Each institution has its own practices that are often related to different objectives demanding different activities, and even when the activities seem the same, such as playing at home and in school, the way the activities take place will vary, as will be illustrated later in this book. To understand a child’s activities, the activities have to be seen within institutional traditions, where traditions for practice can be seen as structuring the practice into several activity settings. For example, we see how family traditions structure Emil’s family’s morning routine of eating breakfast and preparing for school, and later in the day the family’s afternoon routine of drinking tea and doing homework, and the routines in their dinner and bedtime settings. Each of these settings can be seen as relating to a cultural tradition of how families in a specific society create such settings and routines, but it can also be seen as relating to how a specific family creates its own traditions within the practice setting. The family practice can also reach into, and influence, the practices in other institutions. For example, eating lunch in school can be quite different for different children in the same setting because different home traditions may influence children’s activities in settings away from home (Thorne, 2005). For instance, when children are not used to sitting at the table for a meal at home, and they begin attending childcare for the first time, they will take to the new practice setting their known ways of eating meals (see Fleer, 2010). Neither society nor its institutions (i.e., families, kindergarten, school, youth clubs, etc.) are static; rather their practices change over time as a dynamic interaction among a person’s activities, institutional traditions, societal discourses, and material conditions.

8

Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

In this book the focus is on a family that is constituted as a father, mother, and children in a shared home, even though we are well aware that there are many different variants of being a family in modern society (Golombok, 2006; Dencik et al., 2008). This is our focus because the families that are reported on in this book were constituted in this way. Although the focus is on children’s everyday life in families, their lives are concurrently connected to several institutions, such as the extended family, daycare, schools, clubs, medical care, and religious institutions; these are the main institutions, but for some children there are other types, such as boarding schools, foster homes, orphanages, or child labor institutions. Learning and development in everyday life happens slowly, often unnoticed. As a child lives and moves between home, childcare, and school, we notice the demands, motives, transitions, and conflicts that arise in everyday life. The aim of this book is to follow children’s everyday activities and social relations as change in children’s social situations and how this change may lead to children’s development. This can be better understood when we take the child’s perspective, meaning that the focus is on the activities the child initiates, the demands that children meet and put on others, and the conflicts that the child experiences within his or her social relations with others. When we take a child’s perspective, it is the child’s intentions that we follow. Here we notice how children’s relations with others and their material world may be experienced differently by individual children, thus affording different opportunities for play, learning, and development. In examining the child’s perspective we also show how the relations for the same child change, thereby affording new opportunities for play, learning, and development. It is the child’s self-awareness of these new and changing relations across activity settings that constitute the social situation of development. Roger Barker and Herbert Wright’s book – One Boy’s Day (1954) – has been an inspirational source with their concept of behavioral setting for analyzing the results of our research into children’s everyday life activities and also as a contrast where we wanted to overcome the idea of cultural habitat in the presentation of children in their everyday life. Barker and Wright present their work as an example of “a child in its cultural habitat” (1949, 1971). This conceptualization presents the child within an ecosystem where relations are described. We want, instead, to take an analytical approach and analyze children’s activity to formulate concepts of children’s learning and development that relate to children’s everyday activities framed within institutional practices and societal conditions, thereby transcending the idea of cultural habitat as a parallel to biological habitat. Although Barker and Wright have been inspirational with their concept of behavioral setting, we instead draw

Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings

9

on Leontiev’s (1978) concept of activity, which transcends the idea of the child within a habitat: we see the child as acting and taking initiatives, and we therefore name the setting activity settings (as do Tharp & Galimore, 1988, p. 3). This choice is related to our desire to highlight the child’s motive and the objectives of the setting more directly in our analysis. In this conceptualization of the unit of analysis, we are able to stress the dynamic of the children’s social situation (Bozhovich, 2009) as it evolves from the situation while simultaneously being shaped by the person. Specifically, we discuss the everyday concept of the child’s social situation across the activity settings that a child participates in and actively contributes to so that we may draw out what are the demands, motives, and values operating within particular activity settings that contribute toward the child’s social situation of development. Each child’s social situation in a family describes the child’s relation to other persons and to the family practice. A child’s social situation is created through his or her participation in the everyday activity setting in the family practice. Each child experiences and contributes to these family practices differently, as we saw previously in the same breakfast setting in which Kaisa begins singing a kindergarten song, Emil knows it better and sings it more competently. Lulu instead discusses singing more conceptually by being curious about why the teacher continues to interrupt singing to go over particular parts of a song. The family’s everyday life practice influences a child’s activities and motives. To conceptualize how this influence takes place, one also has to conceptualize how children’s activities and motives at home are interwoven with demands and possibilities that transcend the single activity setting at home, and examine how an activity setting at home can be influenced by other practices. In a family with school children, school practice influences home practice, but in the different families, differences in their home practice also give different conditions for children’s participation in school practice (Tharp & Galimore, 1986; Moll et al., 1990; Heat, 1983; Thorne, 2005; Willis, 1977).

central conceptual relations in a child’s social situation Institutional Practice and How It Creates Conditions for a Child’s Social Situation in Different Activity Settings Families usually share similar traditions for participating in particular activities. In families who have school-age children, the practices usually include a morning period where children are dressed, eat breakfast, and

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Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

prepare for school; or practices in the afternoon setting, such as coming home from school, where children eat afternoon snacks, play games, and/or watch television. Traditions and values can shape how a person engages in activities and interacts within specific activity settings such as the morning setting. However, it is important to consider how home practice can also be seen as part of a more elaborated account of the whole societal context (i.e., wholeness approach) in which different institutional practices, such as children’s school and parents’ work, create particular conditions for children’s family-based activities (Hedegaard, 1999, 2009; Hedegaard & Fleer, 2008) such as doing schoolwork at home. Activity Settings in Families Families who have school-age children have their activities structured by the school’s starting time. The children have to be at the school on time, and parents have to make sure that the children leave home for school in time. Most families in Western traditions also ensure their children are fed before they send them to school. They also make sure that children in their early years of school are cared for after school, either by fetching them from school and taking them home or through some form of after-school activity. The first step in our content analyses of children’s activities in their everyday home practice includes a focus on I. II. III. IV.

Activity settings and how these are influenced by other practices Children-initiated activities and demands Parent demands How controversies and conflicts are solved

We now turn back to the example of Emil and Kaisa at the breakfast table and analyze this activity setting in relation to these areas (I–IV). Child-Initiated Activities and Conflicts at the Breakfast Table The two youngest children, Emil and Kaisa, often follow up on the adults’ and siblings’ comments. This is noted when Emil and Kaisa both claim to be the first to get up on the weekends, and when Kaisa responds to her mother’s comments about the forecast for rain: she wonders how it can rain in winter, showing the general expectation of snow in winter. The quarrel that follows about who gets up first in the morning may indicate that Emil and Kaisa are competing for the attention of both the observer and the parents.

Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings

11

The problem Lulu brings up about singing in the school at breakfast leads to Kaisa’s demonstration of the song she learned to sing in kindergarten. Emil wants to show that he also learned the song. As we saw, Kaisa becomes very upset about her brother interfering in her singing demonstration. This incident may also indicate that the two youngest children compete for the adults’ attention. Demands The parents do not usually correct their children, but when this does happen, such as when the father asks Emil to stop, Emil usually complies with this demand. When the father later asks Kaisa to go and brush her teeth, she also does what she is asked. The demands are not said in a harsh or loud voice, but are caring comments. These two demands were formulated directly, but mostly demands directed to the four children take place indirectly through the activity setting. For example, this can be seen in the following extract when Lulu takes the initiative to pack her schoolbag before going upstairs to play. The adults’ demands are embedded in the well-known structure of the activity setting. The same is true with children’s demands on the parents: they have to be fed in the morning, be taught to brush their teeth, and be taken to school. The mother or father ensures that the children are fed and have brushed their teeth, and the father ensures that they are out the door in time to get to school. How Controversies and Conflicts Are Resolved at the Breakfast Table The mother mostly negotiates conflicts, as was shown when the mother said to Kaisa and Emil during their quarrel that they usually took turns at being up first on the weekend. Her comments were accepted. In the second competition between Kaisa and Emil on that particular morning, Emil joined Kaisa’s singing, but it was the father who directly asked Emil to stop. In the following extract we follow the Fredriksberg family as they continue with their morning activities. It is an autumn morning in September. The categories of child-initiated activities and demands, and how conflicts are solved are used for the analysis. Leaving the table 7:00 a.m. After breakfast Laura goes upstairs to play [the loft in the apartment has been turned into a rather large living room]. Lulu and Kaisa were the last to finish eating. The father rises and tells Kaisa she has to brush her teeth.

12

Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

The father collects the dishes. Kaisa runs to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Lulu starts to collect things for her schoolbag. She then runs upstairs to play [the observer, Kasper, follows Lulu upstairs]. The mother then goes into the bedroom to get ready to leave for work. The father comes in with an apron on and wipes the table, then places the children’s lunchboxes on the table. Playing upstairs on the same morning before leaving for school Laura is upstairs in the living room playing with a duplex train that runs on a round track. Lulu enters and asks Laura if she can join the play. Laura agrees. Laura runs the train and says that today it does not go to the zoo, because the zoo has closed. Yesterday the children were playing Zoo together. In the bookcase the books are pushed back and the animals are placed in front of the books. As the train passes the house Lulu has built, she takes two people from the train carriage. She makes her people walk to the house, chatting as they walk. Emil then comes up, and when he sees Lulu’s house he exclaims, “Ejj how cool! This is the coolest house in the whole world.” The house is made out of a basket with a cardboard box on top. On the top of the box a whole bunch of Lego bricks are placed; these function as furniture for the small figures. Emil asks if he can join in, and the two girls say “Yes.” Laura and Lulu build on their house beside the train tracks. Emil builds his house behind the sofa. Emil walks back to Laura and Lulu and explains that he would like to have a table [for the small figures] for his house. Lulu does not answer; she objects when Emil tries to take a table from her house, but ends up giving in and letting him have one. All the children are now upstairs. The mother comes and gives them a kiss and says good-bye Laura still runs the train while Lulu is building a sofa for her house out of Legos. Lulu takes one of her people to Emil’s house; he explains that it is a shop that sells snowboards. They try to negotiate how many snowboards Lulu’s person can buy. They agree that two are too expensive, so she only buys one that is red. Lulu crawls back with her person to her house. Kaisa, who is also upstairs now, sits at the table and plays with a small castle by herself. Kaisa makes contact with Kasper [observer] and tells him that their computer is like his. Then she goes to the acrobat rings and demonstrates for Kasper that she can hang from them.

Children’s Social Situation and Their Activities in Everyday Settings

13

Leaving for school and kindergarten 7:30 a.m. The children and the father, together with the researchers (Mariane and Kasper), leave for school and kindergarten. (Period 1, Visit 5, November – Autumn) Child-Initiated Activities and Conflicts in the Morning Play Setting Laura, the eldest child, initiated the train play. She started to play with the scenery left from the day before, continuing the play that the three eldest children had shared. First Lulu and then Emil joined Laura’s train play after they both asked if they were allowed to enter the play. The three children’s activity in the beginning focused on building houses along the railway track that had previously been laid. Laura and Lulu played in parallel. Emil also started house building, impressed by Lulu’s building. However, he ended up with his own ideas about having a snowboard shop. Lulu then entered into this imaginary play and visited his shop to buy snowboards. Kaisa, as the youngest, just participated at the border, being together with the three older children but playing alone with her own things. Demands The children were allowed to build play arenas and leave these out for later play. The railway tracks and the toy animals were set up the previous day on the bookshelves, and these functioned as a zoo. The children being allowed to keep these set up demonstrates that the parents supported the children’s play. The children were able to unfold a play theme over several days. This can also be seen by Laura’s remark when she said that “today the train does not go to the zoo.” How Controversies and Conflicts Are Resolved in the Morning Play Lulu modeled her mother’s actions by giving in to Emil when he wanted to take a table from her house. We saw Lulu in this role and way of acting several times in relation to Emil, but not in relation to her younger sister Kaisa.

children have a different social situation in the same activity setting Children’s activities in an activity setting may create different social situations for different children. Even if they are in the same setting they can have different motives and different relations to other people. Children’s social situations can be seen in relation to the daily activities they participate in and

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Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

also through the child’s actual relation and emotional experience of his or her own situation. A child’s social situation can also be related to developmental periods, as in Vygotsky’s theory of the social situation of development (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 202). The four siblings’ social situations in the Fredriksberg family in the same activity setting, such as eating breakfast and morning play, show that each child has his or her own motives and understandings in the activity settings, and therefore they each have different ways of engaging in the activity setting. It is the dynamic of each person’s social situation of development and the environment that is introduced with the concept of activity setting that is important – to follow how the single child learns to act and interpret the social situations of another person. The social situation of development in Vygotsky’s theory can be understood as a “unit” that represents, on the one hand, the environment that the child experiences, and on the other hand, the child’s motive orientation and competence in the child’s relation to his or her environment. This relation reflects the child’s developmental age period. A child’s developmental age period is not the same as the child’s biological age. A child’s developmental age or age period reflects the child’s qualitative relation to his or her environment and depends on the child’s motivational orientation. This age-specific qualitative relation is conceptualized by Elkonin as the child’s leading motive (Elkonin, 1999). To understand how the environment influences and is experienced by a child, one has to focus on the nature of children’s affective relationship with the environment (Bozhovich, 2009, p. 68). Experience is dependent on how children understand the circumstances affecting them and their ability to reflect on, and generalize, these circumstances as well as their leading motives and what need is urgent in a situation. For the four children in the Fredriksberg family, each child’s social situation of development is not anything that can be concluded from a single morning episode, but following the children over time, it becomes possible to see their affective relations and make conclusions about their participation and positions in the different family settings and what this means for their learning and development. The chapters in this book will focus on how children that are positioned differently in the same family learn from each other and from the parents. The learning takes place through daily routines of eating, getting dressed, household chores, play, and discussions of school matters in the morning and at the dinner table. The idea is to use the concept of the social situation to gain a more nuanced view of children’s learning and development through analyzing their play and learning in their everyday settings.

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15

content of the book We want to catch variations and the range of children’s activities in and across the family by bringing two projects together where we follow children in the families and across into other institutions. One project takes place in Denmark following children in two families, and the other in Australia also following the children of two families. In the Danish project, the Fredriksberg family consists of four children ranging in age from 4 years to 10 years when we started our research. In the Vanløse family, there are two children age 6 and 10 at the beginning of the project. The families are middle-class urban families living in apartments in Copenhagen. The Fredriksberg family lives in central Copenhagen; the Vanløse family lives in an old established suburb of Copenhagen. The Australian project takes place in Melbourne, and both families have four children. The age range of the children in these two families is the same: from 2 years to 6 years. The Peninsula and the Westernport families both live in a rural town and they are both on welfare. The book has four sections, with the first section presenting the theory and study design details, the second section analyzing the home settings, and the third section analyzing the children’s activities within their respective homes and schools. The final section contrasts home and school settings and concludes the book. In this first chapter, the problem of studying children’s everyday life is introduced. We locate our work within the cultural-historical tradition where a wholeness approach is foregrounded. The second and third chapters present the four families with the children and the empirical approach to the study. In Section 2 the specific activity settings are presented, and the analyses center primarily on the activities at home of the four children who are entering school. Children’s transitions to school create a lot of demands on the families and on the children when at home; the analyses can therefore illuminate how new motives and competences develop. In Section 3 we examine how the children enter the school settings.2 There some description of the school contexts is briefly given. The focus of attention for the analyses presented in this section are the children’s transitions. We examine how these children from rather diverse families make themselves comfortable and acceptable in the school settings. The final section brings the contents of the book together through an analytical and theoretical discussion in 2

Importantly, the children entering the schools are all boys, and this is recognized as a limitation of the study design, as the sample families did not have girls beginning school.

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Play, Learning, and Children’s Development

relation to the different conditions for children’s activities that families and schools provide. Here Hedegaard’s (2009, 2012) wholeness model is referenced so that a clear link between the empirical data previously outlined in the book can be examined in relation to societal, institutional, and individual perspectives.

Chapter 2 The Conditions that Family Practices Create for Children’s Learning and Development

In the literature one can find different characteristics of family structure and practice (for overviews of variation from a late-modern societal perspective see Parke, 2004; Golombok, 2006; Clarke-Stewart & Dunn, 2006; Dencik et al., 2008; from a clinical perspective see Straton, 2003; and from a cultural perspective see Rogoff, 2003). Goodnow has been a key figure in researching parents’ models for children’s upbringing (1984, 1988, 1996, 2002). In this research it is the parents’ conception of how children develop and how they should be brought up that is foregrounded. There is also literature on how parents acquire the values of being a parent and creating opportunities for the sound development of their children (Harkness, Super, & Keefer, 1992; Lightfoot & Valsiner, 1992; Wierzbirka, 2004). In this literature about parents’ models of upbringing, the family is seen as the context for children’s development and as the general socializing factor. What is missing is the child as an agent in contributing to the creation of the family practice. Macoby (1994) has given a historical overview of the role of parents’ socialization of children. This socialization has been conceptualized in psychology in many different ways. Generally, the conceptualization begins with the behaviorist and psychoanalytical traditions, moving to a model of socialization through interaction and relationship. Macoby points out that the movement in the conceptualization of children’s socialization has changed, from seeing socialization as a behavioral modification of the individual child, to seeing socialization as a collective activity taking place through children’s interaction and relationships with other people. Macoby’s research comes close to the approach we want to promote. Research on parents’ and children’s interactions and relationships primarily has focused on one child in relation to his or her parents in the family home. Network theory (Lewis, 2005) and systemic theory (Straton, 2003) come even closer because these

17

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approaches have oriented research toward the whole family’s daily interactions; these theories point out how important it is to include siblings in the research on the families as siblings are socializing agents. This point is also central to sociocultural theories of family practices (Aronsson, 2006; Aronsson & Cekaite, 2011; Aronsson & Gottzén, 2011; Pontecorvo, Fasulo, & Sterponi, 2001; Rogoff, 2003). In their research, Pontecorvo and Aronsson videotaped family activity over a week and, in their analyses, looked at all the relationships in the family. It is no doubt that the family with all its members plays a role in children’s learning and development. Social network theory (Lewis, 2005) argues for the importance of seeing children’s development, not just as related to parents or siblings framed as separate relations, but also to conceptualize the whole network of social relations of peers and community that influences children’s learning and development. In the ecological tradition from Bronfenbrenner (1970, 1979, 1997), children’s development is seen within the relations children have to other persons in the arenas where they live their lives, but it is also seen as part of a more encompassing context of institutions and society. Our approach is close to this, but instead of primarily focusing on the different agents and the arenas as a connected network, as in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, and in the network theory of Lewis, we want to conceptualize the relations between children’s activities and institutional practices as a dynamic one where the child as an agent is important and conflicts and crises are central. According to our theory, we want to promote the importance of children-parents-siblings relations through highlighting in our research the daily activities of children, so that the specific child’s activities in these relationships can be analyzed from the specific child’s social situation within the activity setting. In the Scandinavian countries (Haavind, 1987; Andenæs, 1995; Kousholt, 2010), as well as in Australia (Grieshaber, 2004) there has been research about how parents recognize children as agents in the daily practice of family life. In Haavind’s and Andenæs’ research, the interchange in the relation between parents and children into daily activities are recognized as an important theme. Their research builds on the “life form interviews” (Andenæs, 1995) of mothers, where the mother describes the daily activities proceeding through the day. In Andenæs’ research, the mothers are interviewed at two different times within a year so the change in the focus child’s relation to daily chores can be analyzed. Kousholt, as a participant observer, followed children from daycare into their home settings in the evening and the following mornings, focusing on both the cooperative and conflictual activities between parents and children in the home and between home and kindergarten. In Australia, Grieshaber has used participant observation to follow mother–child interaction

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and conflicts in daily family life over time, and related this to the parents’ conception of upbringing. The parents’ conception is analyzed in relation to both societal discourse and the parents’ own experience, drawing on poststructural theory to recognize how power influences parents and children’s relationships. We agree that family structure and change in families in the late-modern society influences children’s development, and the traditions of being a family (with its variations) within particular societies influence the specific families in our project, but we will primarily conceptualize this as conditions that each family uses as the background for creating its daily life. We are not interested in comparing families from different societies, or comparing specific family structures. Rather, we are interested in the parents’ values and models of development that influence the way the home settings, such as breakfast, after-school activities, and leisure time are created, and influence the pedagogy of the family. We are interested as well in how the families’ material settings influence daily activities and how these in turn influence how the specific family practice is constructed. In this book we wish to focus on the child’s social situation of development. This means that we must focus not only on how a child’s parents, with their conceptions of upbringing, structure practice and create settings for shared activities to be realized, but also how a child and his or her siblings, through their activities, contribute to these different activity settings and thereby influence the family practice through their activities. This dialectical relation is made visible through the extracts that we present in the forthcoming chapters, where we show how development occurs through everyday family life.

family research as a relational approach to family practice and children’s social situation of development A specific society, such as Denmark or Australia, sets forth conditions for how different family practices may take place as well as for institutional practice in general with children. These conditions are condensed both in laws regarding families and through cultural traditions and public discourse. The conceptions we introduced in Chapter 1 are depicted in Figure 2.1; they provide the foundation for how we have been studying children’s learning and development through their participation in family practice, as well as in the practices of school and after-school arrangements. Practice is seen as the central concept for studying children in their everyday activities. The model in Figure 2.1 can be read in relation to

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Society Cultural tradition I

Cultural tradition II

Cultural tradition III

Value positions

Home practice Activity setting

School practice

Activity setting

Daycare practice

Activity setting

Activity setting

Motives Competences

Person

figure 2.1 Illustration of the relations between society, practice, and persons, with cultural traditions and activity settings as mediating links

children in Western families. Each child in a family participates in several different institutional practices that influence the specific family practice that can take place in the home. If we look at the family practice, there are several activity settings: morning with breakfast; coming home from school with afternoon snacks; play and homework; dinner; evening activities; and bedtime. The activity settings of the family practice reflect the family’s traditions and the different demands from both outside the home and from the members of the family toward each other. School practices are also structured into different activity settings. These are defined by the different type of subject matter classes (i.e., mother tongue, mathematics, art), recess, and lunchtime. There are diversities also within after-school care. The care programs in Denmark include both after-school programs (SFO) and after-school clubs. Australia also has after-school programs, but at a later period in the day than in Denmark because the school day is longer in Australia. Some schools that are located in poor communities also have a before-school program where breakfast is served free or for a minimal charge. In these before- and after-school arrangements, there are also several activity settings (i.e., arrival and playtime, organized activities, snack time, preparation for going home).

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21

For children in specific families, the activity settings can vary, as will be illustrated in the following chapter regarding the Australian and the Danish families, but also between the families in the same country and within the same community. The main point is that within this institutional network a child’s social situation is influenced by the activities the child initiates and his or her interactions with other persons. The child’s activities and interaction can be analyzed in relation to the demands other participants put on the child in the specific activity setting, as well as the demands the child puts on caregivers, siblings, and peers. The central points in our understanding of children’s learning and development were formulated in Chapter 1 as children’s social situations. A child’s social situation is influenced by the child’s development period as well as by the material conditions and the pedagogy in the family and can be studied in the child’s social interrelations and participation in daily activities. A child’s relations to other persons in the family practice are dependent on how the child is positioned in relation to other family members; this we characterize as the child’s social situation of development. Emil is the second youngest of four in the Fredriksberg family. Andrew is the oldest of four in the Peninsula family. What is expected from each of these boys and what demands are put on the specific child in their different activity settings differ, even if they are both 6-year-olds and have just started school. In Chapter 4 we can see an example of how Emil’s and Andrew’s social situation of development is different when these two children have to leave for school in the morning. Here Emil is expected to dress himself. Andrew, on the other hand, is expected also to care for his siblings and to be his mother’s helper when he and his three siblings leave in the morning together with their mother. We cannot expect that the child’s activity will reflect a shared age period only; it also reflects the child’s social situation. The child’s positioning within an activity setting in a practice put demands on the child’s activities and gives expectations of what the child can accomplish (Bozhovich, 2009). These theoretical considerations are formalized in the categories we used for the content of the analyses of the families in the chapters that follow (see Table 2.1).1 1

The idea is that from the analyses one can conclude about children’s social situation and thereby see the diversities of children’s social situation of development of those children living in the same family as well as for children in different families. The categories used to analyze the research material are formulated in relation to Hedegaard’s theoretical arguments in Hedegaard and Fleer (2008), Chapters 2, 3, and 4, and reflect the three different perspectives that are presented in Table 2.1: the societal, the practice, and the person’s perspective.

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table 2.1 Categories for the analyses of children’s activities and the conditions for their play, learning, and development Societal conditions for the family practice I. This includes their location and housing, school and daycare conditions, and physical and economic conditions II. Structures and routines of the day created from societal demands III. The pedagogy of the parents: How the parents create routines that follow the structure of the day and that reflect the parents’ pedagogy Institutional practices and how they create conditions for a child’s activities I. Activity settings and how these are influenced by other practices II. Child-initiated activities and demands III. Parents’ demands IV. How controversies and conflicts are solved The specific child’s social situation of development I. The child’s motives II. The child’s competences

methodology for the analyses of the research material The activity settings with their demands, and the different children’s social situations, have been the focus in the analyses of our empirical research material of the four families. In the analyses we have focused on how the concrete interaction takes place between the family members from a specific child’s perspective, but we also recognize the different perspectives of the different children. A child’s perspective is an analytical concept based on an interpretation of a child and his or her intentional activity and motive orientation in a specific activity setting. The core of the analyses and their interpretation of the observation protocols have followed the structure of the categories shown in Table 2.1. The methodological approach in our family research is qualitative, based on participant observation, where the researcher is seen as a communication partner in the everyday activities of the families. The theoretical argumentation for this approach can be read in Hedegaard and Fleer’s Researching Children (2008). The methods differ between the Danish and the Australian project. In the Danish project, the researcher wrote directly onto a laptop computer when they were in the research situation and then extended the observations with notes immediately after leaving the site. In the Australian project, the researcher used digital video recording and field notes. The intention was to capture the

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everyday lives of the children through these documentation techniques for our later analytical work of the children’s social situation within families and across institutions (e.g., home, daycare, after-school care, and school). It was not our intention to make comparisons across families or societies. Capturing the relations between motives and demands in these social situations allows for an analysis of the position the child holds within his or her specific family and the relation the child has with family members. Here the focus is on what the possibilities are for children’s development as demands and motives change within a specific family, or how possibilities are created for children’s development as new relations are realized between family members. It is not our intention to examine what this means in comparison to other families or societies, but rather to gain insights into how the dynamics may take place in everyday life in families and how this affords different opportunities for play, learning, and children’s development. Because of the nature of the study, large volumes of observations were captured of children’s everyday lives. It is not possible to present all of the material that informed the analysis and findings of this family study. In each of the following chapters of this book we present examples from our research material, primarily focusing on the four children who commenced school. The examples of the children in the different activity settings that characterize their everyday lives are analyzed using the concepts we have presented in the first two theoretical chapters. The examples are characteristic of children’s social situations that we believe show the complexity of the relations between motives and demands within the system of family relationships that make up family life. The social situations continued to evolve over the course of the 10 to 12 months of observing the children within their families and as they attended school and their after-school programs. We give examples of this dynamic change within some of the chapters that make up this book. In order to give insights into the social situation of development, observations are provided to show how development occurs over time, often unnoticed within everyday family life, and as children’s social positions change within the family context or the other institutions that they attend. Taken together, the examples in the chapters that follow provide a window into how play, learning, and children’s development occur for four focus children, their siblings, and the adults in their lives as they go about living at home and in their communities. Presentation of Material in the Chapters The focus questions for our research have been: How do children orient themselves to daily activities, what engagements do they show, what demands

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do children put on parents, and what demands do parents put on children? How do parents respond to their children’s demands, and how does this become integrated into everyday shared activities and family practice? Children in different age periods meet different requests and put different demands on their parents. Instead of looking at these questions from the outside (i.e., What kind of care do the specific children need? What models do parents have for the upbringing of their children?), we wanted to analyze the children’s social situation in their family and how everyday activities can be interpreted from the children’s perspective, bringing together into our analysis children’s intentions and demands along with the demands of the parents. To achieve this, the following chapter will focus on the societal conditions for the family’s practices (Chapter 3). In Section 2 children’s activities in the different settings at home will be analyzed (Chapters 4 to 10), followed by Section 3 where the four focus children’s activities in school settings are analyzed in relation to family practice (Chapters 10 to 12). In the final section of the book (Section 4), children’s play, learning, and development will be discussed in relation to how the societal conditions and family and school practices influence the children’s social situation of development (Chapter 13).

Chapter 3 Societal Conditions Shape Family Practices

This chapter presents the analyses of the two Danish and the two Australian families that we researched from the societal perspective. We outline the societal conditions for the family practice. This includes the location and physical conditions of the homes and the children’s schools and daycare. We also outline how the parents structure their daily home routines and practices. We focus on the physical conditions, the routines of the day and week, and the family pedagogy. In the chapters that follow, we unfold not only the daily routines and practices in the home, but also the schools the children attend and how these create conditions for the children’s activities in the four families. We begin this chapter by presenting an overview of the study design through introducing the Danish and the Australian families, including their respective everyday contexts and conditions and what they afford for children’s development.

the danish families The Fredriksberg family consists of the mother, the father, Laura (10 years old), Lulu (8), Emil (6), and Kaisa (4). The Vanløse family consists of the mother, the father, Martin (6), and Anne (10).

Each of the Danish families was visited a number of times over an extended period, with each visit lasting between three and four hours. The Fredriksberg family was visited 30 times from October to mid-June, with the visits broken down into three series of 10 visits. The first series ran from late October to early December, the second from early February to mid-March, the third from 25

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mid-May to mid-June. In each series the visits covered every period of the day and week. Also in each period we followed each of the three older children to school, and Kaisa, the youngest, to her daycare program, always meting at home before joining the children to school. With the Fredriksbergs family, the researcher (Mariane Hedegaard) and the research assistant (Kasper Hanghøj) together went to the home and participated in different activities there as they engaged in social relations with other family members. The 29 visits to the Vanløse family took place in the same way over a 10-month period from January to November, again broken down into three series of one month each as previously described. Here the researcher (Mariane Hedegaard) and the research assistant (Louise Kryger) again visited the families together. All the children in the two families were followed in their school and after-school programs and during the children’s leisure activities; however, only one researcher observed the children in these “out-of-home” activity settings. The idea was to follow and observe each child in all of his or her different activities and social relations, but the children were not followed when they visited friends or grandparents.1 Protocols were written by both researcher and research assistant on laptops in situ for each observation, and immediately after leaving the research site, each observation was extended by the respective observer and sent to the other observer.2 At the end of each Observation Period, the whole family gathered together around the researchers; the family provided tea and the researcher brought cakes. The head researcher then read a selection from observations of the family visits and the assistant researcher wrote down the children’s and parents’ corrections and comments regarding the observations (in each family this took place three times).

The Fredriksberg Family This is a six-member family living in a middle-class neighborhood. The father works in a software service business, and the mother is in state administration. The Physical Conditions The Fredriksberg family is living in an apartment that is part of a cooperative housing society.3 The apartment is designed to support the living conditions 1

2

3

Laura, the oldest child in the family, did not want a researcher to follow her to the after-school club; her wish was respected. In this study, a protocol is defined as the in situ written observations, field notes, digital video observations, or other recordable material. This is very common in Copenhagen.

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figure 3.1 The Fredriksberg family’s apartment building

of four children. It is a two-story apartment on the fifth floor. The upper story was once an attic, but it was rebuilt when Kaisa was born. The apartment was again renovated during the research project. Renovations were taking place so each child could eventually have his or her own bedroom. When we visited the first time, we entered directly into the main living room. On the right side were two bedrooms, one for Laura, the oldest daughter, and one shared by Emil and Kaisa. Their bedroom was rather spacious, with bunk beds as the sleeping arrangement. In the room also were a small playhouse or dollhouse and shelves with toys, children’s books, and DVDs. On the floor were many toys. In contrast, Laura’s bedroom was rather modest and tidy. At the left side of the main living room a corridor led to Lulu’s

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bedroom opposite the parents’ bedroom. Lulu’s bedroom was also tidy. Next to Lulu’s bedroom was the kitchen, and at the end of corridor the bathroom. Upstairs was a large spacious room and another bathroom. The upstairs room did not have much furniture but there was a computer on a dinner table, a coffee table with a television, and again toys. Hanging from the ceiling were two gymnastic loops. Both the computer and the rings were in use most of the times we visited. All four children used the rings. After Christmas the family decided to rebuild the whole downstairs area. The main living room was restructured and made smaller, and came to function as an entrance hall; a room was constructed for Lulu. Emil was given the parents’ bedroom so that each child now had a bedroom downstairs. The kitchen was then extended using part of the corridor and the room that earlier was Lulu’s so that a dining area was created, where the children from then on did their homework. The upstairs was remodeled, creating a new bedroom for the parents. Outside there is a shared yard and garden for all the families who live in the apartment block, who mostly use this area in the summer. The school and the after-school program were located in two buildings next to each other in the neighborhood. The kindergarten that Kaisa attended was located in a villa that was also in the neighborhood. The club Laura attended was also in close proximity within her neighborhood. The Routines of the Week and the Children’s Movement between Home, School, Kindergarten, and After-School Arrangements There is generally a consistent daily routine in which the family rises in the morning rather early: the parents at 6:15 a.m., and they call the children at 6:30 a.m. The family starts to eat breakfast at 6:45 a.m. The mother leaves at 7:15 a.m. in order to be at work early, so she can leave early and fetch the children from daycare and the after-school program. The father takes care to clean the table after breakfast while the children play. He then gets them ready for school and daycare, and they leave at 7:30 a.m. There is a short walk to the institutions, beginning with a 10-minute walk to Kaisa’s daycare. She is always one of the first children in daycare. She goes to the window and waves goodbye, then runs away to play. The father takes the other three children to school, which involves another 10-minute walk. He leaves Emil in the kindergarten class (first year of school) and walks Lulu to her classroom (third year). Laura goes by herself to her classroom (fifth year). The father comes back and stays in Emil’s class until after they have finished the morning songs. It is the “tradition” that parents stay with their children in this classroom to share in this event.

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After school Emil and Lulu have to walk only across the schoolyard to reach the after-school program. Laura goes to an after-school club, after which she walks home by herself. In the afternoon the mother fetches the children at 3:00 p.m., first coming to the after-school care program to collect Lulu and Emil. They then walk together through a public garden to pick up Kaisa from her kindergarten. After coming home at 4:00 p.m., the mother makes tea and afternoon snacks (fruit and bread), and Laura and Lulu start doing homework for around an hour. Emil and Kaisa play, but sometimes Emil starts doing “homework,” and at other times he has his friend Tom with him at home to play. Kaisa plays either by herself or with Emil nearby the homework activities. After finishing homework, all four siblings play together in different combinations or alone. Around 5:30 p.m., the mother starts cooking dinner and the children play. Then the father comes home and says hello to the children; he helps the mother if she is not finished cooking. They eat dinner at 6:00 p.m. However, often on Wednesdays in winter, the father returns home a little earlier and the family, around 5:30 p.m., goes together to the swimming pool, then they have their dinner late this evening. Also in wintertime Lulu and Laura go to gymnastics on Thursdays after dinner; the father drives them and fetches them later. Different kinds of activities take place from after dinnertime to before bedtime: for example, the children participate in cleaning the house, the mother arranges a play activity in which the adults also engage, or the children play alone or together, or one of the children’s friends from another apartment joins them. In summer, the children are allowed to postpone their homework until after dinner. So after they have had their tea and snacks, they play in the combined yard and garden of the apartment complex, meeting children from the other apartments. All children go to bed at 8:00 p.m.; Laura supposedly reads a little in bed. The rest of the evening is for the parents. Saturday and Sunday are different: the children stay in their pajamas up until 10:00 a.m., playing or watching children’s programs on television. Then different activities can take place depending on the time of the year. On the weekends, the family makes arrangements for these activities, which in winter includes going to the park to play with the children, going out to the cinema, or celebrating Shrove time with other families living in the apartment block (see discussion later in the chapter), and which in summer includes going to the beach. In addition, the children participate in other special activities, such as children’s birthday parties or events in kindergarten and school, sometimes together with the whole family. The family may also go on a holiday, such

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as skiing during winter vacations, staying at their beach cottage in summer, or visiting family in other parts of the country. Shrove time takes place at the beginning of Lent; it is a festival for children. This celebration involves the children dressing up, performing songs in public, and collecting money for their singing by going from door to door in their neighborhood. The children in the apartment house do this together the Sunday before Lent. Later on the same Sunday, the parents come together with all of the children and serve buns and cocoa, and organize the next part of the Shrove time celebration: “to get a cat out of a barrel.” This involves suspending a wooden barrel filled with sweets for children, who individually take turns striking it with a bat until the barrel breaks. The children wear their dresses and masks. The one who makes the first hole in the barrel becomes the Cat Queen, and the one who is able to completely bring the barrel down becomes the Cat King, each receiving a gold paper crown. Children’s singing and rattling for sweets and money Laura, Lulu, Emil, and Kaisa are with the rest of children for Shrove time. Laura is dressed as a milk carton, Lulu as a doctor, and Emil as a robber, with one of his mother’s nylon stockings over his face. Kaisa is dressed as a princess. They, along with the six other children with whom they’ve been visiting apartments, ring the bell at their own family’s door. When the mother opens it, the children all start singing carnival songs. The mother gets her camera and takes a picture while the children sing. The father stands beside the mother and watches. When they finish singing, the children and parents go into the kitchen. The mother finds her wallet and gives the children all the coins she has in her purse. The children sit down around the kitchen table and put everything each has gathered in a pile in the middle. There are money, lollipops, and sweets on the table. They start to divide it into 10 equal piles. Getting the cat out of the barrel All the children from the apartment house and some of the parents are gathered in the courtyard. Shrovetide buns and cocoa are placed on a table. All of the children stand in a row, and Emil’s mother ensures fairness in that each child will get a turn to strike at the barrel, one at a time. She holds four clubs for the children to choose. The other parents are standing around and watching the play. When most of the children have hit the barrel four times, it begins to break. Laura steadies the barrel by holding the string so that the other children can hit it more

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efficiently until it is time for her to take her own turn. Laura and one of the older children almost completely break the barrel, and when it is Lulu’s turn she manages to put a hole in the barrel so that the bags of goodies fall out. The children rush in and each take one of the bags of sweets. Lulu is now the Cat Queen and gets the crown on her head. The children take up the game again. Laura succeeds in striking down the barrel, and she becomes the Cat Queen. (Period 2, Visit 2, February – End of Winter) The Pedagogy of the Parents The layout of the apartment shows how much the children’s needs are allowed to dominate the home. The parents changed the physical layout of their home because they recognized that as their children became older, their needs and motives had changed: they needed more space and privacy. It is obvious that the parents focus very much on the children’s routines, that they do not rush the children, and that they put great emphasis on being with the children and arranging routines for dressing, doing homework, eating, and going to bed. The children often play together. Both parents stress that they feel happy about the children playing together and having playmates visiting; the mother is often around when the children play, and always when they do homework. The homework setting is arranged so that they can continue to sit together at the tea table, with the two oldest girls actually doing homework, Emil imitating homework, and Kaisa floating around on the periphery preparing for when she is old enough to sit down to do homework. The mother is at the homework table together with the children, multitasking by serving them snacks, helping the two eldest children with homework, and talking with Emil and Kaisa when they need her. The father does practical things such as setting and cleaning the table, helping with dinner, and participating in cleaning the house. At the dinner table he introduces themes and talks with the children. Occasionally he helps Laura with homework when Laura directly asks, but otherwise this is the mother’s task, as well as being around when the children play. The father busies himself with tasks when he is around, except at the dinner table, where he sits with the family and talks until they have finished eating.

The Vanløse Family The family lives in a middle-class/working-class neighborhood. Both parents’ work is connected to church service. The mother has a permanent position.

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figure 3.2 The Vanløse family’s apartment building

The father has an academic education but does not have the stability of a permanent job. Both parents are in their mid-thirties. Anna has just turned 10 years old and is in her fifth year of school. On our first visit to the family, Martin was 6 and in his first year of school (kindergarten). Four months later, Martin turned 7 and started his second year, and Anne started her sixth year. We visited the family over a 10-month period from February to November, which included a change in school during the month of August. The Physical Conditions The family is living in an apartment. The parents started their lives together in one small apartment. At one point after the second child was born, the parents acquired the neighboring apartment, and the two were combined so each child could have their own bedroom. When we started visiting, we had to pass through Martin’s bedroom to get from the living room to the parents’ bedroom and Anne’s bedroom. But after the summer holidays when Martin started his second year of school, his room was divided so that a part was screened off and the other part became a passageway to Anne’s bedroom and the parents’ bedroom. The children often sat with playthings in the living room or played games on the mother’s computer. But when they brought classmates home to play, they mostly stayed in their respective bedrooms.

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The Routines of the Week and the Children’s Movements between Home, School, Kindergarten, and After-School Arrangements The family rises at 7:00 a.m. and eats breakfast together: cornflakes and bread. Ten minutes before they have to leave, the mother starts a kitchen timer so the children know that they have to prepare and be ready for school (i.e., brush their teeth, pack their schoolbags, and put on their jacket and shoes). At 7:45, the mother walks the children to school. When school finishes at 12:20 p.m., a teacher walks the children from the kindergarten class (first year of school) to the kindergarten where Martin goes after school. The walk takes only five minutes, but they have to cross a busy street twice. In his second year, Martin is transferred to the after-school club that is connected to the kindergarten. Anna goes to the club by herself after finishing school. Around 3:00 p.m., the father fetches both Martin and Anna and walks them home. On arriving, home they have an afternoon snack – fruit, biscuits, and milk – and watch a children’s television show. Again the kitchen timer is used to time how long they are in front of the television. This is limited to half an hour. Then they can play. They often have a friend with them at home. On other days they visit friends after school. At 5 or 5:30 they start to help their mother or father with both cooking and setting the table, taking turns according to a schedule prepared by the mother. At 6:00 the family eats dinner; they talk while they eat dinner and sometimes continue sitting together and talking after dinner, then the mother reads to the family. While we were visiting, she read a chapter from one of the Harry Potter novels. Then they start to prepare for bed; the mother sits with Anna, the father sits with Martin, and together they sing a song and say the evening prayer. Some days the schedule may be different. In winter they go to a church service for children every Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. – “the spaghetti service.” This means that after the service (where parents come along with their children), the church community has a child-friendly meal together in the church cellar. When the observer was there, about 50 people participated in both the service and the meal. Anna also goes to piano music lessons once a week. The first winter Martin went to gym once a week and in spring to a break-dance course. The second winter he joined a chorus once a week. In summer Anna has a school garden that she and the mother care for one day each week. We never saw the children playing outside after coming home, not even in summer. But they visit friends at least once a week, and the children also had friends over to play each week.

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Saturday and Sunday are different. Martin and Anna walk around in pajamas and play or watch television until 10:00 a.m. Friends sometimes sleep over on the weekends. On Saturday the family visits the grandparents (father’s parents) who live in a small city close to Copenhagen. On Sunday both parents work, and the other grandmother (mother’s mother) comes and takes care of the children. The Pedagogy of the Parents The parents in this family also take care that there is space for the children and their playthings. They also recognize the change that occurred when their children became more established school children and moved from first year (kindergarten) to second year. Martin’s room has been redone so he has more privacy when he starts his second year. The parents also share the care of the children in this family, with the father doing the more practical things such as preparing lunchboxes and cleaning the kitchen in the morning, whereas the mother walks the children to school and continues on to her own workplace. The father takes care of fetching the children. Timing is important in this family. The mother has invented a procedure with the kitchen timer for ensuring the family gets out of the door on time. This device is also used to limit time in front of the television or when the children are playing games on the computer. The parents appreciate that the children play together and also have friends visiting to play with. However, the parents also make their children learn to contribute to the daily chores, and the children are integrated into the daily activity setting of preparing the dinner and cleaning the dinner table. The mother has made a plan for the children’s participation in which they take turns. In this activity, it is the mother who organizes the participation. Only once did we see anyone in the family doing homework: Anna sitting by herself writing an essay. Usually she finishes her homework at school. In their first year in school (kindergarten), children do not have homework, which means that Martin did not have homework so there is no need for the parents to sit with their children to do this. But the parents think it is important to be together with the children sharing activities, so they use the mealtime to talk at some length with the children, and then read to them. The children are asked to stay at the table until everybody is finished, and in the evening this is followed by the mother reading a chapter of a novel to the whole family.

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the australian families The Peninsula family consists of a mother, father, and four children Andrew (5), Nick (4), J.J. (2), and Louise (18 months). The Westernport family consists of a mother, father, and four children, Jason (5), Alex (4), Cam (3), and Mandy (16 months).

Over a 12-month period, the families were followed during different parts of the day and week. The observation sites included family activities, transitions to school/preschool, school activities, attendance at sporting events, and participation in routines (e.g., going shopping). The researchers followed the family members and videotaped all field visits using handheld cameras. Over the 12 months, Marilyn Fleer (researcher) and Gloria Quinones (research assistant) always went to the family homes together and made video observations. Sometimes only one observer went into the school or child-care center. Fleer also made video observations in the school and child-care centers. Video data were viewed after each visit, and field notes in relation to each videotape were expanded to contextualize all video material gathered. The researcher used the iMovie application to make and organize digital video recordings in order to ensure that all clips could be logged in detail. The researcher turned on the video cameras just prior to entering the home, child-care center, or school grounds. The researcher turned off the cameras when leaving the research site. In the home, it was important to have two researchers recording family events, because the children moved both from room to room and from inside to outside the house. The data set for the Australian families was 100 hours of video recordings, with annotated contextual comments for each hour of digital video data (description overview, activities, relationship to observer). The Peninsula Family The father has only occasional work from time to time, so the family is supported by government funding. Specifically, the family receives rental assistance and is given a biweekly pension to pay for their living expenses. The family is poor and struggles to provide enough food for the children in the week prior to the pension funds being made available.

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figure 3.3 The Peninsula family’s house

The Physical Conditions The Peninsula family lives in government housing in a rural community southwest of a capital city in Australia. Their house is approximately 2 km from the center of the town in which they live. Their house is a three-bedroom, single-level home located in a cul-de-sac, next door to a very small park. The house has an entry hall, which leads to a longer hallway that connects all of the bedrooms, the toilet, bathroom, and laundry. The three boys are all in the same bedroom, with the older two sleeping in a bunk bed. The room has one bookshelf that contains some toys and a few baby books. On the very top of the shelf is an old television. Next to the bookshelf is a bucket of plastic blocks, but during the 12 months of observation, the children never used them for construction. Louise has her own bedroom. A cot is located in one corner of the room, and at the other end is her stroller. The parents’ bedroom is nested between the children’s bedrooms. The house also has a kitchen and family room, which are separated by a door. The kitchen has a small table, four chairs, and a high chair. Cupboards and a sink are built into the structure of the house. The family room has a two-seater couch and two matching armchairs, a television with attached DVD player, and a 3-m tropical fish tank that dominates the room. Overall, the house is sparsely furnished but well organized. At the commencement of the Observation Period, the house had a small detached building that was rented to a woman approximately 35 years old. She used the facilities in the house. Later, midway through the Observation

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Period, the local government removed the freestanding structure, the woman left, and the father turned the area into a vegetable garden. The backyard is grassy with concrete slab tiles leading from the backdoor of the house to the washing line and also from the backdoor along the back of the house (approximately 30 cm from the back of the house). This area is used for bicycle riding by the children. The backyard is large and has a carport, a shed, the vegetable garden, and some young fruit trees; during Observation Period 2 the family erected a slide and swing set. The family does not have a car, and therefore the carport is used to store the children’s toys, their bicycles, and some of the gardening equipment. Later, in Observation Period 3, the shed was also used as a sleeping area for a male visitor to the household. Practice Traditions in the Peninsula Family The family routine begins at 6:30 a.m. when the children and mother rise in preparation for school. The mother walks the older children to school, arriving for the breakfast program sometime after 8:15 a.m. On the way to the school, the mother walks to the child-care center where Louise and J.J. are left for two sessions per week. Nick is taken to preschool by his father twice per week for kindergarten sessions. The mother explains that it is not possible to do the 5-km walk to the school and kindergarten and have Nick and Andrew both arrive on time. On the days when the preschool is not operating, Nick goes with the mother to the school. No observations in the kindergarten were made because it was not possible to gain permission to do research there. The mother collects the children at 3:15 p.m. from the school, then walks to the child-care center to pick up Louise and J.J., and they all arrive home at 4:15 p.m. If it is raining, the mother has indicated that other parents at the school often drop her and the children back home. The usual pattern is that the family returns home to eat a snack (provided by the researchers at the time of their visits) at 4:15 p.m. The children move between rooms throughout the snack period (which had no real ending point). The mother usually makes herself a cup of coffee and lights a cigarette. The father is usually outside talking to visitors or smoking inside with the children observing the activities while having something cold to drink, or in the bedroom playing computer games. Both parents move between rooms, with the mother moving all about the house throughout this time. Later the father or the mother will prepare the evening meal. On some occasions the mother will listen to Andrew read aloud in the family room (this activity was initiated once by the mother and once by the child). The television is on occasionally, but with the sound low. The father appears regularly from the

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bedroom, inviting the children to talk about or do things to show the researchers. When directed to go outside, the children will go do so and ride their bicycles in the backyard or in the park when the mother or father accompanies them for a short time. At mealtimes the children will sit at or on the table for brief periods, while the mother and father sometimes stand and watch. However, more often, the adults are not present when the children are eating. The children will move off or about the room during mealtimes if not directed to sit. Depending on the type of meal, the children will either sit briefly or will take their food and walk to other parts of the house. Leaving the table with food is discouraged by the father, but the children only observe this rule when the father is present in the kitchen. After dinner the children move about the rooms while the mother methodically cleans and tidies around the house (but also moving about supervising the children like an air traffic controller). All members of the household tend to stand rather than sit. After dinner the father often plays computer games or is outside smoking and having a cool drink until it is dark. The mother prepares a bottle and puts Louise into the cot, then sends any child who is overtired directly to bed. The parents will usually change the children into their pajamas in the family room – putting all but Andrew into disposable nappies (this is done directly on the floor). After the children go to bed, they may call out or cry, but they do not leave their room. The parents retire to bed to watch television. On the weekends and during school holidays, the family generally stays at home following a similar routine to that noted during the week. The children will go outside of the house to ride bicycles, play on the slide and swing set, or throw and kick balls. The children will spend a great deal of their time running around whether outside or inside of the house. Because there is only a limited range of toys, the children will generally run around the house and climb furniture. On some Sunday mornings, it was reported that the family did attend church, where the children participated in planned activities organized through the church. However, over the Observation Period, the family did not attend church. The Pedagogy of the Parents The parents do not routinely sit with the children or give educational instruction. Homework was only observed twice over the Observation Period, and each observation lasted one minute. Only one observation focused on the parents asking the children to draw and write in notebooks and to color in pictures that were in a newly purchased coloring book. This observation took place after a visit by personnel from Child Protection

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Services, and the family reported that they had been instructed to provide more materials for the children in order to stimulate their development. During the 12 months of observations, the family did purchase outdoor play equipment for the children. The father spent time in the afternoon with the children throwing a ball, helping the children onto the equipment, and supervising the riding of bicycles in the backyard and at the front of the house. These periods usually lasted 30 minutes, and the father talked to the children as he played or supervised them. The mother usually did not participate in these outdoor activities. However, on a few occasions the mother initiated a type of hitting game with the children, but these play periods were brief, usually lasting only five minutes.

The Westernport Family The Westernport family also receives funding from the government, including a carer’s pension, as Alex is deemed to have a learning disability. As with the Peninsula family, none of the adults have paid employment. The Physical Conditions The Westernport family lives in government housing. The single-story, threebedroom house is located at the end of a cul-de-sac. It has a large front yard and backyard. Along with the three bedrooms, the house has one bathroom, a

figure 3.4 The Westernport family’s house

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laundry, a living room, and a kitchen. As with the Peninsula family, the kitchen is separated from the family room by a door. Unlike the Peninsula family, the kitchen has a table and six chairs, ensuring there is one chair available for each member of the family. The three older children share the same bedroom, also sleeping in a bunk bed. The youngest daughter has a room to herself; she sleeps in a single bed. There are no toys or books in the children’s bedrooms. However, they each have a soft cuddly toy on their beds to sleep with. In the family room is a large box of toys, a DVD player, large-screen television, fish tank, and shelves with children’s books and photos of the family on display. The children have ongoing and easy access to the toys, which they used extensively over the Observation Period. In the parents’ bedroom are additional toys, which the parents put out for the children to stimulate play. During part of the Observation Period, a computer was stationed on a separate computer desk in the kitchen. Games are available for the family’s use. Over the Observation Period, the Westernport family purchased a swing set, a trampoline, and a wooden cubby. The shed at the rear of the backyard contained many outdoor toys, such as cricket sets, bicycles, balls, a toy lawnmower, etc. The shed was always kept locked, and the children had to ask for the shed to be unlocked when they wished to have specific toys to play with. The family has a carport, which houses a 15-year-old four-wheel drive vehicle. The family lives close to the school. It takes five minutes for the family to walk to the school. Practice Traditions in the Westernport Family The family rises at 8:00 or 8:30 a.m. to dress, eat breakfast, and prepare for school attendance at 9:00 a.m. Both mother and father help the children to prepare for school. The family often walks together to the school. However, the family is regularly late, as insufficient time is allowed for the children to become ready and organized for school. As a result, the father will run with the children to school, waving good-bye to them at the door to the classroom. Both the mother and father will arrive at the school prior to it finishing at 3:15 p.m., and they will both greet the children. In the first Observation Period, it was only the eldest who was attending school. The final Observation Period saw both children attending school. The children walk home with their parents (or one parent). On arrival, they are often greeted by their grandmother and their uncle, who visit the family. The children will be given a

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snack by the mother, or they will be given a sweet from the grandmother, usually as a reward. The children stay in their school clothes. The children play games with each other and/or the adults inside the house or in the backyard. The father is usually actively involved in the children’s play. However, the grandmother, uncle, and mother also participate. The mother will participate, but mostly from the comfort of a chair because it is difficult to squat on the ground close to the children for extended periods. The Westernport family situates homework in the middle of the kitchen area, where many children and adults are actively playing, talking, or organizing food. Homework takes place at the kitchen table. The adults are usually close by or sitting at the table, and they usually help with the eldest child’s homework. Often this adult participation is to stimulate interest or support persistence in doing the homework. During the Observation Period, only the eldest child had homework. Homework is routinely organized about one hour after the children come home from school. The eldest child is usually asked to leave his play or television viewing and to do his homework with either his mother or father. Homework usually lasts about 15 minutes. During and after the homework period, the children usually take toys from the boxes in the family room and play on the floor. At other times, they take the toys outside (e.g., balls or toy trucks) and play. The adults will join them, either playing actively with them or supervising them. When the children take the bicycles and plastic toddler bicycle out, they all ride around the cul-de-sac area, with both parents regularly standing and supervising from the path in front of their house. The father interacts with the children, helping them if they need assistance. The mother observes, but interacts verbally. During the summer, the whole family took the eldest two children to cricket practice once per week, beginning at 5:00 p.m. and finishing at 6:00 p.m. The children take responsibility for their own things, always returning them to where they need to be. For example, if a child soiled an item of clothing, he or she would take it off and put it directly into the washing machine. They would return their cups or plates to the sink, and they would always put their toys into the toy basket when they had finished playing with them. All members of the household, including the youngest, did this routinely without being asked. Dinner is served sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. The children are usually given food to eat at the kitchen table or in the family room on childsized furniture. The adults do not join the children for a meal; instead the father eats food standing in the kitchen or walks around the house eating. During all of the observations, we did not observe the mother, grandmother, or uncle eating an evening meal together.

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The bedtime routine involves the whole family. The children fetch their pajamas and take them to a waiting adult in the family room. The adult (usually the mother or grandmother) assists each child in turn to put on his or her pajamas. This is followed by the father putting the children on his back and carrying them, in a game-type ritual, to their bedroom. This occurs at approximately 8:00 p.m. The Pedagogy of the Parents The family also actively participated in the children’s play. The two sites for family play were the outdoor area and the family room. In the outdoor area, the father threw or kicked balls to the children, including Mandy, the youngest child. The ball play also took place inside the house, with all of the adults throwing small balls to the children. Regular misses, particularly by Mandy, were greeted with extensive laughter. The family also set up games, such as “pin the tail on the donkey,” or the children retrieved from the parents’ bedroom toys, such as the marble tunnel game. In all cases, the adults actively supported the children’s play. The adults sat in the lounge chairs in the family room, encouraging the children, supporting their problem-solving efforts, and setting challenges for them.

differences in physical conditions and practice traditions between the danish and australian families The material conditions for the children in the families are quite different because both Australian families receive funding from the government and none of the adults has paid employment, while the adults in the Danish families are employed. The housing conditions also lead to different possibilities for outdoor activities for the children. Both the Australian families live in houses in a rural township, and the Danish families both live in an urban environment in an apartment. The activities of the children in the Australian families take place much more outside in the garden than do activities in the Danish families. The Vanløse family was never observed playing outside when they came home from the after-school program. Neither is playing outside an everyday event for the Fredriksberg children. Instead, the children in these families take part in after-school activities where there is space and time for activities to occur outside. Going to after-school programs also means that the Danish children have playmates (other than their siblings) for some hours each day during the after-school period.

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Because the material conditions for the Australian and Danish families are very different, the question is: are the everyday practices also different? For the focus children who started school during the Observation Period, or who have attended school for two years, it seems that their days at home have also become structured as a result of the activity settings in which they participate. The parents’ educational values divide the four studied families in another way – through their economic and housing conditions. Also the parents in both the Fredriksberg and Westernport families value interaction with the children in their daily activities more than do the Vanløse and the Peninsula families. What this means for children’s everyday activities is the topic of what will follow in the next chapters.

section 2

FAMILY ACTIVITY SETTINGS

Chapter 4 Morning Routines in Families

It is 6:30 a.m. Most of the Peninsula family members are still in bed as the research team arrives. The mother greets the researchers in her dressing gown, and J. J., who is up, joyfully escorts the researchers into the house. Andrew and Nick get out of bed, and Nick begins dressing himself. Louise is still in her cot (baby’s bed) with the door closed. Andrew, who is already dressed, walks into the kitchen with his mother. (Period 1, Visit 3, May – Winter) The Peninsula family rise early each weekday to prepare for school. They live 5 km from their primary school, and because they do not own a car, they must prepare early for their long walk to childcare, preschool, and school. How society and institutions, such as schools, influence the early morning home practices of families is key to documenting the possibilities and demands found in these activity settings, but also for understanding how different members of the same family are active agents in making demands, solving conflicts, and contributing to everyday family life. In this chapter we look at the demands that schools make on early morning practices in families. We begin this chapter with an analysis of the everyday morning practices of the Peninsula family. We then revisit the practices of the Fredriksberg family discussed in Chapter 1 in order to show how everyday life in both families is influenced by these institutional demands – that is, both families must rise early in the morning and prepare to go to school. However, we also show how the choices that families make influence what happens in the early morning period and how this in turn is experienced by the children.

the demands that schools create and how these are met in the peninsula family’s early morning practices The town that the Peninsula family lives in is like many other communities in Australia. Homes are spread out across large areas of land, with an expansive 47

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network of sealed roads to join homes to basic services and community facilities. Some paving for walking and bicycle riding exists, but mostly the commuting system is designed for car transport. This means the Peninsula family must allow one hour for their walk to school, childcare, and preschool, if they are to arrive at school on time. It is important in Australia to arrive on time in school. This creates time demands in the morning for all members of the household. In addition, as they live in what is classified as a low socioeconomic community, the family has the opportunity to enjoy the breakfast program offered by the school. However, the program begins 45 minutes prior to the commencement of school, thus creating even more time demands on the family in the morning. All members of the family respond differently to these demands, and in this first section we discuss the relations between the mother’s demands and Andrew’s. We also look at Nick’s demands on his mother and how she responds to them. Finally, we discuss the relations between siblings in the early morning period. Child-Initiated Activities and Conflicts in the Morning It is the mother who takes responsibility for organizing the Peninsula family in the morning. Although the mother seeks to provide a consistent routine, the children place demands upon the mother which result in a more chaotic approach to the early morning period, as will be shown in the observation that follows. This observation was made in the middle of winter in the early morning period when it was still dark, and the temperature cool by Australian standards (15ºC). In the kitchen, the mother begins preparing the school lunch for Andrew, and later a bottle of milk for Louise to take to childcare. Andrew anticipates each step of the preparation process, positioning himself near his mother in order to actively help her with food preparation. However, the mother is responding to time pressure, and reads Andrew’s physical positioning as “getting in the way.” Her irritation leads her to view Andrew’s attempts at retrieving items or putting things away as not doing the job correctly. For instance, this is observed when Andrew joins the mother in the kitchen, standing next to her as she puts away the bread: mother: Don’t get in my way, please (softly spoken). andrew: (following his mother, then opens the refrigerator door) mother: Get away! (in a growling tone) Andrew leaves the refrigerator door open and moves quickly away. He then opens the drawers to the cupboards, appearing to anticipate retrieving cling wrap for the sandwiches the mother is making. The refrigerator door is still open.

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mother: Don’t pull that (drawers)! Close the fridge (in a growling tone). I am going to crack it in a minute. andrew: Milk? (apparently anticipating making up a bottle of milk for Louise) mother: Don’t look at me. Andrew walks to the refrigerator in order to close the door. However, the mother is finishing with the margarine, so Andrew returns to the mother and picks up the margarine as they both simultaneously say: andrew: Margarine? mother: Put the margarine in the fridge. As Andrew places the margarine into the refrigerator, he swings his arm to push the door closed. During this sequence his mother briskly says, “Get out the milk.” But by the time Andrew registers this request, the refrigerator door is closed. The magnetic mechanism on the door seals it fast, and makes it difficult for Andrew to open the door again. As he struggles to do so, his mother says softly, “I am going to make up bottles for your sister.” Andrew makes five attempts to pull open the refrigerator door. His mother yells at him, saying, “Don’t worry about it. I will do it in a minute.” As she says this, the door opens, and she then moves past him. Andrew asks, “How much do you want?” as he takes out the baby bottle, gesturing with it up to his mother. The mother yells, “Don’t worry about that one!” The mother has in mind the milk container, but Andrew is already anticipating the need for the baby bottle, which has markings on the side for quantity. The mother moves to another cupboard searching for something (sandwich spread), stating, “Do as I ask.” Andrew responds softly, “I did,” as he takes the milk container from the refrigerator and puts it on the bench top next to the baby bottle. How Demands Are Met and Conflicts Resolved – Andrew The mother appears to not have time to patiently wait for Andrew to help her. The need to quickly prepare lunches and to organize Louise’s bottle of milk means that there is not enough time in the mornings for Andrew to easily participate in food preparation – something Andrew clearly wishes to do. Because the family does not have a car, the starting time for both school and the breakfast program places enormous time demands on the mother in the mornings when preparing her children for school and childcare. Accordingly, the mother cannot wait for Andrew to retrieve objects from the refrigerator, or for him to help make the sandwiches or pour the milk into the bottle. Rather, the mother has to do these things quickly in order to

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arrive at school on time. However, despite the negative interactions directed to Andrew by his mother, he continues to help, and also actively resists her negativity by softly disputing his mother’s criticisms through whispers. Although tentative in disputing his mother’s analysis of the situation, Andrew is still an active agent, continuing to participate in the food preparation process. Andrew is not put off by the time pressure, and does not react loudly to the negativity of his mother; instead he continuously demands that he participate, and as a result he is able to do some of the food preparation with his mother. Demands and Conflicts in the Morning Setting – Nick Early morning preparation for school and childcare are experienced differently by the children in the Peninsula household. When Nick comes into the kitchen, he does not seek to participate in the preparation of lunches; rather he immediately opens the refrigerator door. He stands in front of the refrigerator for several minutes, scanning its contents. In the door are a number of sauce bottles and one bottle of milk. On the shelf is a carton of eggs, margarine, and a container of what appears to be leftover pasta. The remainder of the refrigerator is empty. Nick moves the refrigerator door back and forth, apparently to help him view its contents. He looks high up on the shelves and down low. The mother, who left the room to dress, now returns to the kitchen. Nick eventually announces, “I’m hungry,” with a slight whine. His mother immediately yells at him, saying, “Go away.” Nick repeats: “I’m hungry,” again with a slight whine. The mother moves aggressively toward Nick, pointing and yelling: “Don’t start that now.” Nick immediately reacts to his mother’s pointed finger by falling on the ground and beginning to cry. The mother asks Andrew for his lunchbox, which he retrieves from his bag, and the mother puts a muesli bar in it. Nick observes this and says, “I want a muesli bar.” Although the mother has more muesli bars safely stored in her bedroom, where she keeps precious items, she says the following to announce that when she gives out the last of the muesli bars, there will not be any left for Andrew’s lunchbox for the remainder of the week: mother: Fine. That is all there is. I will get one and tomorrow . . . (inaudible, as the mother leaves the room to search for another muesli bar in her bedroom) Nick follows his mother down the hallway toward the bedroom while Andrew repacks his bag. J. J. runs up and down the hallway, half-dressed. From the

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bedroom the mother shouts, repeating, “That’s all there is.” As she walks the hallway she thrusts one muesli bar into each child’s hand. nick: Mars bar? mother: What? nick: Lunch bar? mother: There isn’t any Mars bars. We haven’t got a rice bar (possibly referring to the lunch bar request). That’s all there is (referring to the muesli bar). andrew: Muesli bar at home (wanting more than one)? mother: Get one out of your lunchbox then. andrew: No. (Andrew does not take out his muesli bar from his bag) mother: There is no more. Don’t! There isn’t any more. The three children take the wrappers off their muesli bars and begin eating them. These were reserved for Andrew’s lunchbox. The mother moves toward Nick and says, “Stop cracking the shit to get attention.” Nick turns his back to his mother and says softly, “Leave me.” He then walks down the hallway, visibly upset and apparently wishing not to be filmed. The team turns the cameras toward the other children. The mother asks the children to “go and see if your father is awake.” How Demands Are Met and Conflicts Solved – Nick The lack of breakfast food in the refrigerator caused Nick to demand food from his mother. Although it is likely that all the children are hungry and want breakfast, it is Nick who is most demanding of his mother for food. Nick rechannels his demands for food toward the demand for a muesli bar and later a Mars bar. His demands were satisfied by his mother, as she gave each child a muesli bar. However, the mother wanted the children to wait for breakfast and eat at the school in their breakfast program. This would have meant that the muesli bars could have been saved. Nick’s insistent demand was met with a negative response by the mother, who was already distressed by Nick’s demands for food in a context where no food was available in the refrigerator for breakfast. The mother’s lack of resources meant that the muesli bars would now no longer be available as school snacks later in the week. The mother made explicit to her children the consequences of eating the school snacks, which Andrew would experience later in the week. This incident in the early morning created an opportunity for the children to experience immediate gratification through the mother meeting the children’s demands for muesli bars. However, both Andrew and Nick were also experiencing delayed

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gratification as a result of having to wait for breakfast until they reached the school. Importantly, the children were exposed to the concept of being resourceful through waiting for the breakfast program – even if at such a young age they did not fully understand the concept. Opportunities for Becoming Resourceful Conservation of resources by the mother extended beyond the incident with the muesli bar. When she was preparing Andrew’s school lunch (i.e., spreading jam on a slice of bread), she opened up his lunchbox and immediately exclaimed: “What have I told you to bring your plastic bags home (said angrily)! I don’t have any cling wrap.” Andrew opened a drawer, signaling to something inside and softly gesturing to his mother. The mother searched the kitchen drawers and retrieved a plastic ziplock bag. She placed the sandwiches into it, then threw the bag into the lunchbox. She was clearly angry with Andrew for not bringing home the plastic bag used the day before to store his lunch. Andrew continued to watch her, then asked for bananas. The mother said as she left the room, “I don’t have any bananas.” Andrew then took his water bottle from the bench top and placed the opening under the kitchen tap, asking the researcher Marilyn to assist him with filling it. Andrew put the lunchbox and the drink container into his backpack. In this early morning interaction of preparing to go to school, the mother is able to provide opportunities to Andrew for learning about the need for saving and reusing resources. The mother not only signals to Andrew the need for saving, but gives him reasons as to why this is important. A further example of the resourcefulness of the mother becomes evident when the researchers turn on the hall light so that they can videotape more clearly the early morning period. The children were standing in the well-lit hallway ready to leave for school as their mother announced: “What are these lights doing on, BOYS?” The mother returns and turns off the hall light and then walks to the entrance, ready to walk to school with her children. Although the family is poor, the mother is able to work within the context in which she lives, through being resourceful and solving problems as they arise, but also through introducing the concept of resourcefulness to her children. Through placing demands on her children to be careful with the resources they have, she gives them opportunities to learn about resourcefulness. How the mother deals with the demands placed on her as part of living in a rural township with limited resources helps create the family practice of “being resourceful,” and this in turn has the potential to develop the children’s motive for resourcefulness.

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Demands between Siblings in the Morning Setting – Waiting as a Practice Tradition The demands between siblings within the early morning period were not as pronounced as they were with the mother. For instance, the incident with the muesli bar becomes a focal point for the children as they assemble near the front door in anticipation of their long walk to school and childcare. The children ask each other about their muesli bars as they walk back and forward down the hallway – “What do you have?” The children do not respond, but look to each others’ bars. J. J. walks down to the bedrooms, eating his muesli bar and asking, “Daddy, are you awake?” Andrew takes out the muesli bar from his lunchbox, takes a bite, and then lets Nick take it from him. He does not resist because he is busy repacking his bag. He then works to put the backpack on his back, to hold his reader folder, and also to manage a third bag that flaps awkwardly to the side. Managing three separate things is difficult. After two attempts he is ready for school again and walks to the entrance hall of the house, where J. J. and Nick are now assembled, jumping up and down. The mother is dressing Louise. J. J. bounces up and down, having only eaten half of his muesli bar, then throwing the remainder on the floor. This is only noticed by the dog who has suddenly appeared. Louise is put into the stroller by her mother, and J. J. smiles at her, pats her head, and the mother gestures to the researchers that they are about to walk to school. Although the children are active, they appear to be well rehearsed in the family practice of getting ready for school and waiting in the hallway next to the front door when ready. They do not place demands on each other in the early morning period, but rather the demand for waiting to leave is formulated as an expectation and eager anticipation of leaving for their long walk.

how schools influence home activity settings and contribute to family practices Societal and Institutional Demands and Conditions for both the Fredriksberg Family and the Peninsula Family Understanding the institutional and societal conditions that create particular practices is important for understanding everyday life in the mornings. The morning routine for the Peninsula family is significantly influenced by the economic conditions that the family finds themselves in, which in turn is shaped by how a community supports its citizens. However, the family is not a passive agent, but rather creates its own family practices to deal with

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poverty. The morning routine is influenced by the school starting time and the mother’s desire to attend the school breakfast program. The mother wishes to utilize the breakfast program so that the resources available to her can be stretched as far as possible. However, attendance at the breakfast program creates a time demand on the family, and the need to rise early in the morning. Each of the children in the Peninsula family respond differently to the demands created when having to rise early. The children create demands for food preparation and the need for food, and the mother creates demands for resourcefulness and for the children to wait. In Chapter 1 we examined the early morning routine of the Fredriksberg family in Denmark. Like the Peninsula family, the Fredriksberg family rises early in the morning in order for the children to arrive at school on time. The family practices and societal demands influence what happens in the Fredriksberg family. Both parents are employed, and therefore both must also prepare themselves for work while organizing their children for school. The mother has to leave earlier than the rest of the family to be on time for work. For the parents to share the responsibility in the morning, the whole family rises early. The parents’ supporting their children in self-care activities while also cooking breakfast, and engaging in extended conversations, also creates demands and conflicts. How the Fredriksberg’s family deals with these is also important for understanding the everyday morning practices of the Fredriksberg family. Differences in the Morning Settings for the Fredriksberg Family and the Peninsula Family In this section, the motives, demands, and conflicts that arise and how individuals deal with these within the institution of the family are discussed in relation to both the Fredriksberg and the Peninsula families. In the Fredriksberg family, the parents express that they want to rise early in the morning to have a relaxed time before the parents go to work and the children go to school. This motive leads to the children having time to prepare for school, to discuss with each other and with their parents schoolrelated activities, and to also engage in play activity. It is a general value that the family should have time together in the morning around the breakfast table. There the children are helped to get ready for dressing, brushing their teeth, and packing their schoolbags. The parents structure the morning time schedule. Gradually though, the children are expected to get themselves ready for school and kindergarten. For the Peninsula family, rising early means that the children can participate in the breakfast program so that the

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family resources go further. The motive for early rising does not concern itself with creating a relaxed atmosphere for the children before they have to leave for school, but rather it is about being resourceful – making food go as far as possible. Child-Initiated Activities It is not just the motives that influence the conditions for the children, but also the choices the families make. Planning for more time in the mornings meant that there was the opportunity for children in the Fredriksberg family to initiate activities, rather than just engaging in the task of getting ready for school. For the Peninsula family, the children’s main activity is to get ready for school. The time constraints meant that the mother could not be patient with Andrew in his quest to help with food preparation. It also meant that the children had no other possibilities in the morning for other kinds of activities, such as playing, because they had to be ready quickly and be on the road walking so that they did not miss the breakfast program. In the Fredriksberg family, the children in the morning settings not only initiated play, but they expanded the play that had been established the previous day into a joint play activity. Negotiating entry into an established game is usually challenging, but in the Fredriksberg family, the time to play in the morning and opportunities for complex play to evolve among siblings and for different play partners to contribute to the play make for a peaceful morning. How Controversies Are Solved Both families meet demands, conflicts, and controversies in the earlymorning period. The children in the Fredriksberg family have conflicts between siblings, such as when Emil and Kaisa quarrel about who is the first to rise in the morning on the weekend, each competing for the attention of the researchers and the parents. This quarrel was solved by the mother suggesting a solution that they were both happy with. Conflicts also arise in the Peninsula family but in relation to the mother rather than between siblings. Andrew wishes to participate in food preparation with the mother, and this causes conflict. Andrew solves this problem by anticipating each phase of the food preparation process, initiating food retrieval or packing up, while carefully avoiding making his mother angry as she actively resists his actions. Through anticipation and persistence, Andrew participates in the food preparation while keeping his mother as calm as possible in the busy early morning period through speaking softly and through positioning

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himself carefully within the “work space” and his mother’s active movements within the kitchen area. In contrast, Nick does not manage the conflict that he has with his mother; rather his reactions to there being no food, and later, his wanting a muesli bar, make the mother angry. However, his dramatic actions – falling onto the floor, whining, and withdrawing (when he says, “leave me”) result in all the children receiving a muesli bar.

different conditions for children’s development Researching the everyday lives of children beyond the narrowly defined relations between parents and children has received very little attention (Kousholt, 2011), despite the urgent need for better understanding of children’s development in relation to their social situations (Bozhovich, 2009) and institutional and societal contexts (Fleer & Hedegaard, 2010). Tudge (2008) has argued that little effort has been directed to documenting “heterogeneity within societies” (p. 17) because most cross-cultural research seeks to find patterns or universals. How mornings are experienced within families, as has been documented in this chapter, provides some insights into the different conditions for children’s development. Unlike Tudge’s (2008) research that seeks to contrast cultural communities from the standpoint of class, culture, and child rearing, our research is framed more generally. Rather, we add to the small and growing body of research that seeks to examine the diversity of conditions and circumstances in the mornings, in order to understand how these create opportunities for children’s different activities. In our research we assume heterogeneity, but rather than focus on contrasting societies or families (middle class, working class, etc.) as is common in crosscultural research (Georgas, Berry, van de Vijver, Kagitcibasi, & Poortinga, 2006), we examine how societal values create practices and conditions that generate demands and opportunities within the everyday lives of families in the earlymorning period. We do not seek to show universal representations of family practices but instead focus on the societal conditions for these families, which create individual practices in the home. How a specific family creates their morning settings is related to societal values and the conditions society makes available to its citizens. At the societal level, it is possible to see that both the Australian and Danish countries strive to educate their children within childcare, preschool, and schools. As was shown in this chapter, each of these educational institutions has broad expectations and practices that place demands on the families. The school starting time significantly influenced the early morning periods for both the Peninsula family in Australia and the Fredriksberg family in Denmark.

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However, each family had agency (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004) in how they responded to these demands, and through this, what kinds of conditions were created for the children growing up in these particular families. What we know from previous research is that for some families simply getting up in the mornings is challenging, as reported by Tudge (2008), “A Friday morning in May has begun rather differently for Naomi [in Greeensboro], a black middle-class girl. She has gone to bed after 10 the night before and was rather resistant to getting out of bed so soon after 6:00. By 8 she’s already been in the child-care center for an hour and has just finished eating a snack” (p. 223). In this important study, Tudge contrasts this child with another child in the same community: “Andy, a middle-class white boy, has been awake for a little more than an hour by 8:15 on a Friday morning in February. His father has made him, his younger sister, and their mother their breakfast while Andy was being washed and dressed, and at 8:15 he’s watching the news on TV with his father” (p. 222). As with the families reported in our work, these families are also influenced by societal values and expectations that children will participate in some form of educational practice. Meeting this demand creates both conflicts and opportunities for children’s development. Tudge’s quantitatively framed study gives general insights into family practices. However, our research goes further and gives details of how the institutional practices are being experienced by the children and how they contribute to these practices. This is in line with research by Gillen and Cameron (2010) who research how young children begin their day, discussing the morning family practices of children growing up in Peru, UK, Italy, Canada, the United States, Turkey, and Thailand. Their focus of attention is the toddlers’ experiences of everyday life. For example: “In Turkey, as the father prepared to leave the house for work, Selin, like her twin sister, is moving rapidly around the room, going forward and backwards to and from their father. Selin then goes to sit beside her mother Nurbike, book in hand, watching the television, making casual comments, clapping hands to televised music, making observations on both book and TV contents” (p. 4). The central concern of Gillen and Cameron’s research is to study moments rather than developmental changes over time. Their work seeks to examine “how the families,” declared and implicit values are evident in their social and material interactions with their child; how the child shapes these interactions and in turn appears to be affecting the families’ notions of “a thriving child” (p. 13). This work provides detailed insights into children’s interactions in families, where the focus of attention is on emotional security; humor, and playfulness; the learning of notational systems; eating events; and musicality. As with our research, Gillen and Cameron do not seek to create universal views of family

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practices. Rather, the constellation of practices described in their research seeks to make visible moments of human development. In line with Kousholt’s (2011) argument, their work represents an investigation of family practices as a context for development where interactions between children and parents are central. Here the local contexts of children’s lives are featured in the research process and foregrounded in the analysis. Kousholt, in citing Hedegaard, Chaiklin, and Jensen (1999), makes the point that in this kind of research tradition the “dialectical relations between the individual and the social are the analytical starting point” (p. 99). We have commenced the second section of this book also with moments of development; however, our material extends over three Observation Periods during 9- to 12-month periods of field research, and includes both institutional and societal conditions in which the families are located. That is, the material presented is illustrative of the morning practices for the Fredriksberg family over nine observational episodes and two video observations of the morning period for the Peninsula family. Traditional ethnographic and anthropological studies of the morning period for families can also provide rich and extensive data sets that cover a 12-month period or longer (e.g., Lancy, 1996). However, these studies have tended to focus on nonindustrialized societies, as also noted by Tudge (2008): “What we have extremely little of is research that has focused on the full range of activities in which young children in the industrialized world typically engage and the types of interactions they typically participate” (p. 16). Our chapter presents the morning period for two families from two very different industrialized countries, and through this, makes visible children’s development in everyday life. In the next chapter, we continue our analysis of demands and conflicts, and how these are resolved in everyday life, but extend our range of concepts to transitions, as we examine how children enter the practice traditions of school, preschool, and childcare.

Chapter 5 Walking to School

The Peninsula family walks to school each day from Monday through Friday during the school year. Four terms of 10 weeks constitute a school year in Australia. Louise and J. J. are dropped off at childcare, leaving Andrew and Nick to walk with their mother to school. On this occasion, one of the researchers (Gloria) walks with the family and video records the transition to school. The mother walks so briskly to the childcare, preschool, and school that the research assistant has difficulty keeping up. The mother appears very worried, and as she walks she says to Andrew: When we go into class and do what we have to do, Andrew, I am going to go into the lost property box in the room cupboard and see if I can’t find your WINDSHEETER (shouts and points). And then I will check that box near your classroom and see if it’s not in there! If I don’t find it, Andrew, YOU’RE (pause), then that’s one less jumper you are going to have for the year. You have to keep wearing that green one. (Period 1, Visit 3, May – Autumn) Nick, who has been following behind his mother and brother, has overhead the conversation and offers suggestions as to where the jumper may be: “Andrew, maybe you left it outside or even down there (pointing to the oval). Maybe.” Being thoughtful about resources was noted in Chapter 3 as the Peninsula family rose in the morning and prepared for their long walk to school. In this chapter we examine the transition to school for Andrew. We begin with Andrew’s arrival at the school, his family’s attendance at the school breakfast program, and his entry into the classroom. Later in this chapter we follow the Vanløse and Fredriksberg families from home to school. First we begin with a brief discussion about what we mean by transitions.

transitions Transition to school can be conceptualized as both a transition point in children’s lives, as they first enter school, and as the daily transition to school that 59

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children experience every day of their school lives. The first conceptualization of transition to school has been extensively researched over the years (see Dockett & Perry, 2007). Much of this research examines what happens as children enter school for the first time, such as the comparative study between Australia and Iceland undertaken by Einarsdottir, Perry, and Dockett (2008), who examined the perspective of the practitioners in both preschool and primary school settings regarding what might be considered as a successful transition to school. The focus was on the strategies adopted by the staff and how the children appeared to experience them. In contrast, Dockett and Perry (2005) have questioned the overreliance on data generated from the perspective of the adults, and suggested that it is important to recognize “children as experts on their own lives, and acknowledge that adults often have a limited understanding of children’s lives and experiences” (p. 4). Where the perspective of the child has been gained, we note that the study design includes data generation through children’s drawings (Einarsdottir, Perry, & Dockett 2008), and conversations with children about their photographs and drawings of their starting-school experiences (Dockett & Perry, 2005). With the exception of Grieshaber (2004), very little research has focused on what happens at home in preparation for school or what happens on the way to school. This second conceptualization of transition to school concentrates on the daily experiences of children preparing to go to school and what this means for children’s development over time. In Grieshaber’s (2004) study of four families across the course of their everyday lives at home and at school, she was able to examine how children transitioned from the institution of the home to the school. Using participant observation and unstructured interviews, she undertook a post-structuralist analysis showing that the preparation for going to school, and the drive to school, constituted elements of power and control for the children. Through taking a holistic perspective, she noted how children could delay or speed up the transition to school. In contrast to the Danish and Australian families discussed in this book, time demands of preparing children for school effectively and efficiently by parents were shown to be actively resisted by children, and through this process the children gained agency, control, and power over adults and siblings.

the early morning activities in the peninsula school It is 8:20 a.m. as Andrew, Nick, and their mother arrive at the Peninsula school. The school breakfast program begins at 8:00 a.m. A full kitchen is

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located next to the main foyer in the front entrance to the main school building, and there a volunteer provides cereal and toast for the families who turn up for breakfast. Tables and chairs are specifically set up for the breakfast program each morning and removed on its conclusion. As the children arrive at school, the mother indicates that they are not going directly to the breakfast venue, but rather straight to the lost-property box. This announcement is met with a groan from Nick, who complains bitterly as they walk to the box and rummage through its contents. mother: We have GOT to go and find your jumper! nick: Nooooooooooo (whining sound). mother: Don’t you start that (shouting)! nick: Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (whining sound). mother: Nick! nick: I want to go to the canteen (whining sound). Why that stupid (inaudible). (family walks into area directly outside of the classroom to search for the missing jumper) mother: I am going to be very angry if I can’t find it, Andrew Russell! This is ridiculous, Andrew. You should TAKE MORE CARE! (Period 1, Visit 3, May – Autumn) Nick is clearly keen to have his breakfast. He protests and attempts to resist his mother’s insistence on walking past the breakfast area in order to look for the jumper. He complains and his body slouches forward in disappointment, but he continues to follow his mother to the lost-property box. In contrast, Andrew simply follows his mother and keeps pace with her as she walks. Andrew stops walking when his mother halts and shakes her finger at him, instructing him to take more care of his possessions. Andrew appears to resign himself to being scolded. He does not complain about not having breakfast immediately. Even though all are hungry, they must wait a long time before they can eat breakfast. The need to find the jumper outweighs the need for eating as the mother marches purposefully to all the areas where the jumper might be located. After unsuccessful attempts to find the missing jumper, the mother takes the family to the breakfast area at 8:30 a.m. The mother makes herself a piece of toast and both Andrew and Nick eat cereal. Partway through their eating, the mother explains to Andrew that she has spoken with his teacher, and it will be okay if he is late for class, and so he should keep eating his breakfast. Andrew listens, but as the first school bell rings at 8:45 a.m., he becomes agitated and rushes his eating, wanting to go to class so he will not be late.

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The bell sounds. mother: It’s all right. You EAT IT! andrew: No, you eat it (softly). (Andrew stands) mother: You EAT IT! (Andrew sits again) marilyn: (Andrew stands and looks around) Is he anxious? mother (to marilyn): Ar, he just doesn’t like, that he is told by all the teachers, he comes up here to school to eat his breakfast, and he knows the rules, that he has to eat his breakfast, that he is not to stress. Mrs. V. tells them, Mrs. V. knows that he is up here having his breakfast, ’cause they know it take so long to walk up here, and they know that he has breakfast. Mrs. V or Mr. W., they tell him not to hurry ’cause he will make himself sick and he won’t be able to concentrate. mother (to nick): Good boy, Nick. (who is close to finishing his bowl of cereal) mother: See that little boy is still eating, right? (both children look to the boy. Andrew now sits to eat) The possibility of being late for class upsets Andrew. He does not wish to be late, even with the reassurances of the adults around him. Eventually, Andrew fills his mouth full of food and walks hurriedly to his class. The mother accompanies Andrew and Nick to the classroom and says: Andrew, the reason why I said for you not to stress was because I have already been over to the classroom and told Miss A. (teacher) that you were with Marilyn and Gloria (researchers filming breakfast) at breakfast. So she knew where you were. Andrew hangs up his bag and then joins the group of children who are assembling on the floor toward the rear of the classroom where the wholegroup activities are held. Demands on the Children in the Morning Period in Their Transition to School The breakfast routine for the Peninsula family does not occur in the home, but at school. Although the need for breakfast begins on rising in the morning, as was noted in Chapter 4, the family must wait to eat their breakfast until they arrive at school. Delaying the need for breakfast is important in a household that tries to stretch its resources as far as possible. Being unexpectedly delayed in the morning has the net effect of reducing the time available to eat in the breakfast program. Delays in the early morning

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period cannot be caught up, as the family has no vehicle or easy access to public transport. The pace of the walk is already brisk, and the children have to walk quickly to keep up with the mother. The mother is not always patient, and will growl at the children if they take too long walking or in preparing to begin their walk. This was also noted in the other observations made. For example, during the second Observation Period in Spring, the children were all outside of the house with their mother ready to begin the long walk to school, when the mother noticed that J. J. still had his slippers on and not his shoes. This caused a delay in commencing the walk. The delay caused by the loss of Andrew’s school jumper placed equal demands on the family. The school starting time is not movable, and as an institutional norm, it determines how the Peninsula family must deal with everyday problems caused by delays, such as losing a jumper or needing to change shoes. In the Peninsula family’s case, this means that the only way to make up for lost time in the mornings is to reduce the time in the breakfast program. Although attendance at the breakfast program is an important aspect of successfully transitioning to school, the delay in attendance caused by the need to look for a lost jumper meant that the Peninsula family had to eat their breakfast quickly. The school starting time simultaneously created two demands on Andrew – to eat his breakfast and to not be late for class. Even with the mother paving the way for a smooth transition by speaking to the teacher, Andrew was unable to reconcile the two demands. Rather, he chose to rush his breakfast so that he would not be late. The institutional demand for “being on time” clearly was stronger than his personal need for breakfast. Andrew wishes to follow the rules and do what is expected of him by the teachers and his mother. Andrew’s Initiated Activities and Conflicts Walking to school, eating breakfast, and transitioning into the classroom do not provide many opportunities for Andrew to initiate his own activities. Rather, Andrew was compliant with the demands placed on him by his mother to accompany her to the lost-property box and the classroom to search for the missing jumper. However, Andrew did not actively search: he simply watched his mother. Similarly, he did not initiate a conversation about having breakfast on arrival at the school. Once again, he followed his mother, and did exactly as she asked, until the school bell rang. At this point, Andrew wanted to go to class, despite not having eaten all of his breakfast. Andrew quickened his eating pace, and then tried to go directly to the classroom, which his mother resisted. In the end, Andrew took the initiative to leave the breakfast area, filling his mouth with food and walking off. His mother followed him to the classroom.

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Nick’s Initiated Activities and Conflicts Nick was fully aware of the problem about the missing jumper and as they walked to school offered some suggestions about where the jumper might be found. He was not asked, but initiated this interaction with both Andrew and their mother. However, when Nick arrived at the school, he was very unhappy that his mother walked past the breakfast area to look for the jumper. He protested strongly. His mother did not accept his protests, forcing Nick to go and look for the jumper and to wait for his breakfast. She dealt with these conflicts by pointing her finger and posturing aggressively at Nick. This was also evident in the early morning period discussed in Chapter 4. The mother’s finger-pointing and posturing always had the effect on Nick of his doing as he was asked by his mother. By the time the first school bell rang, Nick had eaten most of his breakfast and he simply followed both Andrew and his mother to the classroom. Although he did not have to attend school, and it was not a day that he needed to go to Kindergarten, he followed the routine of moving towards the classroom when the first school bell rang. When the early morning period in the home (as detailed in Chapter 4) is considered along with the walk to the school, and eating in the school breakfast program rather than at home, it is possible to see that the transition to school is an extended affair, and creates very different conditions for Andrew in his walk to school when compared with the Westernport, Vanløse, and Fredriksberg families who all eat their breakfast at home. We now turn to the latter two families to see how the transition to school unfolds for them.

mornings in the vanløse family Getting ready for the children to leave for school The family is getting ready to leave for school. The mother is at the table together with the two children. Martin has been eating oatmeal with milk. The father is in the kitchen preparing lunch bags, then he sits down at the table to eat his breakfast. Martin is looking out of the window and says to his father that there is snow on the roof. His father explains that it is frost. Martin does not know what frost is and his father explains that it is like dew that is frozen. The mother remarks that it must have been frosty weather during the night. Right after this comment, the mother changes the topic by saying, “Martin, ten

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minutes.” Martin knows exactly what that brief utterance means and he says, “Then I think I’ll get up.” The mother asks Martin to drink his juice and asks him to take his vitamin pill. She asks if he will have the pill before brushing his teeth. It seems as if his mother, by her brief questions, helps Martin organize the temporality and activities of his morning routines. When Anna comes in from the bathroom, she says that she is ready. Her mother tells Anna that then she has six minutes to look out into the air – but then asks her if she has packed her bag. Her mother comments: “Perhaps it is a good idea to check it.” Martin comes back from the bathroom and says that he is ready now. Suddenly he asks what a “coat” is. Now it is the father’s turn to get involved as he seems to be the one who answers the “what is?” questions from Martin. The father says that a coat is something a doctor wears. Martin seems to understand. The sound of the kitchen timer brings the family back to getting ready to leave. Martin explains to the researcher that this signals that everyone has to leave now. Everyone immediately goes to put on his or her outdoor clothing, and the mother takes Anna and Martin to school. On the way to school It is a warm spring morning. The mother is the one who walks the children to school. The researcher Louise follows them on this short walk (15 minutes). The mother leaves first, and she puts a name badge on Martin’s scooter. Waiting outdoors, she finds the children to be too slow and calls for them. Martin rides along on his new scooter to school; Anna walks beside her mother with her bicycle. On their way, they meet a girl who says hello to Martin. He answers, but apparently he does not know who the girl is and asks his mother. She knows the girl and tells him that she is in Year 2. Martin is in Year 1 – the kindergarten class. Anna starts counting, and the mother tells the researcher Louise that they often count the adults wearing bicycle helmets. The mother finds that it is the adults who often are guilty of having double standards concerning helmets: they do not wear helmets themselves, but ask children to wear one. The mother points out that the adults in their family wear helmets. At the school, the mother takes Anna to her class, and Martin rides his scooter in the hallway. Petrus, his classmate, seems very interested. The mother comes back and asks Martin to take off his jacket, commenting that she thinks people are not allowed to ride scooters in the hallway, and that he may park it around the corner. (Period 1, Visit 8, March – Spring)

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Demands on the Children in the Family The morning settings in the home are one of the most structured settings, because the demands for being on time at school make this event more or less stressful in all families. Parents structure this setting so that the different chores can be done in time, such as getting dressed, going to the bathroom, and getting the schoolbags packed. In the Vanløse family, we follow how parents structure the morning setting over six mornings. To structure this setting, the mother has found a device for getting out of the door in time: the kitchen timer (introduced in Chapter 1). She explains that this helps her not to hurry the children all the time, but that they can start to prepare themselves when it is time to leave. This aspect of organizing the morning gives the children the possibility of taking responsibility for preparing themselves and thereby becoming agents in their own life. This aspect of preparing their children to take responsibility can also be seen when the mother asks Martin if he wants his vitamin pill before or after he has brushed his teeth, or asks if Anne has packed her bag. By these questions the mother is also molding the children’s activities. These demands are not said as a command, but rather she phrases her intentions through questions. By using questions, the mother socializes the children into the family’s morning practice. The same is the case in the school setting, where we see that Martin has not taken off his outdoor clothes (gloves, jacket) and rides his scooter indoors. The mother corrects him by formulating her demand to get ready by asking a question. Aronsson and Cekaite (2011) point out that in modern families, children’s agency is the central focus of family life, and through parents using questions with children the parents are more likely to be able to preserve the child’s agency while at the same time directing the child’s activity. That is, questions are a way of indirectly placing demands on children, and intentionally allowing children to become agents of their own activity where they take responsibility for their own actions. The mother also introduces particular values, such as when she initiates the play of counting bicycle helmets. Children-Initiated Actions and Conflicts Martin immediately starts getting ready to leave when he hears the timer, and he explains its function to the researcher Louise. Martin also asks questions about what he sees and thinks. This particular morning his questions are about the weather and about what a coat is; on his way to school, he asks who the girl is who greets him. The father and mother willingly answer his questions.

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There is no direct conflict, but the mother has to help Martin to follow the school rules, take off his outdoor clothes when he goes inside, and put his scooter away rather than play with it in the hallway.

mornings in the fredriksberg family Getting ready for the children to leave for school The mother kisses the children good-bye. It is 7:30 a.m. and the children have to be in the class at 8:00 a.m. When the mother is gone, the father tells the children “Now, you have to get ready.” He then asks Kaisa, “Did you take your raincoat home with you from kindergarten?” Kaisa denies this. The father asks again if she brought her raincoat home. Then he looks for it. Kaisa still denies she did this (the father is obviously afraid she does not have her raincoat at the kindergarten, which the pedagogues require so that the children can get outside to play during the day even if it is raining. Emil shows the researcher Mariane his favorite cap. When everyone is dressed, the group, including the researcher, goes down the stairs (it is cold outside, as winter has begun). The father does not take the car, but goes with Emil, Lulu, and Laura. Kaisa sits on the researcher’s bicycle saddle (she also did this yesterday when she and the researcher went home together with her siblings and mother, but going home there is always more time). The bicycle will not move, and the researcher discovers this is because Kaisa is pressing the pedals backward and brakes. Kaisa is about to fall off the bicycle, and now the researcher and Kaisa are far behind the others. Kaisa then wants to get off the bicycle and run after her father and catch up. Her father and the children stop on the corner where Laura and Lulu are turning toward the school. Because they are late, the two girls have to walk alone to the school. The father kisses the girls good-bye. Kaisa embraces them too. The researcher goes with the father, Kaisa, and Emil to the kindergarten. They are not saying much to each other. The researcher asks Kaisa if she will show the researcher the kindergarten. Kaisa would like to do this. The father says that it should not take too long. The father, Emil, and the researcher then walk to the school. On the way, the researcher comments that Emil’s satchel looks so big and asks if it is heavy. Emil says it is; he continues, saying that sometimes he puts it on his mother’s bicycle. His father does not think this will be necessary, because Emil can carry heavy bags when they are shopping. Emil

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responds that he thinks that the schoolbag is so heavy sometimes that it is going to break his back, and he says that one day he thinks it was so heavy that it nearly did so. When arriving at the school, the father leaves Emil next to his classroom and tells Emil that he should take his jacket off and go into class. The father wants just to go to Lulu’s classroom and say good-bye. Emil will go and fetch him, but before he gets his bag down and gets his jacket off, his father is back. In school In the classroom the father sits down on Emil’s small chair. First Emil sits on his father’s lap, then he stands leaning on him. Several parents are there together with their children. The teacher tells the class that there is a new song and that there is a copy of the song at each child’s place. The parents are expected to sing the song together with the children (the copies are for the parents because the children cannot read). After two songs, the parents leave. The father says to the researcher that they should only stay for two songs; this is probably because the teacher will get rid of the parents otherwise as some of the first-time parents will stay throughout the day in the classroom. (Period 1, Visit 8, November – Autumn) Demands on the Children in the Family The father cannot find Kaisa’s raincoat, and this could have led to a conflict, but after looking for it the father does not comment on this anymore. To be on time is a demand the school puts on the children, and the father must walk fast, not waiting for the youngest, but trusting that she will follow. The time is tight because he also rushes Kaisa when she wants to show her kindergarten to the researcher. There is not much talk when walking Emil to school, and the father must hurry to Lulu’s classroom to say good-bye; he is back before Emil has time to run after him. Children-Initiated Activities and Conflicts Kaisa wants to ride the researcher’s bicycle while the researcher is pushing the bicycle. They get behind, and Kaisa then wants to get down and run after her father. Kaisa is the one who takes the initiative to hug her older sister. She wants to show her kindergarten to the researcher, but is not really allowed to do this because the father wants to hurry Emil to school so he will be on time. Emil indirectly asks to have his schoolbag put on the researcher’s bicycle, but

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the father tells him he can manage the bag himself. Emil then describes a time where he nearly broke his back carrying the bag. Emil takes the initiative to meet his father on his way back from Lulu’s classroom, but he is too late to do this because the father has already returned.

the different strategies for handling time stress in transition from home to school for the peninsula, vanløse, and fredriksberg families When we consider the transition to school for all of the children from the three families, it is possible to see that from the child’s perspective, the school starting time places demands on the children to be ready for school in time. For the Vanløse and Fredriksberg families, the parents work, and this adds to the time pressures placed on the children because the adults also need to be at work on time. In the Peninsula family, the long way to school causes this demand. The mother in the Vanløse family as well as the mother in the Peninsula family uses the walk to school as a form of values-based education. The difference between them is that the mother in the Vanløse family makes value-based comments directed in general to persons outside the family about wearing bicycle helmets. The mother in the Peninsula family directs her value-based comment at a concrete and situated practice toward Andrew. In both events there is very little room for the children to contribute. The Peninsula and Fredriksberg families are both late for school. The father in the Fredriksberg family does not comment on this but changes the procedure and lets the two elder girls walk to school by themselves, although the tradition is that they all deliver Kaisa to kindergarten and then proceed together to school. Nobody fusses about this change, and in the kindergarten Kaisa is allowed time to take off her outdoor clothes in order to show the observer the play rooms, while her father, Lulu, and Martin are waiting. In this family, the children support each other without fussing when the parents are around. Kaisa runs after the father and siblings when she is behind instead of screaming to make them wait for her. She happily kisses her sisters goodbye. Emil accepts that father goes to say good-bye to Lulu; he tries to catch up with him, but the father is back too quickly. In situations with time limits, new procedures are invented and accepted by the children. The Peninsula family gets out of the house in time, but when there is a problem that delays the walk, as in the case of Andrew looking for his jumper, the walk and the transition become a very stressful event for Andrew and also for Nick because Andrew wants to participate in the morning breakfast program.

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When events unfold so that time become short and the event becomes stressful, parents have different ways of solving this problem. In Grieshaber’s family research, the mother of Eloise and Bradley (2004, pp. 150–153 and 159– 160) experienced a very stressful morning. Bradley is very reluctant to get into his clothes, and because this causes the family to be late, the mother has to scold him and ends up dressing him. His reluctance is apparently because Bradley does not want to enter the school alone, and the mother is not allowed to enter with him because he has transitioned into a new class with new rules. The mother ends up smacking him on his legs. Dockett and Perry (2007) have noted that most of the literature into transition to school has focused on the adults’ perspectives and “very little of the literature [has] mentioned anything about what children thought was important” (p. vii) and “this lack of children’s voices was a grave omission” (p. vii). Understanding how the transition from home to school is experienced by children is important for knowing about the kinds of demands that are placed on children in the early morning period, and how children deal with these demands and potential conflicts. Grieshaber’s (2004) study of families in their transition to school noted that for some of her families, the period of transition was a highly conflictual time between siblings, but also between the mothers and the children as they exerted agency and engaged in power relations as the children actively negated the smooth transition to school. In the Peninsula and Fredriksberg families, the children willingly transitioned to school. In the Peninsula family, the conflict between children and their mother was between their need for breakfast and their mother’s need to find the lost jumper, and later for Andrew to resolve the need for breakfast against the desire to not be late for class. In Grieshaber’s study it was Bradley who regulated his mother by insisting upon being dressed. In the Peninsula family, the mother managed any pending conflicts by fingerpointing and body posturing – directed mostly at Nick because Andrew was compliant with adult demands. For the Vanløse family, the mother used a kitchen timer to help the children to prepare for school in a timely way; she also used questioning that gently encouraged the children to continue preparing for school and to take responsibility for themselves in the preparation process. In the Fredriksberg family, the management of the children was more subtle. The children were expected to take responsibility for preparing for school. The expectation of the father was that the children observe the conditions of being responsible and quick in their actions so that no one is late. These are important pedagogical approaches that show differences across the families for dealing with the same institutional demand of not being late

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for school. Interestingly, we see that in Grieshaber’s study it was the children who actively resisted the institutional demands by directing this resistance to their mother. In the Vanløse, Fredriksberg, and Peninsula families, the children were complicit with the institutional practices that were regulating the family in the early morning period. This transition, even though it is short, shows that parents’ pedagogy in relation to the situation where they are pressed for time becomes more obvious. How the children relate to the time pressures in general also helps to identify both the family pedagogy and how the children experience it, that is if they accept or resist the demands placed upon them. In our cultural-historical study, the concepts of demands and conflicts were used to analyze the data of the families. Their children’s transitions into school were detailed in this chapter, and as in Grieshaber’s (2004) study, the institution of schooling with a specific starting time played an important part of the families’ early morning period. However, how the demands and conflicts were managed and the conditions that resulted were quite different across the families.

Chapter 6 After-School Settings and Homework Activities

In this, and the next two chapters, we show how families create different conditions in the after-school period. Different traditions are practiced in families, and they influence children’s learning and development. In contrast to schools, in the home, individualized family practices dominate, even though societies have general laws and regulations that influence family traditions and after-school activities. The differences between the traditions for coming home from school in individual families are important to take into consideration when examining family pedagogical practices for supporting children’s learning and development. Children’s learning, grounded in individual practice traditions at home and in the community, is informal and often not formulated explicitly as an activity. In contrast, children’s learning in school is dominated by societal values explicitly formulated through laws, regulations, and policies that determine the activities of different subject matter, assessment practices, and classroom spaces and resources. In most homes there is no direct focus on societal demands (i.e., on laws and regulations) for how families should care for children. Although there are societal demands, they are more implicit in relation to family practice than to school practice. Often they only become explicit during a crisis, such as divorce or in child abuse. Each family may therefore develop more or less their own individual traditions for home practice, but, as will be shown through the cases we present in this chapter, the demands from the children’s school and the parents’ work influence home practices. Comparing the four families in our research, we found variations that do not follow national differences but instead show individual ways of creating home traditions in the particular home settings that fit the demands on, and values of caring for, children coming home from school in the different families. 72

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In the four families we found very clear differences as to how the family traditions are practiced when children come home from school. Some of these differences are related to variations in conditions that reflect national laws and regulations. These conditions influence the possibilities of how the families can take care of their children. The children in the two Danish families attend after-school daycare; this is necessary because both parents work in these families. The number of women in the labor market in relation to men is around 95%1. Therefore the Danish state has created opportunities by offering after-school care programs for almost all primary school children. These programs are not a special arrangement for the children in the two Danish families; their classmates attend the same after-school care as they do. The children in the two Australian families, on the other hand, do not attend after-school care programs. In these two families, parents do not have jobs and are on welfare, but this is not the only explanation. The school hours are longer, as Australian children generally finish school at 3:00 p.m. In the two Danish families, the children start school at 8:00 a.m. and leave around 12:30 p.m. to go to an after-school care program for two or three hours. There the children play and participate in activities that are not related to subject matter learning. Rather, the children play games outside or draw, paint, or play inside, with the time not being split up into class hours, although there often is a demand that they have to spend some time playing outside. In this chapter we will give only a short presentation of a child attending an afterschool care program. This gives an insight into why the children in the Danish families do not spend much time outside when coming home from school, because this is what happens in the after-school program. In order to exemplify the activities in the after-school program, we will follow Emil from school into after-school care. The after-school program is located on the school grounds, but the rooms are not like classrooms; they are cozy spaces that have soft sofas and play material. What goes on in an after-school care program depends on the time of the year and the weather. The children attending after-school care programs are divided by age into two groups; the size of a group in after-school care programs is larger than in school classes. Children in after-school care usually attend from the age of 5 until 9 to 10 years. They can stay until 5:00 p.m., but in the Fredriksberg family the mother picks up Emil and Lulu at 3:00 p.m. They attend the same after-school program, but are in, respectively, the young group and the older group.

1

http://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/arbejdsstyrke/registerbaseret-arbejdsstyrke.aspx

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the after-school care setting Emil in the After-School Care Program The weather is overcast but there is no rain. The school finished at 12:30 p.m., and although the after-school care is just next to the school, it takes Emil 20 minutes before he enters the building. On his way over he talks to his friends and the observer. After arriving, he participates in the following activities: Playing hockey in the schoolyard Emil enters the after-school care and is told by a pedagogue that today his group is going to play hockey outside. Although Emil is not interested in playing hockey, he is told to do so by a pedagogue. The conflict is resolved, because Emil is promised that the participants in the activity will be boys only from his school class. He participates, but seems bored in between and just runs around. They play until 2:00 p.m. Playing inside After the hockey game, Emil goes inside. At first he sits down at a table where some girls are sewing. A pedagogue is in charge of this activity. After flipping through a couple of books, Emil focuses his attention on Philip and Hector, who have some figurines. When Philip leaves, Emil starts playing with the figurines together with Hector and a girl. In this period, some fruit is served, and the children go and select some pieces to eat. Emil seems bored and asks the observer, Kasper, what time it is. Hector and Mike start another game by chasing each other. Emil finds a moneybox under the sofa table. Hector joins Mike’s game, which turns into a policeversus-robber play. At first the boys pretend that they have found diamonds and are being chased by the police. However, the play develops to a point where Hector becomes a thief, while Mike and Emil are the police officers trying to catch him. Emil again asks about the time. Fortunately, his mother arrives and picks him up. (Period 2, Visit 8, March – Spring) We now turn to the families and the activities that the children participate in after coming home from either the after-school care program or school.

the fredriksberg family – coming home and doing homework In the Fredriksberg family, the four children have afternoon tea and snacks at home around 4:00 p.m. It takes one hour for them to get there

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because their mother does not rush them home. Emil and Lulu walk together with their mother to pick up Kaisa from kindergarten. At home the mother will sit together with the children and drink tea. Then the two older girls will start their homework, with their mother still being at the table. Emil started school only a few weeks before our first visit. There is no demand for homework in the first year of school; however, after some weeks, we saw that he started attending to the homework, just joining in at the table pretending he had something to do. At our first afternoon visit the two younger children sat for a short while at the table eating their afternoon snack, then together with Emil’s playmate Tom, they went to Emil and Kaisa’s bedroom, keeping the double door open into the living room so they were in contact with what went on at the table in the next room. Several activities were going on in this afternoon tea and homework setting, depending on whose perspective is being viewed. We find that the mother and children are drinking tea, sitting at the main table in the living room. We also note that the two girls are doing their homework, while in the next room Emil, Kaisa, and Tom are playing robbers, which includes a focus on money. We begin our discussions of these activities by focusing on the homework and the sandwich situations. Being at the tea and homework table When the observer arrives today, the family has just come in from their walk home. The children and mother are sitting around a big table drinking tea in the entrance/living room (a living room and an entrance in one). One enters directly into this room from the outside staircase. When Laura and Lulu have finished their tea and snack they start doing homework. Emil goes to play with Kaisa and Tom in his and Kaisa’s playand bedroom. Laura is writing an English text. She is reading part of it to her mother. Laura says that it is a text she is preparing for a fashion show for school the next day. The mother follows what Lulu is doing and asks if 5 times 4 is the same as 5 times 7, as the mother notices that Lulu has made a mistake. Lulu has a multiplication table next to her; she looks it up and says no, then corrects her mathematical calculation. Lulu starts writing the number 4 without lifting the pen from the paper. Mother comments that it is some fine numbers she is writing. Lulu then starts to draw stars. Laura starts to make the number 4 in the same way as Lulu.

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Asking for Money – Sandwich Eating Emil enters and asks his mother if she will give him 10 kroner. Tom comes in with him. Emil explains that if he got 10 kroner, then Tom can get the 10 kroner and argues that Tom can buy some potato chips that they can share. [When they played in Emil and Kaisa’s bedroom, Tom found Emil’s purse and took 10 kroner that he very reluctantly gave back to Emil, because Tom wanted to use them to buy potato chips.] Emil’s mother laughs and says, “It must be because you are hungry, Tom, so I will go and make some rye bread sandwiches for you.” Laura, who is still working on her paper, says, “I would like to have one, too.” Lulu asks her mother: “Can I wait to do this [the homework] until we return [from the swimming pool]?” Her mother replies, “You can do your homework while I make the sandwiches.” Lulu then continues with her math tasks. Kaisa has also come into the room; she is sitting with a big doll with which she is lightly hitting at Tom. Her mother enters with the sandwiches, and now all the children are around the table. Tom, Emil, and Kaisa are sitting close together at the table. Lulu sits opposite them and is still doing homework. Emil gets ahold of one of her exercise math books. He looks in the booklet and then teasingly suggests to Tom that they should erase her math writings. Tom does not respond to Emil’s request, but Lulu addresses her mother, who reprimands Emil and explains to him that one should not erase Lulu’s fine calculation pieces. Emil puts the booklet down. The mother goes back into the kitchen to make more sandwiches so that Emil and Tom both can get a second sandwich. She then says that they have to finish because they must leave for the swimming pool. (Period 1, Visit 2, November – Autumn)

Family Practice on Coming Home from School As presented in the overview of activities in the setting of coming home in the Fredriksberg family, several activities are going on after the children have come home from school. Here the homework and the tea-and-snack activity has been presented. The activity setting of coming home is not structured in the same formalized way as class time in school, but in the Fredriksberg family there are demands that spill over from school that the mother makes sure the children meet. The situation from the children’s perspectives can then be analyzed in

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relation to the demands that the mother puts on the children and the children’s motives and conflicts that are created in the situation, as well as the demands the children place on their mother. The Mother’s Demands and Support On this particular day, the general demand on the two older children is to finish their homework before leaving for the swimming pool. The mother tries to engage and support both girls in doing their homework by being at the table and giving them attention when needed. The mother follows the girls’ work, and when she sees Lulu make a mistake, she asks a question about the accuracy of the calculations. Initiated Activities and Conflicts Lulu does her homework, but she is not so motivated. Instead she does numbers writing exercises and makes stars, both of which are imitated by her older sister. Lulu’s lack of engagement can be contrasted with Laura, who seems to enjoy her homework of writing a text for her English class. Laura has just started to have English as a foreign language (the students start this in Year 5). Lulu has problems with understanding the mathematical problems she is supposed to solve; her mother helps her. Furthermore, Lulu wants to skip her homework, but her mother resolves this issue by giving her a specific time limit, connected to a positive event: “You can do it while I am making sandwiches.” Her mother also praises Lulu for the way she writes the number 4, a task that is too easy in relation to the mathematics Lulu is supposed to do in her third year of school. Emil is playing with Tom and Kaisa, and when he participates in the homework, it is to solve a problem with Tom who wants to use 10 Danish kronen belonging to Emil for buying potato chips. His mother resolves this issue by going to the kitchen to make rye sandwiches for all the children. Emil does not see himself as doing homework; instead, while his mother is out making sandwiches, he teases his sister that he will erase her homework. When his mother comes back in, she resolves this new issue directly with a reprimand. Two Weeks Later The observers are again at the Fredriksberg home when the children come home from after-school care.

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The observer has walked with the mother to pick up the three younger children from the after-school care program. The mother begins the pickup at about 3:00 p.m.; usually they are home by 4:00 or 4:15 p.m. because it takes some time for the mother to get the children into their outdoor clothes and walk them home. Laura goes home by herself. On the way home, Lulu picks some hard orange berries from a bush. When they arrive at home, the family sits down and the mother goes into the kitchen to make tea and bring snacks. Lulu fetches a sewing kit and starts to put the berries on a string. The following activities are going on at home, intermingled into each other: * * *

Drinking tea and having snacks Pearl work Homework Pearl Work Coming into the living room, Lulu at once starts to find the sewing material so that she can thread the berries she picked. Lulu wants to make a bracelet for her grandmother, who is expected to visit this afternoon. Emil and Kaisa imitate Lulu, Emil by fetching the first-aid box, and Kaisa by fetching the box with pearls. Kaisa also wants to make something for her grandmother and starts to put pearls on a string. Emil just searches around in the first-aid box. The mother helps the three children with their homework while also helping Kaisa to prepare a bracelet for her grandmother. Kaisa measures her pearl string, but her string is too short to become a bracelet. When her grandmother arrives, the grandmother solves this problem by saying she will hang it on the doorway as a Christmas decoration. Homework The mother asks Emil if he has homework. Emil replies that she can look and see (in his schoolbag). Lulu responds to her mother and says that Emil does not have homework. However, her mother just repeats the question: “Emil, do you have homework to do?” Emil finds his schoolbag and retrieves his new cartoon-booklet. “Look, Mum, it’s my cartoon-booklet,” says Emil. Lulu asks what a cartoonbooklet is, and he shows it to her. Emil gets his homework out. He says, “It’s not something I need to do, but I can make mirror images (of figures).” He starts by drawing mirror images in his booklet. His mother tells him that he is good at it, and this is exciting.

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Emil quickly finishes his mirror task, and then he takes a tangerine and begins to peel it. Emil then calls on his mother: “When will you help me to make figures I can make a mirror image of?” His mother says she needs a pencil and asks whether there are some in Emil’s schoolbag. Emil answers that they are all in the bottom of the bag. His mother asks him to go and get one and tidy up his bag. Emil says that his mother can do this. His mother answers that she is not going to do this, but ends up looking for a pencil in the bag anyway, without success. The doorbell rings. It’s Laura, who has come home. When his mother cannot find a pencil, Emil searches in his schoolbag. He finds one and gives it to his mother who goes back to the table and draws a shape for Emil to mirror copy. She says that this one is difficult, and that he will never make it. Lulu says she can. Emil starts. “Is this how it should be?” he asks, sounding a little uncertain. His mother supports him and says he is good at it. Emil reflects the figure correctly. Now Lulu wants to do her homework. Emil expresses that he would like to do more homework. He says he will write all the letters he knows on a piece of paper. His mother then says she also wants to hear the names of the letters. Emil writes an A and names it. He further writes Å, R, L, E, O, H, T, and B. Emil does not know all the names of the letters he has written, and instead starts to talk about a play they performed in their play hour in school [in kindergarten they have a scheduled play hour each day]. His mother looks at the letters that Emil has written. She points to the letter E and asks Emil to name some words beginning with E. He says: “Emil,” then “mammoth.” His mother responds that “mammoth” does not begin with E, but with M, like in “mad” (the Danish word for food). His mother then asks if he knows some words with T. Emil says, “Tom.” Laura had entered the room, and she opens the first-aid box that is on the table next to Emil’s homework. Emil gets engaged in peeping into the box. His mother asks if Emil can find a T on the sheet, but he is more engaged in the first-aid box. Laura has taken out her exercise books. Her mother looks into Laura’s exercise book for the Danish language to see what she has done so far. Laura says they have to practice dictation, and she wants her mother to overhear her spelling the difficult words. Emil: “Why do you only help Laura?” His mother addresses Emil again and asks, “Can you try to find the T on the paper?” Emil points out the T, and his mother says he is correct, then asks for a B. Emil points to a B. Laura asks her

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mother to read a word from the dictation list; her mother reads “glemme” (forgot). Her mother then asks if Emil can find a word that starts with B. Laura knocks on the table while she smiles at Emil; he says “bord” (the Danish word for table). Laura and Lulu pull at his pants. He says “bukser,” (the Danish word for pants). Lulu’s homework is a mathematical task involving multiplication. She is guessing the results. Her mother tells her, “Look at the numbers when you calculate, and find the abacus.” Lulu goes to find it. She cannot find it, but takes some clips instead that she says she will place in 10 rows with 10 each, each row in a different color. However, she does not construct a workable abacus. Emil gets upset and says to his mother, “You now must start with me, so please help.” Emil is saying the letters, and his mother is pointing to the letters on the sheet. Lulu asks again for help with her math calculation. She formulates a result. Her mother tells her, “This does not make sense – you need to find the abacus.” Now Kaisa uses with pleasure profane words, such as “shit,” “pig,” and “prick,” while she is still working on her bracelet. Emil has crawled onto his mother’s lap. She asks him to find a word that contains the letter L. At the same time, she has to listen to Laura practicing her spelling words. Kaisa is still preoccupied with pulling beads on a string and asks, “Mum, do you think I can get this done?” The father comes home from work, while Laura asks her mother to read several words so she can do her spelling exercises. Her mother tells Emil that they have to stop now. All three children doing homework tell their father that they cannot concentrate. (Period 1, Visit 4, November – Autumn) Family Practice on Coming Home from School There is a cozy positive atmosphere around the dinner table when the children come home from school and receive their tea and snacks. Each child starts his or her own activity. Their mother asks Emil if he has homework. He does not really have homework, but wants to be part of this homework setting and finds his new booklet to show to his mother. His mother supports Emil’s engagement in doing homework. Kaisa, who absolutely does not have homework, engages in an activity so she fits into the homework setting. The demand for doing homework becomes built into the setting of coming home from school and

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drinking tea. But the children do not passively respond to these demands made by the mother in this situation. They are active also in contributing to these demands of doing homework by making demands on the mother. The children act as active agents in creating their own activities, as can be seen from the demands they put on their mother for help and the opposition and conflict they create in the setting. Emil asks his mother to make some shapes that he can copy into mirror shapes so he can do homework, and Emil also asks her to help in practicing letters. These activities interfere with Laura’s and Lulu’s homework. They become irritated at each other because they all want their mother’s attention and end up competing with each other for it and for her help. So when their father comes home, all three children complain they cannot concentrate on their homework. Emil’s Initiated Activities and Conflicts Emil explains that he has to do a mirror exercise in preparation for school, which involves reversing an image into a mirror picture. He then enters into a conflict with his mother who asks him to find her a pencil and to organize his schoolbag. They have a discussion about who should organize Emil’s schoolbag. When finishing the mirror exercise, Emil became engaged in doing homework and wanted also to do some letter exercises he started in school. Emil, though, does not think his mother pays enough attention to his letter exercises. Then his mother concentrates on him for a while, but is disturbed by Lulu who wants help with her multiplication and Laura who wants assistance also with her spelling exercise. Emil tries to get his mother’s attention by asking her a couple of times to concentrate on him. It is a dialectic process because when he loses interest and starts to tell a story and look into the first-aid box, his mother then asks him again to concentrate on doing “homework,” and gives him a task to get him back into the homework activity. Lulu’s Initiated Activities and Conflicts Lulu gets inspired by Emil to start doing her homework. However this does not last long. She announces that she hates mathematics tasks that involve multiplication. Her mother says it does not help to say that and tells her, “You just have to do it.” However, Lulu repeats that she hates multiplication tasks. Lulu guesses the answer for the multiplication questions. Her mother tells her to concentrate on what numbers are involved in the questions, and to find an abacus to help her calculate. She starts to construct her own abacus as a way of not doing her homework. This is a kind of solution we observed earlier when she started the exercise of drawing number 4 without lifting the pen

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as a way of drawing her attention away from the demands of working with multiplication. An overview of how the relations between the family practice, demands, and children-initiated activities and motives change over the two Observation Periods can be seen in Table 6.1. table 6.1 The Fredriksberg family: Overview of demands, initiatives, and motives in the homework setting Institutional practice

Activity setting

Homework Family institution: demands and support Parents care about their The mother frames the setting by positioning children’s education herself at the table with and create tea and snacks conditions for Children join her and do homework their homework, and are positioned in relation to their school position

Persons’ activities and motives Laura, Lulu, Emil, and Kaisa

Laura initiates homework Lulu follows Emil initiates and participates in play activities Kaisa participates in play and “floats around” Laura’s motive: to do homework, getting attention Lulu’s motive: to be in the circle around her mother Emil’s motive: being in the circle around his mother Kaisa’s motive: to be in the circle with her mother and siblings

Visit 2, 14 days later at the homework setting Institutional practice

Activity setting

Homework Family institution: demands and support Parents care about their The mother frames the setting by positioning children’s education herself at the table with and create tea and snacks conditions for Children join her and do homework their homework, and are positioned in relation to their school position

Persons’ activities and motives Laura, Lulu, Emil and Kaisa

Laura initiates homework Lulu follows Emil becomes included in the homework activity Kaisa joins in at the table Laura’s motive: to do homework, getting attention Lulu’s motive: to be in the circle around her mother, but escape doing homework

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table 6.1 (cont.) Institutional practice

Activity setting

Persons’ activities and motives Emil’s motive: doing homework like his older sisters, and to get his mother’s attention Kaisa’s motive: doing the same activity as her siblings and being in the circle around her mother

The Development of a Homework Motive In both settings, the demands of doing homework structure the coming home into a homework setting. This is not initiated only by the mother; the children also contribute to starting their homework. The activities at the second homework setting were both initiated by the children who were seeing what their older siblings were doing, as well as by their mother who created the circle and opportunity for their being together around the table doing the tasks. The mother supported the children’s initiatives and called both Lulu and Emil back when they tried to stop doing their homework. For Emil it seems to be a period in transition from play and teasing his sister in the first observed session to involvement in homework in the second session. The oldest child, Laura, has turned this demand into a motive and seems to like doing homework. For her younger sister it is still not a motive; instead she participates in what her mother is doing and what her mother asks of her. Emil and Kaisa are playing in the first observed session. When they enter the homework table in this first session, it is not to imitate their older siblings, but just to be in the same setting. In the next observed setting there is a change, and both Emil and Kaisa seem more oriented toward doing the same thing as their siblings. Emil became engaged in doing homework so much that he demanded his mother help him create homework tasks that actually were not expected by the teacher. His mother kept him interested, calling him back with a task when he started to drift away and attend to the first-aid box.

children in the westernport family coming home from school and doing homework The tradition in the Westernport family is to arrive home from school at approximately 3:20 p.m. after a short five-minute walk from the school. The

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grandmother (Gran) and Uncle Matthew are often visiting at this time. The family usually provides a snack for the children, which sometimes the mother organizes and sometimes the father. The snacks are usually put on the kitchen table and are eaten in the kitchen area while the children and the family (except Gran) stand and eat. Uncle Matthew is often sitting near the kitchen table, playing games on the family computer. As soon as the children finish eating their snack and drinking their cordial, they place their plates and cups in the sink, and then go and play inside. Or if the parents organize it, the whole family goes outside, either playing with the children or supervising them (see Chapter 10). While the children are playing, the mother will unpack Jason’s schoolbag, will read any notes in the bag, and will eventually call Jason back to the kitchen table in order for him to participate in homework for approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Homework is always done at the kitchen table, with adults and children engaged in activities while this is taking place. One parent and Gran will sit with Jason to help him with his homework. Often Cam will join in, pretending to do a similar kind of homework. The researchers arrive and all of the children run to the front door to greet them. Mandy shows the researchers the lollipops that her grandmother has given her, while Cam shows the researcher (Marilyn) a tennis ball, inviting her to play ball in the kitchen. Cam throws the ball and all the children join in throwing the ball around the kitchen area. While this occurs, Mandy finds another ball, and her grandmother supports her with ball throwing. Cam, Mandy, Alex, and the grandmother continue to throw the ball while the mother calls Jason back to the table to attend to his school reading book. Jason does not appear to be happy about this. The mother sits at the table, and Jason sits down next to her. While he is doing his homework at the kitchen table, a range of activities take place in and around the kitchen area. Uncle Matthew is playing and discussing computer games with the father. While her grandmother and Mandy are playing ball, her grandmother tries to engage Uncle Matthew in ball play too, but he says he is busy. However, he takes the ball from the floor and then passes it to Mandy. Mandy accidently throws the ball at Jason, who is reading his book, word by word, with his mother, pointing to each word as he reads. His grandmother says, “You can’t give it to Jason – he is busy reading.” When Jason struggles with a word, his grandmother asks him about the book, asking, “Is that a book about the creepy crawlies that Gran doesn’t like?” This gives Jason the contextual information he needs to work out what the word is. Jason then continues to read. Although there is a lot of

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activity going on around him, Jason stays focused on his reader. Eventually, Jason indicates he wants to leave the table, but his mother says, “You had to do your red words (cards of single words such as, “the,” “and,” etc.).” Jason kicks his feet and makes disagreeable noises, showing clearly he does not wish to participate. At this point his grandmother asks if she can look at his reader. As she looks at the book she says, “Oh, what a beautiful reader.” Jason says, “No, those aren’t creepy” (responding to his grandmother’s earlier comment). His mother takes the pack of red cards from their bag and puts them on the table. Jason says he wants his father to do the words with him. His father immediately agrees. The grandmother moves closer to Jason and says she wants to play too. His father shuffles the flash cards, and when Jason reads the word correctly, his father says “High five” as he puts his hand into the air. Jason responds immediately with a return “High five,” clapping his father’s hand. Jason smiles and goes back to reading the cards. His grandmother pretends she is disappointed that she is not as fast as Jason and also praises him. Jason appears to take great delight in the game. When he reads all of the words correctly, his mother hugs him and all the adults cheer. His grandmother offers Jason a lollipop for reading all of his words correctly. Cam, who has been observing the homework, says he wants to put all the cards into the plastic bag; when his father starts to pack up the cards, Cam yells that he wishes to do this. His father stops and lets Cam pack up the cards. (Period 3, Visit 2, December – Summer) Family Practice The kitchen table is the central place where the homework routine is being established. Jason is called from the family room to the table to do homework with his mother. Even though all members of the household continue the multitude of activities around Jason, the mother and Jason stay focused on the task of reading his school reader. Establishment of this homework activity within one of the central locations in the house means that a range of adult support for establishing the routine of “doing homework” is possible. Conflicts and Demands on Jason to Do His Homework Jason does not wish to leave the play activity in the family room in order to do homework with his mother, but he nevertheless does what he is asked.

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table 6.2 The Westernport family: Overview of demands, initiatives, and motives in the homework setting Institutional practice Family institution: demands and support Parents care about their children’s education and create conditions for homework

Activity setting Homework

Persons’ activities and motives Jason and Cam

The mother initiates Jason experiences the developing homework homework. routine first in his family. The father helps when Cam asks to pack the red cards invited The grandmother turns the flash card practice into a game Jason’s motive: To work with homework tasks together with his parents and grandmother Cam’s motive: To enter into the circle of working with his parents and grandmother

The school has provided a set of instructions and resources for homework that include the need for reading a school reader each night, and trying to read single words printed on red “flash cards.” These place demands on Jason because they take him away from the play he has initiated, and he must recall words on the flash cards and try to read unfamiliar words in a reader. This activity is intellectually challenging and requires effort and concentration at the end of a school day, after Jason just had six hours of school instruction. This is a central demand in the after-school period for Jason. An overview of the demands and motives in the activity setting are shown in Table 6.2. The Development of a Homework Motive The school places demands on the family as they seek to establish a homework routine in a small space, in the middle of the children’s busy afternoon activity, and in what would normally be the adults’ socialization time with each other in the kitchen. The family is expected to establish a homework routine. Jason has started school and must participate in homework even when he is reluctant. This process supports the establishment of homework as a routine for the whole family. The mother initiates this activity and

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undertakes some of it. The father also participates when asked by Jason, and the grandmother supports everyone’s efforts by turning the drilling activity of word recognition into a game by pretending to compete with Jason. All family members praise Jason in his efforts through telling him “high five,” giving him hugs and verbal praise, and by his grandmother pretending to be a reluctant loser in the game. For Cam, who observed the homework routine being developed, he sees that space and time are created for this activity in the after- school period. He notices that Jason has all of the adults’ attention, and that he is praised for his efforts. Cam seeks to be part of this activity, supporting the efforts by demanding to put away the cards. Taken together, it is not just a homework routine that is being created, but a motive for participating in homework that is being developed for Jason as well as starting for Cam.

how children’s attendance at school influences family practices In line with other research about homework in Scandinavia and the United States (Forsberg, 2007; Wingard & Forsberg, 2009; Wingard, 2006; Goodwin, 2007), it was shown in this chapter that in both Australia and Denmark schools do put demands on families about doing homework, but the way the families meet these demands are different. In line with Wingard & Forsberg, one could view the activity in relation to the parents’ initiation of it. In the Fredriksberg and Westernport families, the parents also took the initiative to create a homework setting. Both in the Fredriksberg family and in the Westernport family, the whole family participated in initiating and creating a homework setting and routine. In the Westernport family, it was possible to see how a family has to change its practices in order to accommodate the need to engage in homework, and that this affects not just the child, but the whole family as they establish this new practice tradition. In the Fredriksberg and Westernport families, it was also possible to see how the homework tradition influences the younger members of the family, and how they compete for the adults’ attention in this setting. The homework activities in these families show how schooling may place demands on the adult members of a family that include the expectation that children will do homework in order to support the educational processes that occur in schools. It also shows how much the younger siblings orient themselves toward doing homework in order to get their parents’ attention. In the Vanløse and Peninsula family, the parents did not take this demand so seriously. In the Vanløse family, only once out of 15 afternoon visits to the

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family home did we see the eldest child doing homework. And it did not seem to be initiated by the parents: we never heard them ask about homework. The eldest child did very well in school, so they left the initiative to her. In the Peninsula family, only twice did we see Andrew doing reading homework, which lasted approximately 10 seconds.

the children’s motives and their development Children’s acquisition of new motives comes from participating in activities that relate to what is already motivating for them while at the same time reaching beyond the immediate toward new activities. In earlier studies (Forsberg, 2007; Wingard & Forsberg, 2009; Wingard, 2006), the primary focus had been on parents’ roles in children’s engagement in homework; siblings were not accounted for, or only as in Forsberg’s study where homework excluded younger siblings. In these studies, it is the single child who is discussed in relation to parents’ help and control. What we especially want to point out in our research is that the motivation for the children to do homework actually comes from being together with their parents and the other siblings where parents both demand the activity and support it by creating traditions for homework settings that provide the opportunity for shared activities for both parents and siblings. As we saw in the two families (Fredriksberg and Westernport), the younger children become oriented to the homework activities, and through being allowed to participate, a homework motive begins to develop. We also saw in the Danish family that the younger children influenced their older siblings. The orientation and engagement went both ways, both from the older to the younger, as when Laura and Lulu help Emil to find words starting with the letter B, and the opposite, as we saw when the oldest child, Laura, imitates her younger sister in drawing the number 4 without lifting the pencil from the paper. The eldest child in the Westernport family experienced the demands of school, through his parents, by undertaking “school activities” at home. Although Jason resisted starting homework and was clearly unhappy about participating in school activities at home, the family members each supported his efforts in a range of different ways. The increased attention from all of the adults and the positive reactions to his efforts supported Jason in beginning to develop a motive for participation in the new activity for him of “homework.” However, a younger sibling also wanted to be part of the activity (through collecting the flash cards) as a way of beginning to participate in homework.

Chapter 7 Relaxing at Home – Unstructured Times in Families

When we follow the children in the four families as they come home from school, we note that they also share the same ritual of having an afternoon snack, but there the likeness ends. For the Vanløse and Peninsula families, there is no homework tradition, and school tasks do not influence the children’s afterschool activities very much. Even though Andrew and Jason attend the same school, the family practice of coming home from school is quite different. Cultural traditions for family practice are, as we wrote in Chapter 6, more individual and not determined by a uniform national “regime of truth” (Grieshaber, 2004, p. 64). The two family practices we present below are also very different. In the Vanløse family, the ideology for children coming home after having been at school and after-school care is that they need to relax in front of the television. In the Peninsula family, the television is also on when children come home from school, but they do not sit and relax in front of it. In this family, they run in and out of the living room, into the kitchen, bedroom, and out of the house. Free movement without restriction is what matters for this family.

the vanløse children coming home from after-school care and relaxing in front of the television Anna and Martin in the Vanløse family often bring schoolmates home to play. But first there is a period of relaxation for the children in front of the television watching children’s programs before they go to their rooms to play with their friends. They do not go outside to play. Relaxing in front of the television The father has just walked Martin and Anna home from their afterschool programs. Each child brought a school friend home. Thomas’s friend is Karla, and Anna’s is Cathy. They are in the living room in front of the television following an Asterix series. 89

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The mother enters the living room having just come home from work and asks if the children have been given afternoon snacks. The father says no and he goes out to fetch some. He enters with two plates with a tangerine and a rice cake and gives these to Martin and Karla. Anna says she would also like to have something. The father says there is fruit for her and Karla (they actually already had a rice cake). He comes in with a fruit platter. Soon afterward he brings juice and pours it into two small glasses for Martin and Karla. He tells Cathy that she can just take some. Cathy pours a glass of juice, but takes no fruit. Anna takes juice and a banana. Everyone sits quietly for a bit. As the father passes through the living room with two baskets, he says he is going shopping but will be back soon. Martin is very busy watching Asterix’s adventures. Asterix and Obelix must pursue their nephew who is captured by the Vikings and held prisoner in their ship. The children talk about how Asterix and Obelix can know where the Viking ship is heading when they pursue the Vikings and try to reach it. Anna says that they can go north. Cathy says, “They have not learned this at school” (which way is north). The mother comes in and Anna must taste a taziki salad (a kind of Greek salad) her mother has made for dinner. Anna believes it is okay. After half an hour, the kitchen timer begins ringing. The mother set the timer right after she came home. Anna gets up and turns off the television before the Asterix movie has finished. All the children accept that they cannot finish watching the movie until the end, and they go off to play in their rooms. (Period 1, Visit 2, March – Spring) The Coming-Home Practice in the Vanløse Family According to the mother, the period just after coming home from the afterschool care program is treated as a time when the children have to wind down and relax. Consequently, the children always watch the children’s hour on television while they are having afternoon snacks. The parents usually do not sit together with the children, but serve them snacks and then attend to practical things – sometimes, as in this case, dinner preparation. Demands and Children-Initiated Activities The demands on the children are already built into the situation for what they can eat (one rice cake and the fruit they like), and for how long they can watch children’s shows on television. The children know and accept this, even though Anna tries to get extra rice cakes. The expectations for the older

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child – Anna – are different from that for the younger child. Anna is expected to pour the juice herself. She has a more responsible position than Martin, which can also be seen when the mother asks Anna and not Martin to evaluate if the taziki salad tastes good. There are not many opportunities for initiating activities during television watching besides some small comments in relation to what they watch. After the television is turned off, Anna and Martin each go with their respective friends to their bedrooms to play. This can be seen as an expectation that the preference for play takes place in the children’s bedrooms. In play, the children have the opportunity to initiate their own activities without adult surveillance. Martin Becomes Oriented toward Letters and Words During the first two periods of our home visit to the Vanløse family, Martin was in the same grade as Emil. In Denmark, the tradition is that in kindergarten class (Year 1 of school) the teachers do not give children homework. In Year 2 after the summer holiday, we again followed Martin. Over a couple of months we did not observe Martin doing homework. During one observation, his mother did talk about this, suggesting that they should do something together, but they never got to it. Nevertheless, we found that Martin was interested in reading and writing words, and given the opportunity as can be seen below, Martin took the initiative to enter into the homework setting during a time when his older sister, Anna, was doing homework. Martin’s mother has taken him to a break dance. Anna is home alone with her father doing homework. She is rewriting a rough draft of a book review. Coming home, Martin shows what he has learned at the break-dance session and tells about the class activity. His father then goes to prepare the dinner. Anna is still working on writing out her book review. Martin sits down at the table opposite her, and their mother opens the computer because Martin wants to show the observer the cursor that is a red horse. Anna then advises him on how to write his name on the computer. She directs his typing. Their mother says a little sharply, “Anna, I would like you to stop looking at the computer and write your book review, and, Martin, you stop from asking Anna about anything.” Ignoring his mother’s demands, Martin says to Anna, “I will type the words ‘du der’ (you there),” which he does over and over again, and then he shows this to Anna (“you there” is an iteration when spoken in

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Danish). His mother says to Martin, “If you continue to disturb Anna, I will close the computer. You now have only two minutes to finish.” But Martin is allowed a little longer before his mother shuts down the computer. Anna writes her essay after her mother again tells Martin that he must not interrupt her. Anna pronounces: “I have to continue to write after dinner.” Her mother responds, “Yes, but you have to hurry – you are still at the beginning of writing it out and have three pages left. You must stop writing so nicely.” (Period 2, Visit 2, May – Spring) Demands and Conflicts The mother accepts the institutional demand that schools put on parents for children to do homework by ensuring that Anna stays focused on her homework and is not distracted. However, the mother’s demands are directed toward keeping the family routine so that Anna finishes and they can have dinner. The mother is not interested in the content of Anna’s writing, but rather in getting her to finish. At the same time, she accepts Martin’s demand and helps him to get started on the computer, but this creates a conflict: he needs help, and although Anna is more than willing to give it to him, this will delay her own writing. So the mother demands that she stop helping Martin and asks Martin to shut down the computer. Initiatives and Development of Motive Martin sits down next to his sister and wants to write on the computer; his sister supports him in orienting himself to words. Martin seems to be motivated toward working with words. Anna writes out her book review rather slowly and is actually more interested in Martin’s attempts to write on the computer. Here again, we see how much the sibling’s activity influences the other’s engagement and development of motives.

coming home from school in the peninsula family: being free to move around The tradition in the Peninsula family is to come home from school and have a snack, then play outside until it is dark or until the evening meal is ready. The children usually play outside on their own, with the adults joining them for periods of time. In the Australian context, the weather and the living conditions (fenced backyard and single-story house) allow for long periods

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of outdoor play for children. The practice in the Peninsula family is for the children to eat their snacks while moving around the house, and while interacting with each other across the family room, kitchen, hallway, and bedrooms. This is shown in the observation below, where a range of activities took place all intermingled with each other while the children had their snack. Mid-Afternoon Routines at the Peninsula Family After their long walk home from school, the Peninsula family reach their house at approximately 4:15 p.m. It is warm and sunny. The researchers bring with them snacks, which the mother places on the kitchen table. The mother usually sorts the snacks, placing the drinks into the refrigerator; some snack food is placed in the bedroom out of reach of the children, and the remainder is left on the table. During this Observation Period, the children take their snacks and drinks from the kitchen area and go directly into the family room. The children also go to the kitchen area to gather more food, or they are given a drink there, which they carry back to the family room. When a child is not drinking it, the mother puts the child’s drink on top of the fish tank out of reach. This means the children have to ask for their drinks. The mother ensures that the drinks are either in the children’s hands or on the fish tank. She supervises this as she speaks to the researchers about the children’s previous school and preschool experiences. At the same time as the mother talks to the researchers, Nick, Andrew, and J. J. try to get the researchers’ attention. They do this by becoming louder and louder, by standing in front of them, or in J. J.’s case by regularly giving a small kick to the researcher (Gloria) as he moves between the kitchen and the family room. All three children explore the researchers’ video and camera equipment and their coat pockets and look inside their bags. Eventually, the mother suggests that the children show the researchers their “happy feet dance.” J. J. smiles and begins jumping up and down, while the mother finds the Disney DVD of Happy Feet and puts it on. Andrew begins to move about the room making “happy feet” movements. Louise is on the floor and pulls herself along it. All three children simply step over her as they move about the room. The father appears from time to time in the family room. Most of the time he is in the bedroom playing computer games. His entry conversation is always within the context of the topic being addressed, suggesting

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that he is fully involved in the communications with the family and researchers despite not being in the room. The father comes out of the bedroom and suggests that the children go outside. The father and the mother go outside with the children. (Period 1, Visit 1, April – Autumn) Demands and Family Expectations The parents expected that the children would move between rooms, and indeed they themselves did this throughout all of the observations made of the family over the 12-month period. The mother assumed that the children would follow her into the kitchen as she dispensed food and drink, with the children then moving about the house while eating. Only the drinks were monitored by the mother. The mother also encouraged the children to show the researchers their “happy feet” dancing, which meant that the children needed to stand facing the television, following the actions of the penguins on the screen and performing in relation to particular musical movements that were presented at different times on the DVD, while simultaneously eating their snacks. Movement and eating were simultaneous and the children showed expert coordination in handling their food and drink while dancing, running, jumping, climbing, and talking with each other, with the researchers, and with their mother. Movement was an established and skillful family practice that formed an important part of the Peninsula family tradition. Demands and Child-Initiated Activities In the everyday lives of the Peninsula family, the children are physically unrestricted. They simply get on and do the things they wish because the parents generally allow the children to manage and supervise themselves. This means that interactions between children and adults occur across the boundary of each of the rooms of the house. Conversations took place across walls – both inside and outside. “Listening in” across walls was common. The children were keenly aware of what was happening in each room. Any slight change, incident, or introduction of something of interest immediately brought children from all corners of the house back to the point of interest. Listening in across walls was facilitated by the continued movement of all members of the household between rooms. With the exception of the dog (who occasionally sat in the sofa chairs), the adults and children rarely sat down – but rather appeared to be moving between rooms and around each other (like a dance) throughout the scheduled visits.

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The rapid movements from room to room ensured that they could observe and be a part of any activity and communication that was taking place anywhere in the house. Movement from room to room also meant that anything being transmitted nonverbally could be followed. The children exhibited a kind of “roaming behavior” that allowed them to be geographically distant from one another, but to maintain close communication across “walls.” The movement across the house as discussed above is mapped in Figure 7.1. Movement for each member of the household (noting that Louise at this time was not mobile) is indicated. The adults moved around a little less than the children, with the father tending to move back and forth between the main living room and the parents’ bedroom (marked as “M & D room”). The children’s movement (Nick, J. J., Andrew) followed the parents into the bedroom, or movement was independent of the parents as the children moved back and forth into the kitchen and the living room. If one looks especially at Andrew’s movement around the house, one will see that he follows the pattern of the parents and his siblings (Figure 7.1). Figure 7.1 shows only the movement from room to room, rather than the movement within each room. Figure 7.2 shows just Andrew’s movement within the room, which was a continued flow of activity from person to person, from furniture (standing on, next to, or over) to furniture, and changes in direction of Andrew as he moved around the available floor space within the family room. All of the other children exhibited similar movements within the room, but these are not shown in Figure 7.2.

the traditions of coming home from school The relation between members of the family and the parents’ ways of upbringing are very different in different societies, as demonstrated by Rogoff (2003), Tudge (2008), Ochs & Izquierdo (2009), and Thorne (2001). In modern Western families, parents expect their children to be agents in their own activities (Aronsson & Cekaite, 2011; Pontecorvo, Fasulo, & Sterponi, 2001; Toverud, 2012). This is true even though the relations between parent and children can vary much, as has been demonstrated in these studies as well as in our research. In the two Danish families, the parents structure the after-school activities, but they do this in quite different ways. In the Fredriksberg family, the mother organizes a tea table that also acts as the homework setting where the children sit down together with the mother. In the Vanløse family, the children are also given snacks on coming home. They too sit down together, but here it is in front of the television. The children can watch television while they have their afternoon snack. None of the parents sit down together

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SHED

Mother Father Nick J.J. Andrew Baby (not mobile)

BICYCLES

CARPORT

BACKYARD

TABLE

LAUNDRY TOILET

KITCHEN

BATHROOM

TV SOFA

CHILD’S BEDROOM

BAG

SEAT

FAMILY ROOM

SEAT

FISH TANK

PARENT’S BEDROOM OPEN GARAGE CHILDREN’S BEDROOM

STREET

MOVEMENT AROUND HOUSE

figure 7.1 The geography of the different family members’ movements in the family room and around the house

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SHED

BICYCLES

CARPORT

35 minutes snack time ends children go outside

LAUNDRY TABLE

TOILET

KITCHEN

BATHROOM SOFA

x

TV

FAMILY ROOM CHILD’S BEDROOM BAG

SEAT x

SEAT

FISH TANK

PARENTS’ BEDROOM CHILDREN’S BED ROOM

figure 7.2 The geography of only Andrew’s movements in the family room and around the house (35 minutes)

with the children. The children in both the Danish families have already been active, moving around in the after-school care program. For both families, the children’s homecoming is a quiet time.1 However, the mother 1

Mary Featherston created figures 7.1 and 7.2 from data provided by the researcher.

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in the Fredriksberg family involves herself much more with her children than do the parents in the Vanløse family. The mother in the Vanløse family puts more demands on her children by making schedules for what they are to do in the house, and she treated Anna, a 10-year-old, as an equal when she had to taste the taziki the mother prepared for dinner, thereby starting to give Anna agency that is in line with adults, where the mother starts listening to her opinions. For the children in the Peninsula and Westernport families, coming home from school is very different. The children have been organized for six hours in the school setting, mostly with demands that they sit still for most of their time, which means that the children are keen to decide upon what they wish to do and to move about freely in their home or after-school environments. In both the Westernport family and the Peninsula family, the children have their snacks standing, with the Peninsula-family children moving about the whole house as they eat. There are no traditions established for sitting to eat snacks, or being in one place to eat, as occurs in the Danish families. Rather, in these particular Australian families, the children eat their snacks while moving about, showing great skills in simultaneously moving and eating. In the Peninsula family, there is not much structure – the children are allowed to do what they like it seems, but here there are also borders. In the Westernport family, the children have a lot of freedom to move about and throw balls throughout the house without restrictions. Boundaries though are created within the family, creating structure and establishing new routines when school demands that Jason needs to do homework, as we saw in Chapter 6. Even though there were no routines for doing homework in the Vanløse family, we saw several times how Martin sat down next to his sister and wanted to write words on the computer. In the observation presented here, Martin types on the computer when Anna does her homework, but other times they just sit together and try out different things on the computer. We found that she liked to instruct him. In the case presented here, we note that she preferred to help Martin rather than finish her own task. The siblings became motivated by doing things together. This we also saw in the Peninsula family in the “happy feet” dance, and in the way they moved around in the house.

discussion of how conditions and norms are different in the four families The different material conditions for the families structure the children’s afterschool activities. The children in the Australian families can move outdoors from

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their living place because they live in houses with yards; therefore, they can run between the inside and outside areas. What we see in the Peninsula family is that the children are running in and out of the house into the yard and back again. The outside is used as much as the inside. This can also explain some of their running around as depicted in Figure 7.1. As introduced in Chapter 3, the father in the Peninsula family created a vegetable garden, which provided additional resources for the family and provided an opportunity for the children to learn about growing vegetables, gardening, and being resourceful, with resourcefulness being a particularly important motive for the Peninsula family. The two Danish families are living in an urban city in apartments; therefore, they do not have the same opportunity for movement outside. For the Fredriksberg family, the children can be outside because there is a shared yard for all the inhabitants in the block, but in winter and fall they are seldom outside when coming home, and not every day in spring and summer either. They live on the fifth floor and cannot just run in and out; they have to tell their parents if they want to go and play in the yard. The children in the Vanløse family were never observed being outside during the periods the researchers visited them from February over the spring and summer period to October the following year. Children from both Danish families though have to go outside in school and after-school care, where there is outside space for the children to play. These physical conditions also influence the parents’ norms for children’s activities. Here, in the Vanløse family, the parents take care that their children attend at least one activity each week after coming home in the afternoon. In winter Martin attended indoor sport activities, and in summer he played football as an organized activity. Anna had a school garden in summer, which she kept together with her mother, and took music lessons in winter. The Vanløse children often also had playmates at home with them from the after-school daycare or visited playmates at home. In the Fredriksberg family, the two older children went to inside sports activities in winter. In the Fredriksberg family, the children also attended different events connected with their school and daycare. They either visited other children by themselves (i.e., going to birthday parties or tours outside school with their classmates) or together with the whole family, such as when they attended Christmas, Shrove Time, and Easter events, and performances of plays at school. The differences in material conditions between the four families though cannot explain the diversity in family practice connected to establishing a tradition for doing homework. The activity setting of homework is important for getting children to do it. These are settings where parents support and demand activities that are related to school. It can be seen that the families create very different individual traditions for “coming home from school settings” that cut across material conditions for activities at home. The

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parents in the Fredriksberg family and the Westernport family both create conditions for homework, giving support and making demands on the children for doing this, yet they have very different material conditions. But even this cannot explain how children orient themselves toward school. How do they create motives for school-related activities? We found that siblings influence each other’s orientation toward school-related activities. Even though homework is not a demand from the parents in the Vanløse and Peninsula families, we saw how Martin started to become oriented toward the school competences of being literate with words as he sat down next to his sister, starting to write when she was writing. He oriented himself toward his sister’s activities. In the second year, Martin several times played with letters and wrote words on the computer while Anna supported him. To be together with the adults and their siblings in the activities of doing homework create motives for the younger children in the Fredriksberg family, as we saw in Chapter 6, for doing something that looks like homework. In the Westernport family, this is also the case for Cam when Jason is doing homework. Sometimes the older children directly help the younger children in getting started, as when Anna helps Martin on the computer or Laura and Kaisa help Emil to find words in the letter game their mother played with him. This supports their younger siblings becoming oriented toward, and starting to develop motives for, school competences. It is not only the older siblings who influence their siblings: younger siblings can influence the older siblings’ activities as well, as we saw in Chapter 6 when Laura started to imitate Lulu’s writing of the number 4 without lifting her pen, and in the other situation when she competed with Emil over their mother’s attention and demanded that her mother help her with the spelling of words.

Chapter 8 The After-School Period – Play at Home

There is a significant body of empirical work that validates the importance of play for children’s development (Hakkarainen, 2006; Kravtsov & Kravtsova, 2010). Much of this research has been undertaken in preschool contexts (e.g., Bodrova, 2008; Bredikyte, 2010), some has followed peer groups at play in their community (e.g., Evaldsson & Corsaro, 1998), and a small proportion has focused on play within family homes (e.g., Tudge, 2008). What role families have in developing children’s play and how children contribute to family play is less well understood. In this chapter we look at the play practices of the families to understand how play is developed in families. We begin with a detailed account of the Westernport family: Playing football It is the after-school period. The Westernport family has assembled in the kitchen. The children have just finished their afternoon snack. There is a great deal of discussion about the children’s shoes, their boots, and their father’s gum boots. Their grandmother recollects a time when one of the children wore the father’s gum boots, and in exaggerating her story she suggests that the child “disappeared inside of them.” This recollection stimulates a game where the children retrieve their father’s gum boots from the laundry and then try them on. Their father assists the children to do this in turn while the waiting children take off their shoes. After great laughter, some of the children then work hard to put on their shoes or boots, and they talk about different kinds of boots, including football boots. In this context, their grandmother says, “Gran’s going to play football.” Their mother responds: “Quick, go and put your shoes on – we’re going to play footie.” This initiates a lot of activity, and the children quickly put on their shoes or boots. 101

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cam: Let’s play football (calls out while running from the kitchen toward the front of the house). grandmother: Play football (softly). Alex has difficulties with his boots, which are now too small for him. His mother comments to him that they are too small. However, he insists on putting them on, and then when successful, runs out of the kitchen to join the others to play football. Outside, all the children are assembled to the right of their father. The father is kicking the ball in turn to Jason and Alex, who are standing and waiting for a turn to receive the ball and then to kick it back to their father. (Period 1, Visit 2, October – Winter) The grandmother initiates the play, and the children respond enthusiastically. This play is performed regularly within the Westernport family. Most of the observations of children’s outdoor play in the Westernport family featured some form of kicking a football around the back- or front yard. How families create time and space for children’s play signals the value they place on play for their children. In this chapter we look closely at the activity setting in the after-school period at home to see what this affords for children’s play so that we can analyze the kinds of conditions and opportunities for children’s play, and we specifically look at what the children do in these activity settings. We focus our analysis on the after-school period at home because it provides the opportunity for children to play free from structured formal schooling and organized after-school programs for the families in our study. Much of the contemporary Western literature has focused on how play can act as a pedagogical tool for supporting children’s learning, and a range of theoretical approaches to conceptualizing play in this way have emerged over time. For instance, many early childhood professionals in Australia (see Ebbeck & Waniganayake, 2010) who work with children and families have used Smilansky’s (1968) theory of play, or have drawn on Parten’s (1932/ 1933) work to better understand the social structure of play. All of these theories of play have framed play as stages of development that children pass through as they advance in age. This perspective is underpinned by a maturational view of child development (see Fleer, 2011a). In our cultural-historical conception we do not focus on the biological aspects of play, but rather make the assumption that play is learned (Elkonin, 2005a, b; Vygotsky, 1966). Communities and families value play differently, and they set up different kinds of spaces, structures, and resources, including time, for their children. In order to understand how children play and how play complexity develops, we examine these activity settings in order to follow how children interact with their parents and with each other, and the objects in their environment, within their family home.

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In the example of the Westernport family introduced above, the parents show that they value play because they have put aside space in the home and backyard for their children to play. They have provided the children with a range of toys to play with such as balls, cars, bicycles, and scooters, and they have actively engaged themselves in their children’s play. We also see this valuing of play in the Fredriksberg family where the children are allowed to keep their toys set up from one day to the next so that their play develops over time (see Chapter 1). The family has also put gymnastic hoops in the ceiling of their attic and have allowed for this area to be a defined play space for their children.

westernport family’s football play We follow the continuation of the Westernport family play as it turns into a football game outside in the yard. The play took place in October, a month that is usually mild and wet in the region of Australia where the family lives. The whole family, including the grandmother and Uncle Matthew, are outside of the house. The father starts by kicking the ball back and forth between himself and the other children. The father and Mandy are standing on one side of the front yard, and Alex and Jason are standing 10 meters on the right side. Cam stands near the house and moves into the middle of the kicking area, commenting on the father’s kicking: cam: Wow, that was a fun one, Daddy. Alex catches the ball that the father has kicked, as the father says, “Good work.” Alex lines up the ball and successfully kicks the ball to his father. The other children stand ready, but watch intently as Alex kicks. The father returns the kick, and Cam squeals in disappointment as the ball passes him by, and his two brothers run to retrieve it. Mandy lifts her leg up and down in a kicking action, practicing to kick the ball (although the ball is not near her). Jason does a straight and strong kick to his father, and Mandy claps her hands in appreciation. Creating space and time, and being supportive of the children’s attempts at kicking a football are regular pedagogical features of the Westernport family. It is not just the adults who give this space, but also the siblings who support each other, as is shown below. The father gives the football to Mandy, and she holds the ball with two hands and attempts to kick the ball to the children positioned on the other side. Her father says, “Big kick.” Jason and Alex stand in position and watch as Mandy runs forward with the ball, dropping it to the ground in front of her, and then skillfully kicks it. The ball is moved along by

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1 meter, and it is only then that Alex and Jason move forward to receive it, followed by the whole family cheering at Mandy’s achievement. Jason lifts the ball from the ground and quickly and skillfully kicks it to his father. At this point in the observation, the play changes from kicking a ball to playing a game of football. The grandmother begins to narrate the play actions of the children and the adults, taking an equal position with the children against the adults (as though it were an adult team playing against a children’s team), as is shown below as the grandmother says, “Get it. Oh, it is a free kick.” Mandy, Uncle Matthew, and the father run to retrieve the ball, while the grandmother calls out, “Get it, get it, get it!” The mother says, “I want a kick,” and moves into the game to join the children. The grandmother says, “I’ll go off or get broken toes.” The ball lands near the mother, and the children and the mother rush toward the ball. The grandmother then calls in a television football commentator’s voice: “Get it. Oh, it is a free kick.” Alex retrieves the ball and kicks it to the father, who in turns kicks the ball long so that it goes well behind a trailer that is to the side of the house. The mother goes behind the trailer and retrieves the ball. The grandmother calls, “Get the ball. Get it off Mum.” The children rush over to their mother and begin tackling her. The narration introduces not only the rules of football, but the roles taken by football players as they try to tackle, get free kicks, and kick over the boundary line. The use of football language signals the rules, even if they are not fully understood. The language, narration, and tone of the football commentator as introduced by the grandmother generate the collective imaginary situation that changes how the children play from kicking the ball to each other in the football game. The grandmother continues, “Get if off Mum. Alex, quick. Get it off Mum.” The father calls, “Go, Alex.” The mother kicks the ball skillfully, and it goes long to the father. The children turn, ready to receive a return kick from their father. Suddenly, Alex runs to the father and begins tackling him. The other children follow, and the grandmother calls, “Get if off Dad.” The play continues in this way for a few more turns, and then the father gives the ball to Mandy. The children rush to her, ready to tackle her; she makes an “Eeeee” sound and the children back away, allowing her through, as Uncle Matthew runs behind in small steps saying, “I am coming to get you.” The children and the adults continue to play, with the grandmother doing the commentary from the side, using football language such as, “Push in the back,” “free kick,” “in the back,” along with monitoring the

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figure 8.1 Space is created for the children to successfully retrieve or kick the ball

children’s turns. Alex asks if his grandmother will join them and she says, “No, Gran will stay here.” The football play becomes vigorous, children slip on the wet grass, but all the children and adults laugh. When the football hits the fence, Alex says, “You hit the post. You hit the boundary line.” Alex and Jason run around each other, colliding as they move; their grandmother laughs, and the mother says, “Hip and shoulder.” The children and adults continue their football kicking. The grandmother calls, “Get if off Mum. Hip and shoulder Mum.” She repeats these instructions while the children run vigorously toward their mother and pull at her to stop her getting the ball. After some moments of play, the grandmother physically enters the football field. In order to facilitate the imaginary game of football, and support the “children’s team,” the grandmother deliberately joins in the game and playfully moves the father away from the football so that Jason has easy access to the ball. The grandmother runs into the pack and begins to tackle the father, followed by the children who are all assisting. Their mother says, “Tackle him. Push him to the ground.” Their grandmother joins in and says, “Help me. Help Gran.” Once again, the grandmother uses football language to keep the imaginary football game going.

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The children and adults all encourage each other to tackle and to retrieve the ball, calling out regularly, “Go, Jason,” or, “Go, Mum, quick,” or, “Tackle him!” The game lasts for nearly an hour. Demands and Initiatives – Jason In the first part of the observation, the father kicked the ball long and straight directly to Jason. This resulted in very little demands being made on Jason’s catching or kicking competence. However, at other times the father deliberately kicked the ball over Jason’s head so he had to run to retrieve it. Jason then had to decide if he was to kick the ball harder to make it go farther or to move forward with the ball toward the father before kicking it so that it would reach his father. Jason managed the distance by mostly moving forward. However, at times Jason took the initiative to kick the ball so that it went over his father’s head and over the fence. When this occurred, he smiled. His father accepted this, retrieving the ball and gesturing that it was a good kick. When the football kicking changed into a football game, more demands were made on Jason because now he needed to defend his right to have the ball and kick while running. In addition, the adults no longer kicked the ball as accurately and directly to the children, resulting in the children needing to “scramble for the ball” more and to fight for the right for a kick (rather than it being clear who the ball was being directed to by the adult). This created more demands on the children’s physical skills to retrieve a ball and to kick a ball while running rather than standing. Demands and Initiatives – Alex Alex stayed involved in the kicking practice and the subsequent football game even though his kicking competence was not as proficient as Jason’s. As a result, there were greater demands placed on Alex when the practice changed to a game of football. When Alex had the ball in his hands, the adults and Jason did not take the ball from him, but rather gave him the opportunity to kick the ball. Alex met these demands by steadying his grip on the ball before kicking, but he still rushed his kicks because the other children and adults stayed close by creating tension and generating a need to be quick (even though they did not attempt to take the ball from him). Alex took the initiative to “play football” on the move. When Cam or Mandy had the ball, Alex (as well as Jason) did not attempt to take the ball, and did not crowd either of them, but rather gave them both space and time to kick the ball. Both Alex and Jason adopted the same strategies as the adults, and they too cheered and clapped when either Cam or Mandy made an attempt to kick the ball.

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Learning to Cooperate through Shared Play The Westernport family practices are dominated by a collective form of play in which the whole family participates. The playfulness of the family football game provides important opportunities for the development of cooperation for all the children within the Westernport family. In particular, we notice that the football activity generates a motive for the cultural practices associated with the game of football, builds physicality and ball-handling skills of all members of the family, and generates an imaginary situation where the rules of the game of football are explicitly played out and tested within a playful family context. The grandmother modified the football play when she began commentating. The actions changed from kicking and receiving a football between individuals into a match that involved the whole family. The use of football language had the effect of changing the activity of kicking into a game. Through her commentating, the grandmother positioned herself as an active member of the play, even though she was never involved in kicking the football. As is commensurate with Vygotsky’s (1966) theory of play, the kicking actions took on new meaning. The kicks were no longer separate kicks, but rather part of a holistic and connected activity. The grandmother created a collective imaginary situation through the use of football language. An imaginary situation emerges The imaginary situation created a context in which all the members of the family could take an active role. The football was used initially as an object to kick, but the grandmother gave the activity new meaning as she transformed it through the use of football language, and through this the children’s actions were changed to reflect a football match. The activity changed from stationary kicking to movement all over the yard, with adults and children all pushing and shoving each other out of the way as they attempted to gain control of the ball. The level of laughter increased through this change, and the skill base of children was visually stretched, as they had to kick and catch “on the run.” What is evident through this play is how an imaginary situation created by the grandmother gives an opportunity for “going into the play” while at the same time being embedded in reality. The imaginary situation was shared by the family members, and through this, it allowed the children to engage in imagination and creativity (Vygotsky, 2004) and to change the meaning of the activities and learn the rules of an important cultural event in everyday community life – football (Elkonin, 2005a). It is suggested that a play motive for football was also developed through this particular family practice, as was evident by the enthusiasm the game of football generated for all of the children.

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How the Pedagogy of the Family Supports Children’s Development of a Motive and Competence for Playing Football The example of the football play in the Westernport family gives some insight into how the family uses play to enact some of the important cultural activities found not just within the local community, but within the state of Victoria. As noted by Robinson (2000), “Each weekend throughout the country Australians take their children to sporting events, either to participate or to watch. Sporting culture is very important to Australians, and the participation in a broad range of sporting activities has always been encouraged for the physical and emotional development of children” (p. 12). How football as a valued practice at the societal level is transmitted to the institutional level of the family could be seen through the case example of the Westernport family. The role of the grandmother was central to creating a form of collective play activity about the game of football. Through collectively imagining the game of football, all of the children, including the youngest child, could participate in this playful activity, which included pitting the children against the adults. An overall analysis of the play practices of the Westernport family shows that the family pedagogy is dominated by a collective form of imaginary football play in which the whole family participates. The playfulness of the family football game provides important opportunities within the Westernport family for the development of all the children’s skills and motives for movement and shared play. The football game involved each child in quite a unique way. Jason and Alex stepped into the play when their grandmother changed the kicking practice into a football game. Each time Jason and Alex had the football, they were given some space and a lot of encouragement from the adult members to kick the ball. Only tackling the adults was encouraged. The adults engaged with the children’s kicking by moving closer to receive or kick the ball depending on which child was kicking. This action was respected by all the family members and accepted by the children. The children knew when someone “was in play” and when someone “was not in play,” as the younger children regularly opted to leave the game only to return a short while later. Having to kick the ball in play, rather than as part of a practice session of simply kicking the ball, had the net effect of physically challenging both Alex and Jason.

building castles in the sandbox: the fredriksberg children It is a nice warm spring day in June. The Fredriksberg children are back home from after-school care and kindergarten, and they are down in the shared yard,

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where there are swings, a play house with furniture, several outdoor playthings, and a big sandbox. The four children are down in the garden; Caroline, Laura’s friend from one of the other apartments, is present. Lulu leaves after a short while and walks away with her father to do shopping. The children’s mother is upstairs. The sandbox Laura and Caroline walk together with the younger children, Emil and Kaisa, to the sandbox. The sand in the sandbox is turned into four mounds located in each of the corners. Kaisa, Emil, and Caroline each start to work on one of the mounds to build a castle. Laura sits downs next to the sandbox. Emil says that all the playthings should be thrown out of the sandbox so there will be room to dig. Kaisa says that she is starting to make an entrance into her castle. Emil will also make an entry in his part of the castle. He asks Caroline if she wants to make a road from her castle to his. Caroline accepts this idea. Laura gets up and steps into the sandbox. She goes “on line” on the small roads in the sandbox that Caroline has just made. She explains that she does not participate in the building of castles but can be the “inaugurator” of the roads they have built around the castle. Caroline repeats the word “inaugurator” and chuckles. Caroline and Laura start to talk together. Caroline tells her that she swam 125 meters during her swimming lessons in school. She explains that she is on the beginner team in the swimming lessons. Kaisa announces she wants to dig a tunnel under her castle. This is what Emil is doing. Caroline again concentrates on the castlebuilding and says to Kaisa, “That it is better”; she builds a parking lot instead of digging under the castle. Kaisa thinks it’s a good idea, so the castle does not collapse. While she digs, Kaisa by accident destroys part of Caroline’s castle. Caroline does not discover this until Laura makes her aware of it. “Ejj, Kaisa, you destroy it.” Caroline is upset. Kaisa looks repentant and says she is sorry, but then takes a shovel and begins to smooth the surface of her castle. Emil is still digging. “I make a car park below the castle,” he explains as he digs a tunnel under the castle. Emil says to Kaisa that her castle looks like a skaters’ hill. “It’s because I smoothed it,” Kaisa says. Emil continues to dig; his arm is almost completely under the castle. Caroline looks interested at Emil’s digging and asks where the tunnel should come up. Emil shows her the place where he wants the tunnel to get through. Caroline says it cannot be done.

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Emil says he’ll try anyway. Then he says he will make a parking lot instead. He repeats this, and addresses it directly to Caroline. Caroline does not hear it. Emil continues to dig. A mother with a baby comes along and places the baby in the corner of the sandbox in an area that is away from the children’s castles. The baby crawls toward Emil’s castle. “We just have to take care,” Emil addresses the mother, pointing to the sand road. Emil takes a shovel to dig with. The baby starts to cry. Her mother explains that she is sorry but her baby wants the shovel. Emil seems to have no desire to hand over the shovel, but he does so when Caroline gives him her shovel. Caroline goes out of the sandbox. Laura gets up too. Emil continued to dig. The mother asks if her baby can dig in her corner of the sandbox. “Yes she can,” says Emil, “so long as she does not destroy my castle.” Laura and Caroline come back. Laura says she wants to push a shovel through the castle. Kaisa allows her to do this to her castle. Caroline says she will destroy her own castle and jump on it. Emil asks Caroline if she will help him to make a parking lot. “Can I destroy it?” asks Caroline. Emil: “What?” “Nothing,” answers Caroline. “It was just for fun.” Emil: “Will you destroy it?” Caroline confirms that she will. Emil says that he will destroy it himself. He stands up on the edge of the sandbox and jumps down on his castle. (Period 3, Visit 6, June – Spring) Afternoon Practice in the Yard The children are down together because it is a nice, sunny spring day. Both the older and the younger children start to play together in the sandbox. For the two 10-year-old children, this is on the edge of what one might expect, and Laura also demonstrates this because she does not want to go directly into the play, but rather announces that she will be an “inaugurator.” However, the play takes place between the children who are aged from 4 to 10 years old, and who are all cooperatively building sand castles. The two youngest (Kaisa and Emil) are oriented to the older child (Caroline) and listen to her advice, but she also cooperates with the younger children, creating a road system between their castles. They are copying each other, building tunnels and parking lots. Emil’s Initiatives Emil is very absorbed in building his castle and digging a tunnel and a basement garage. He is the one who continues building for the longest time.

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Furthermore, he seems to be interested in connecting his part of the castle with the others, as he asks Caroline to build a road to his entrance. Later he asks Caroline to help him build a parking lot, which never is realized because the older girls start to destroy the castles. Kaisa’s Initiatives Kaisa endeavors to build a nice smooth castle with a basement garage underneath. However, when advised by Caroline, she changes her plan and builds a parking lot. When Kaisa has finished smoothing the walls of the castle, she wants Caroline and Emil to notice. Demands and Conflicts Moving around in the sandbox, Kaisa unwittingly damages Caroline’s castle. Laura points this out to Caroline, who blames Kaisa. Kaisa looks regretful and says she is sorry, and then they both continue digging without further consequences. A woman with a baby approaches the sandbox asking Emil if her baby can play in it. Emil agrees that the baby can dig in the sandbox as long as the baby does not ruin his castle. But Emil is not willing to give his shovel to the baby, although he agrees to do so when he receives Caroline’s shovel. But this means Caroline can no longer play, which leads to Laura’s suggestion to destroy the castle, that Caroline accepts, thereby ending the play for all the participants. Emil hears her suggestion but does not understand it at first. Then he enters into this new game, announcing he will destroy his own castle. Learning to Cooperate through Shared Play What is special about the children playing at home is that they play with siblings and friends of different ages. In kindergarten and in school, children who play together are mostly in the same age group and usually very close in age. It is obvious that Laura, the eldest, does not think she ought to play in the sandbox, but she wants to be with Caroline and her siblings, and therefore it is fine for her to take on the role as “inaugurator,” although she is mostly passive in this role. It is Caroline and Emil who set the theme for the play, and they develop it together with a series of suggestions. Both suggest aspects of the play as the construction evolves. Emil suggests the roads, and Caroline suggests a parking lot. Emil incorporates these suggestions in his underground digging of the castle. Kaisa mostly accepts the suggestions given by the older children, but she wants to be appreciated. Even though Kaisa destroys part of Caroline’s castle, Caroline accepts Kaisa’s apology and they continue.

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play activity within the peninsula family It is late summer and the researchers arrive at 6:00 p.m. at the Peninsula family home. It is still light, and it is comfortably warm (about 20ºC). It is the after-dinner period and all the children have gone immediately outside, picking up the gardening equipment and using it as tools to rake and dig, but also as projectiles to play with. Andrew uses the swing set to balance the rake while Nick explores the long-handled spade near the A-frame. Louise is swinging. This observation was introduced in Chapter 1, and here we find that the children lift up the gardening equipment and use it as objects to explore, digging up grass and other plants, but also as objects to lift and bang into or put on top of the swing set. Andrew takes the rake and, after raking the grass, tries to balance it on top of the swing set, as both J. J. and Louise are playing on the swings. The researchers intervene because of safety concerns. At the same time, Nick returns to the mattock and tries to move it about. Nick drops it to the ground. Louise reaches for the spade that is lying next to it and attempts to lift it. Andrew finds the mattock and lifts it up again. The researcher Marilyn notices this and suggests they place it inside the carport out of the way because it might hurt someone. (Period 1, Visit 6, April – Autumn) Object Play Andrew and Nick use the gardening equipment that has been left lying around (also retrieving more from the shed as their play continues) in ways that show that they know how to use these tools. Nick repeatedly pushes the shovel into the ground to dig, but because he does so on the lawn, he has little success. His object play is in relation to the actions of the tools. Similarly, Andrew uses the rake as intended, and moves the rake backward and forward over the grass. Because it has long pointed prongs, the rake gets stuck in the matted grass that makes up the lawn. Andrew resolves this problem by simply lifting the rake into the air, later balancing it on top of the swing and slide set while Louise and J. J. swing below. Like Nick, Andrew purposefully explores the tools by accurately imitating the actions that the tools should perform. Initially, neither child gives new meaning to the objects, but rather investigates the social purpose of the tools through accurately performing the actions, but on surfaces inappropriate for successful tool use. However, as the children use the equipment, they struggle with the weight and length of the handles, resulting in the children either

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dropping the equipment and finding another item to explore or throwing the specific tool into the air and onto other structures, such as the slide and swing set, fence, or garage. The children’s manipulation of the gardening equipment was seen as dangerous by the researchers. This represents a particular value position on the safe use of tools by children. However, the Peninsula family did not have the same value set, expecting that the children could successfully and safely explore the adult equipment without supervision. For instance, the children made a lot of noise while they were exploring the gardening equipment, but the parents did not come out of the house to intervene, assist, or put away the equipment.

children and adults valuing outdoor play at home Play cannot be viewed from only the parents’ values or simply by the child’s intentions. Rather, a wholeness perspective must be taken with regard to analyzing children’s play intentions and the play settings that are created or made available to children. Play happens when it is valued by families and children alike. In the family homes discussed in this chapter, it was shown that children used everyday materials for their play, such as the equipment for exploring gardening, not in the vegetable bed but across the grass and flowerbeds as we saw in the Peninsula family, or in the Westernport family when the children became engaged in football play with the adults, changing the meaning of the ball for kicking into a football for playing “footie.” We also saw this in the Fredriksberg family when the children were in the sandbox and created an elaborate road-and-tunnel system between their sand castles. Bodrova (2008) has shown in her research into young children’s play in the North American context that children’s play is more elaborate and imaginative when the objects are not prescriptive, but rather are simple ones, such as a stick, ball, stone, or piece of fabric. The sand was changed by the children into an imaginary situation of an underground car park. The gardening equipment was used as a pivot for the children’s gardening play in other parts of the backyard, and the football with the narration from the grandmother acted as a pivot for playing a football match between all the members of the family. Vygotsky (1966) has shown that in play, children change the meaning of objects, creating imaginary situations, and in these kinds of situations, play acts as a source of development for children. More recent studies also confirm that play acts as a source of children’s development (see Bodrova & Leong, 2001; Bredikyte, 2010). Outdoor play for the Peninsula, Fredriksberg, and Westernport families allowed the children to initiate and create the play situations they wished. However, the

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play cannot be viewed only from the perspective of the children. The adults also showed the children that they valued their play because they provided time and space for this type of activity, something that is not universally done in families, as the work of Goncu and Gaskins (2007) has shown in the South American context, or more broadly as discussed by Pellegrini (2011). Some families actively discourage their children from playing, providing real-life opportunities of participating in family and community activities, where children have responsibilities and important roles within the social structures of their community. For the Westernport and Fredriksberg families (also see Chapter 1), the children’s play was strongly influenced by what conditions the adults made available and what kinds of needs were created in everyday life. The imaginary situation created by the grandmother’s narration in the Westernport family allowed the children to change their play from skill development to football play. The grandmother narrated on the sideline, but when the need arose, she also became an active player. Initially, she was an observer of the play activity when the family was kicking the ball. However, once she began to narrate the play, creating the imaginary situation, she was actively involved, even though she initially did not physically participate in the play. Adult involvement in children’s play is less well understood because it has not been extensively researched. What was evident through this play of the Westernport children is how an imaginary situation creates a new kind of interaction between children and adults – as football players and not simply children kicking a ball to an adult. In the Westernport family, the imaginary situation was shared by the family members, and through this it can be suggested that the play allowed the children to enter into, and develop, a collective imaginary situation (Fleer, 2011b; Fleer, 2012), thus affording opportunities for development (Vygotsky, 1998). The imaginary situation also allowed the children (and adults) to change the meaning of the objects and actions within their visual field (Vygotsky, 1966), as the children became football players. Similarly, through the imaginary situation, the children practiced the football rules heard on television and in the community, and it can be suggested that the children developed insights into an important cultural event in everyday community life (see Elkonin, 2005a) in Melbourne, Australia – football. In the Peninsula family, the children also focused on object play, drawing on everyday social meaning for tool use. However, an imaginary situation was not created by the children. Rather, the children focused on the social actions associated with purposeful tool use for the gardening they had observed. The family grew their own vegetables, and the gardening tools were left out and made freely available to the children. The children did not give new meaning

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to the activities, but rather explored their social purpose through imitating the actions of the adults who used these tools. This object play was consistent with all the other observations made of the children in the Peninsula family. The children picked up and purposefully manipulated all the objects in their environment for brief periods with usually no adult intervention or guidance on how they should or could be successfully used or through the creation of an imaginary situation. Rather, the objects were generally freely available for the children to explore as they wished, with brief periods of adult support for riding a bicycle, kicking a ball, or swinging or sliding on the slide and swing set. By the adults providing time and the outdoor space for the children, this gave the children an opportunity to play. The children from the Fredriksberg family were also allowed to go outside to play with children from the other apartments. The sandbox provided a shared space for all the children, and there imaginative play was negotiated among all the children, resulting in elaborate tunnels, until the baby arrived and interrupted their play, ultimately leading to the imaginary situation ending. Here too, the adults created the conditions for children to play, providing opportunities. How children respond to or follow up on these opportunities is important to examine in a study of children’s development in everyday life. Giving children time and space for playing together suggests that the families valued play. Play in everyday family life at home is closely linked with the societal motives and material conditions available to children, which in turn directly influence the opportunities for children’s development. Children in Australian and Danish families are not expected to work or to actively contribute to the household income, as has been shown by Goncu and Gaskins (2007) in other cultural communities where children do engage in the work of the family unit, but rather there is a societal expectation that children will have time, space, and resources to play at home. The value families place on play determines what structures and resources adults provide to children and how they actively teach or contribute to the development of play. Play within the everyday lives of families does not happen naturally, as part of an unfolding developmental trajectory. Rather, play is a cultural activity that can be introduced, expanded, and learned in families through sibling play and adult involvement, but it is also something that children initiate and shape as they negotiate the imaginary situations they create, changing the meaning of objects as they develop their play, and as they maintain and expand these imaginary situations. The doubleness of play is understood as both the child’s initiatives in play and the conditions that families create for children’s play.

Chapter 9 Evening Meals

In families living in industrialized societies, dinnertime is seen by many as a period in the day when family members can be together, and where the feeling of a shared family can be created (Holm, 2001; Korvela, Ellegård, & Palojoki, 2008; Demuth & Keller, 2011). The evening meals in families in many modern Western societies have been a focus of research, especially within the tradition of Conversation Analyses (Aronsson, 2011; Aronsson & Cekaite, 2011; Aronsson & Gottzén, 2011; Pontecorvo, Fasulo, & Sterponi, 2001; Pontecorvo, Pirchio, & Sterponi, 2000).1 A reason for studying families during their evening meals is that the whole family is usually together, and the relations between parents and children can be studied in this framed setting. The dinner setting can be seen as a moral arena (Aronsson & Forsberg, 2010; Aronsson & Gottzén, 2011) where parents negotiate with children about what to eat and how to interact, and also what opportunities for discussion and reflection occur in relation to what might be right or wrong in the events in which the different family members participated during a particular day. The socialization that takes place around the dinner table between parents and children is not only from parents to children but is seen as bidirectional. This is both indirectly, as when adults make children eat their vegetables, the adults themselves have to eat their vegetables (Waksler, 1996), but also directly, as when children correct the adults or imitate and thereby function as a mirror of the adults. The bidirectionality of socialization around the dinner table has also been put forward by Pontecorvo, Fasulo, and Sterponi (2001). They use the concept of apprenticeship for both adults and children, writing that “Parents learn to be parents with their children, and children learn to be sons or daughters of their specific parents” (Pontecorvo et al., 2001, p. 344). 1

Conversation analyses and analyses of a person’s activities in practice (Hedegaard & Fleer, 2008) are closely related. “The theory and practice of conversation analyses aims at analyzing social phenomena in the real context of everyday life when they occur spontaneously in human interaction” (Pontecorvo, Fasulo, & Sterponi, 2001, p. 345).

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How children and parents influence each other during their evening meals has also been a part of our research both the two Danish families and the two Australian families, participating several times as observers within this activity setting. The picture though is not simple, because the settings are quite different across the four families. The main difference that stands out from the start between the Danish and Australian families is that in the Danish families, the whole family sits together and eats together. In the Australian families, the children sit together, but the parents neither eat nor sit together with their children. Accordingly, the influence from parents to their children and from children to their parents will be different, as will be exemplified in the observations we share in this chapter. There are also other obvious differences in the interactions among the participants of the four families during the evening mealtime that create diversity, and we discuss the significance of these for children’s development as a result of participating in everyday life. Research (Korvela, Ellegård, & Palojoki, 2007; Holm, 2001) has shown that the patterns inherent within meal traditions are not so straightforward, even in Scandinavian countries. Research by Korvela et al. has shown that parents are beginning to become concerned about the breakdown of the tradition of dinnertime as a shared family event where family members sit down together at a table. In their family study, Korvela et al. examined the reasons that mothers gave for this breakdown, finding that the pressure of their work outside home and coming home late was a main reason for changing practices. Children are placed before the television while the adults prepare dinner, and the television is still on when they are eating. Korvela et al. write that it is mostly on the weekends that Finnish families succeed in bringing together family members around the dinner table. In our research, we found that the two Danish families still followed the tradition of eating dinner together, even during midweek, without watching television or listening to the radio. We noted that these two families took the “togetherness of family mealtimes” rather seriously.

the vanløse family at the dinner table In this section we will examine the settings for dinnertime in the Vanløse family over two separate observations. The first time we observe dinnertime, each of the children has a school friend visiting, who also stay for dinner. The second time we observe the family dinner it is eight months later, where there are no schoolmates visiting. A change over this period can be seen in the way Martin participates at the dinner table. What we find is that Martin’s demands on the parents have increased and the conflictual and provoking activities from the previous dinner setting have increased. The general picture

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of Martin has also changed since he has transitioned from kindergarten class to first grade. This change can be seen in his table conduct from the first to the second dinner observation. The change in his obstructive actions at the dinner table could be interpreted as a struggle to have more agency and to no longer be treated as a small child. First Dinner Observation There are two playmates visiting, Karla and Cathy. They both stay for dinner. Karla is Martin’s best friend; Cathy is Anne’s friend. These two children were previously introduced in Chapter 7, in the setting of coming home from school and relaxing. The two observers have been in the home with the children since they arrived home from daycare at 3:30 p.m. when they watched television and had an afternoon snack. Later, the observer went with the children when they played with their respective friends. Anne and Cathy have set the table and invited the family to the dinner table. At the dinner table All four children were asked to go to the bathroom and wash their hands. They are now sitting around the dinner table. The food served is lamb steak, taziki salad, green salad, and bread. Anna and Cathy discuss where they should be sitting at the table. The mother says, “Please start.” The father sends the bread around. When the mother passes the bread on to Anna, a piece falls down. The mother says, laughing, “See what happens now.” anna: “Ehh! Mo-o-m, it was you.” The meat is sent around. When Anna tries to take two pieces, her mother says, “You can take only one.” Then Anne asks if she can take the large piece. Her mother responds with, “Do not take this big one,” but then she serves Anne the big piece. Anne comments that her mother gives her the big piece that she was not allowed to take herself. All children put meat on their plates. martin: “It is tough” (to cut the meat). karla: “It is really difficult.” The father asks if he should cut Karla’s meat. Martin would like his father to cut Martin’s meat as well. Karla tries to take the lettuce leaves with the cutlery. She does not succeed in getting anything onto her plate.

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The father says that she may pick up the lettuce with her fingers. karla: Why are there those (cutlery) in the bowl? mother: Because sometimes there are small pieces where you need to use cutlery. The father cuts Martin’s meat up and asks whether he wants to have the thin fatty edge cut off. First, Martin said yes, and his father says, “This is what you call the salt edge.” martin: Then I like it – I would like to have it. (Martin likes to have salt; he heaps almost a full teaspoon onto his plate, then dips his meat into it). Karla says to Martin, “This is much more than we may take at home.” The mother explains that one should not eat too much salt. martin: But it’s healthy to have salt if you do not get too much of it, but unhealthy if you get too much. The family talks about how the butter knife has changed. It turns out that Karla has swapped her knife with the butter knife. In her attempt to cut a piece of meat, Anna spills taziki down into her lap. Her mother says with a grin, “Ehh! Anna, what are you doing?” anna: Well . . . mother: It’s okay – we will do washing again soon. Martin comments why Karla has the butter knife by saying, “We have killed the butter.” Karla and Martin giggle together. mother: Martin and Karla, have you finished kissing now? Grins from the two girls across the table. martin: We are not! Mo-o-m! The father tells about Ole and his mouth harmonica. Martin is very interested in the size of the harmonica and asks about this. He is very impressed when his father describes the size. Karla contributes by telling about her brother’s harmonica. The doorbell rings. Martin gets up: “I want to open.” Martin comes back: “Cathy, you’re being picked up.” Cathy’s father enters the room and greets everyone. martin: We have researchers! (Period 1, Visit 2, March – Spring) Demands for Conduct at the Table The family and their guests are expected to all sit down at the table and wait until the parents give a sign to start eating the food. In Danish one says “please be so good.”

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The parents are very aware of when the children have problems with eating; perhaps the children get a lot of attention because there are two observers present. The mother demands that Anne should not take too much meat onto her plate, thereby setting a norm for the rest of the family to balance what they put on their plates. Anne then corrects her mother when her mother gives her a big piece of meat after first telling Anne that she should not take the big piece. The mother’s relation to Anne and Martin is to use teasing for corrections of their actions. We see this when Anne drops a piece of bread and when she spills taziki salad, and her mother comments on both events while at the same time grinning, or when she comments on Karla and Martin’s giggling at the table as “kissing.” The parents react to the children’s mistakes by teaching them table manners, but the children also turn these situations into demands on the adults, as can be seen when Karla says that in her home they are not allowed to take so much salt on their plate as Martin is doing. The mother supports this and says that too much salt is not healthy, which leads to Martin’s explanation of a little salt as being healthy but too much as being unhealthy, an explanation he possibly has heard before at the dinner table. Karla also questions why they have cutlery in the salad if she can pick up the salad with her fingers, and she joins Martin in making fun of herself by taking the butter knife. Second Dinner Observation Eight Months Later The second dinner observation takes place eight months later. Martin has moved from kindergarten class to first grade.2 Before dinner Martin is at the computer playing a new game about Odysseus and his men traveling home to Ithaca and on their way meeting all the dangers at the different islands. The aim is to get Odysseus safely home. Martin and the observer are sitting together for a half hour. Martin is trying to get through the game. His mother then asks Martin to set the table, which he does at once even though he has not finished the game. The family sits down at the table They are having East Indian food, with chicken, rice, fried bananas, peanuts, raisins, and pineapple. Martin does not take chicken, but he does take rice and peanuts, and he gets ketchup. He is going to start eating. His mother tells Martin to wait to eat until everyone has got food on their plates. Anne loses her spoon on the floor. 2

This means from the first year to the second year in school.

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mother: It’s good I have washed the floor. martin: Can I start eating? mother: Wait a little. Martin begins to count down from 10. mother: Do you want to have bananas today, Anne? “No,” she answers. mother: Please start. But Martin is still counting; he is at eight and continuing to count down to zero, and then says “Fire!” The father brings up the theme of athletics in school. The mother says, “Let us talk about this later.” martin: I have to go out to do a piss. mother: Talk properly. martin: If I bother. Anna says that she remembers something important and leaves the table. father: She should probably write something on her mind board. Martin comes in with a lamp shade, and says, “Look what I found” (in the bathroom). mother: You can put that back and come and sit down. The father brings up a topic about an American lady who talked about not showing off (he uses the Danish concept of “Jante Law”). Martin says thanks for dinner and rises to leave the table. mother: No, you should not leave the table. Anne comes back to the table and says that they have swimming in the last two hours in school tomorrow. She says she wants to learn to swim. Martin says that he thinks he can (swim). Anne says sarcastically: “If this is so, I can too.” mother: You have to be fonder of swimming as I understand you did not want to join. martin: I do not want to. Anne can do it instead of me. mother: Then you do not learn to swim. anne: We need to go to the swimming pool more often – we get there just once a year. Martin stays at the table and starts to ask about getting more peanuts. His mother tells him that he needs to have it with rice, but he has already told everyone that he was finished. This goes on for some time, with Anna now also wanting peanuts. They fuss about how they can share. The father leaves for the kitchen and Martin tries to follow him, but his mother tells him to sit down. Anne is slow to finish eating so her mother tries to hurry her up.

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When they all have finished, the children are asked to get into their night clothes. The mother then tells the children that she will read when they all are sitting at the table, and then they all can have some licorice. Anne is supposed to clean the table, but because she is slower than Martin, and he comes back ready in his night clothes and announces he is ready, his mother asks him to do the job instead, which he does. When Anne comes back, he says, “I cleaned the table for you.” anne: Good, for this is boring. martin: It is fun. (Period 3, Visit 10, October – Autumn) Demands for Conduct at the Table In this family, table manners are central for dinnertime; the mother is the one who is responsible for ensuring that table manners are followed. The father is the one who introduces the themes for discussion. In both observations, the whole family sat down together at the table and began eating when everybody was seated and the mother had said, “Please start.” Nobody leaves the table before the mother sees that all have finished their meal. In the second observation, Anne also had a small incident with losing something on the floor, but otherwise she was much the same. However, it seemed that Martin objected to his mother’s demands both directly by using improper speech and wanting to leave the table several times, and indirectly by his wish for peanuts. Martin’s Initiatives and Conflicts In the second setting, there were several incidents where Martin took initiatives to oppose the established rules. These conflicts may be seen as Martin becoming active in a new way, as a boy who has a new position. He had started in first grade in school, which means he had started to develop school competences, sitting quietly during school time and learning to read.3 Up until summer, he would often sit on his mother’s lap when he had finished eating. We have several examples from the breakfast settings where he sits on his mother’s lap, but this changed after he started his second year in school and he became “a real school child.” He is not in general opposed to his mother. He rose at once when his mother asked him to set the table, and later he did Anne’s job, so it is not that he in any way seemed cross at his mother – it seems more that he was trying out a new social position. 3

He demonstrated competences at the computer game before dinner.

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table 9.1 An overview of Martin’s conflicts and oppositions Martin’s engagement and intentions

Demands on Martin

Conflicts/ oppositions

He wants to start eating

To wait for everybody to eat

His mother asks him to wait until all have food on their plates Martin does not eat chicken, only rice and peanuts

He start counting to 10

To eat some of what is on the table

Solutions

He gets ketchup for his rice

He announces that he wants to go and make a pee

To speak properly

Non-proper talk

His mother reprimands him

To show what he does not expect to find in the bathroom

Not to bring things to the table

He finds a lamp shade that he brings to the table – his mother gets irritated and asks him to put it back

He puts the lamp shade back

To leave the table

To be at the table until everybody has finished

He is not allowed to leave

He stays at the table

He wants to have peanuts

To eat peanuts with the rice

His mother tells him he has already said he is finished eating

He gets rice with his peanuts

He wants peanuts again

To share the goodies

Anne also wants peanuts

He has to share the last with Anne

He wants to leave the table again

To be at the table until everybody has finished

He is not allowed to follow his father when his father goes to the kitchen

His mother makes him sit down until everybody has finished

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the fredriksberg family at the dinner table If we look at the Fredriksberg family at the dinner table, they show similarities to but also differences from the Vanløse family in the way they interact. In the Fredriksberg family, all the members of the family also sit together at the table, but the mother does not use so much energy to teach the children table manners. Themes from school are brought up and discussed more directly in this family. Before dinner the children play upstairs. Emil plays behind the sofa by himself; Lulu and Kaisa play catch using the rings in the loft. Laura joins the catch play just before their mother calls them down to dinner. Dinner: They are having spaghetti with meat sauce, a dish all the children like. The father asks Emil about school and who he is sitting next to now (he has moved to a new desk position). Emil says that he now sits next to Hector and Lise. Apparently, he does not like Lise and calls her “the little mitten.” His mother tells him to speak nicely about others. They all get food on their plates and they talk about Kaisa’s afternoon: she has attended a birthday party with her kindergarten class. Lulu then tells that she shared with her class the riddle her father had told them about yesterday. Her father asks if they could solve it (it seemed so). Lulu then explains that she is going to the zoo tomorrow with her class. They are going to feed some animals and clean their enclosures. Her father laughs about the fact that they have to clean out the animal enclosures. He does not believe that they have to do this. Emil says it is disgusting: “You know what it is. It is to remove the animal shit and put it into a big pile.” Lulu agrees that they probably will only have to give the animals food. Lulu starts to tell riddles: “Why can a horse not be an electrician?” She continues: “Have you heard that the horse is a magician, an apple getting in one way and a pear4 coming out the other way?” Emil tries to make up a riddle, but does not get it out in a way that it is understandable: “The ceiling looks at the floor. Both says I am more than up.” Emil says then: “Now there is advertising.” father: You have certainly seen too much television. mother to the whole family: Have you read the card from Grandma? 4

“Horse doung” is, in Danish, hesteprærer; pærer in Danish means both the fruit – pear – and a bulb. “Horseshit” (hesteprærer) can then literally be understood as the horse’s pears or horse bulbs.

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kaisa: I have to go and make a shit, and you must not read while I’m

shitting. She runs out and comes back and says: “I did not do any shitting.” father: Now we stop. Emil wants a third portion of spaghetti. Laura goes to rise from the table but her mother says, “We’re not done – neither Emil nor I are.” Emil talks about Hasse, who is going around kicking at school. He says, “I’m afraid of him.” mother: Why are you scared? emil: Because he is better at hitting and kicking than Philip (his friend). Kaisa asks if she is allowed to go and watch children’s programs on television. Her father walks upstairs and turns it on for her and then returns. Emil is finished eating, and he crawls over onto his father’s lap. All the girls have now gone upstairs and are watching children’s programs. Emil then talks about both Hasse and Sein. Sein is in his class; Hasse is in a parallel class. father: Are you afraid of both? Is it Sein? emil: No, it is Hasse. mother: Why are you afraid of him? emil: He can fight, and he has thrown Philip from the green lane. His mother asks if she has to take action – that is, should she do something? Emil responds ambiguously. His mother changes the subject and asks: “Emil, have you been at the (school) library?” Emil says yes; he retrieves his book and shows it to her. (Period 1, Visit 4, November – Autumn) The Practice in the Family and the Demands That Are Made Table manners are maintained throughout the dinner period. The practice is for all to gather at the table before they begin eating and to wait until everybody is finished before anyone can leave the table. Only once did the mother have to remind the eldest child about this. What dominates the dinner are their conversations about events outside the home that are related to kindergarten and school. The events are brought up by both parents asking about them and children initiating these conversations in order to relay news about what happened that day in school and kindergarten or about forthcoming events.

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Emil’s Initiative and Conflicts Emil participated in the dinner discussions and commented on Lulu’s expectation about going to the zoo as being something not to look forward to because of the possibility she would need to clean out animal enclosures. The riddles that the father told on a previous day are continued by Lulu, and Emil also tried to contribute to the telling of riddles by inventing his own, but without much success. Instead of continuing his riddle he brought up the idea that they were from a television show, and he positioned himself as the host. His father commented on this and laughed. Emil did have some success with the idea of a “riddle show.” The conflict that Emil awakened was when he did not speak nicely of a girl in his class. His mother told him not to talk this way about another child. A conflict that Emil experienced at school was brought up by him toward the end of the dinner period. He related the fact that he was scared of one of his schoolmates because the other child hits and kicks. Next time when we visited the family this theme came up again, but the problem seemed to have been solved.

evening meals in the peninsula family Mealtime routines in the Peninsula family generally take place sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 in the evening. In summer the children are often outside and will come inside for their meal, usually running directly to the table from their outside play. In the winter when it is already dark at 6:00 p.m., the children are usually inside already and will go from their activities throughout the house to the kitchen table where the food is served. During formal mealtimes in the Peninsula family home, the children always began eating their food at the kitchen table, and within a time span of a few minutes to up to 10 minutes, the children generally move away from the kitchen with their food into other areas of the house. Eating occurred across rooms rather than within one room. An example of the dinner meal follows: Before dinner we observed the children outside engaged in the following activities: looking at the vegetable garden together with their father and the researcher, riding bicycles, playing totem tennis, sliding and swinging, and playing with Louise’s new toys. The researchers brought fish and chips for the family’s evening meal, as requested by the family. The wrapped meal is divided up onto plates for the children and placed on the table. A visitor to the family is seated at the table. After placing the food on the table, the mother leaves the kitchen area. Louise is in the high chair, J. J. is outside still even though he knows

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the food has been served, and Andrew and Nick have sat down to eat. The father is outside with another friend who is visiting the household. The meal begins with Andrew making loud howling noises. The other children initially look as he makes these sounds, but soon return to eating. Andrew moves about on his chair so that his legs are tucked under him. Nick sits still and eats without a lot of movement. Andrew moves away from the table, retrieving a sauce bottle from the cupboard; he then puts sauce on each person’s plate. After sucking the tip of the bottle with his mouth, he climbs onto the table. He stands and howls while the other children continue eating. They look, but appear not to take much notice of him. Eventually, Andrew leaves the table, and wanders around the house, coming back to the table to take some food. Nick takes his plate, sits in the family room, and eats. J. J. comes from outside into the kitchen and carries his plate of food around the house, eating as he walks. Louise is seated in her high chair and calls out, indicating she would like a drink. Her mother comes into the kitchen, pours Coke into Louise’s drink cup, and puts it on Louise’s high-chair tray. Louise takes a sip and shows great displeasure at the taste. The mother talks to the researchers for a moment and then leaves the kitchen area. She walks up the hallway and picks up small pieces of food dropped by the children. There are now no other children in the kitchen with Louise. She is sitting in the high chair alone. Later, Nick comes into the kitchen, takes some cling wrap from a drawer, covers his leftover food, and puts the plate in the refrigerator. He then leaves the kitchen. Eventually, Louise calls out, and the mother comes back into the kitchen and takes Louise out of the high chair. (Period 3, Visit 2, September – Spring) Andrew’s Initiatives and Demands for Conduct at the Dinner Table At the dinner table, Andrew takes the initiative to find the sauce bottle and to put tomato sauce on his plate. He also goes around the table and puts sauce on the other children’s plates. The other children accept this, including Louise who is seated in the high chair. During the meal, Andrew enjoys making howling noises, which become louder and louder. Eventually, he climbs onto the table, standing tall and continuing to howl. After some time, he jumps off the table, takes his food, and moves about the house. The other children are still seated. No

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one intervenes in this activity, and no one asks him to be quiet. He does not have to sit at the table, and he does not have to eat quietly. He uses his fingers to eat his fish and chips from his plate, and continues to eat this way as he walks about the house. Andrew shows great skill in coordinating eating and walking about the house. Although J. J. occasionally drops food as he walks, Andrew does not. Nick’s Initiatives and Demands for Conduct at the Dinner Table Nick does not seem to mind or look surprised when Andrew howls or stands on the table – he simply continues to eat. After Andrew leaves the table, he takes his plate and walks into the family room where the television is on. No one asks Nick to return to the table or to not watch television while he is eating his dinner. There are no adults in the family room other than researcher Marilyn. Nick can take the initiative to eat his dinner where he wishes. When he announces that he has had enough food, he takes the initiative to take his food back to the kitchen where he retrieves the cling wrap from a drawer and skillfully unrolls it, placing it over the plate, and carefully tearing it off the roll. This task is difficult for most adults, but Nick manages it skillfully without any assistance. He does not ask where the cling wrap is; he does not ask permission to use the cling wrap. He simply manages this independently and with skill, which implies that this is a common practice. When the mother returns to the kitchen briefly, she does not ask him about what he is doing. Nick simply places his food into the refrigerator, announcing he will eat it later. The Family Practice and Demands That Are Made The mealtime practice in the Peninsula family is for the children to eat without the adults. The food is always dispensed by the adults, who then move to other parts of the house while the children eat. The adults come into the kitchen area to eat a mouthful of food occasionally, or take pieces of food that they eat as they move about the house or backyard. The children begin the meal by sitting together eating. But when the children wish to move elsewhere, or wish to stand on the table, they are free to do so. The children control the mealtime rituals. They decide how long to stay seated, they decide how long to eat, and they direct the flow of the mealtime conversations. The only demand that is made on the children regarding mealtimes is when the food is served. However, the timing of eating is also controlled by the children. For example, if the children are not particularly hungry or do not wish to eat when the food is served, they can put cling wrap on their plates and put their food into the refrigerator so they can eat it later. Otherwise, mealtimes create no demands on the children.

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The general pattern of eating noted in the Peninsula family is a kind of geographically distributed process, which begins at the kitchen table, but can extend to all parts of the house. The children are most skillful in walking while eating, in talking while eating, and in defending their food from the dog while moving in and around the rooms of the house. The boundaries that form the walls of the house are not an impediment to a sense of collective eating. The children do not need to be sitting to enjoy a conversation, as eating and talking occurs across the house. In contrast to the Danish families, the children do not need to be sitting next to each other or facing each other while eating, as their family interaction pattern of high mobility means that they are in constant visual and auditory communication as they walk, run, sit, and eat around the house.

evening meals in the westernport family The Westernport family has their evening meal after 6:00 p.m. In the summer period, the children usually come in from playing outside with their extended family (i.e., parents, uncle, and grandmother) in order to sit down to have their evening meal. In the winter period, the children are often inside playing before they bathe, put on their pajamas, and sit down to eat. The Westernport family usually organizes their children to eat their meals at the kitchen table, as the adults watch on while the children eat. The adults either take their meal standing while observing and interacting with the children or they eat their meals later. In the observation that follows, the children ate their meals on child-sized furniture in the family room as a picnic. The researchers have brought fish and chips for the family meal as requested by the Westernport family. The grandmother and the mother created a cozy picnic area for the children to eat their fish and chips. The mother and grandmother put a child-sized table in the middle of the family room, place the fish and chips that the researchers provided on plates, and put the plates on the table. Two plastic chairs are around the table, and the mother lifts Mandy into one of them while Jason says in a whining voice, “This is mine.” The mother says “No” in a kind way, and Jason immediately jumps up and down and cries out loudly, slumping himself onto the family room sofa in annoyance. The grandmother resolves the conflict by saying, “Gran will have to get you some more,” referring to the chairs. “If you are good, Gran will get one.” Cam also moves toward the chair, and the mother says, “No.” Cam also slumps on the sofa, but he does not say anything. In response, the grandmother says: “Gran will have to get you some more chairs.” The mother asks Cam: “Do

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you want a different chair?” The grandmother walks out of the lounge calling to the father, “Magpie’s chair” (referring to Jason’s chair). Jason is a Collingwood football supporter, and “Magpie” is the nickname for the football team. The “Magpie chair5?” initiates a discussion about football by the adults, and the children agree by saying, “Yeah,” and nodding, and then they start to eat while standing or sitting. While the extra chairs are being collected by the mother, Jason follows her out, but then returns. Cam also runs out of the room to follow; Jason, Alex, and Mandy remain. The grandmother follows. In the kitchen she says, “You are not saying hello to the chair” (meaning he should go back to the table and not go out to the shed with the mother to get chairs) as Cam is taken from the kitchen to the cozy picnic area in the family room. “Stand there. Eat nicely until Mum gets the chair. Right.” Cam looks glum. The others are more focused on the television than the situation with Cam. The grandmother says to all the children, “When you eat some more, Gran will get you a drink.” Jason and Alex stay focused on the television and are not eating. The grandmother takes the remote control and says, “Are you going to eat, or does Gran turn it off?” Jason says “Eat,” as he takes a chip. All the children now eat as they watch the television. They do not speak to each other or the adults. The adults stand and watch the children and the television program for a while, then leave and go into the kitchen. However, the father stays and hovers around the children. Jason asks about a character that is shown on the television, making a suggestion, and the father agrees with Jason’s view of who it is. The mother brings in the child-sized chairs. The father sets up the black-and-white “Magpie” chair from the shed and puts it up next to the small table for Jason, then a brightly colored one for Cam. All the children are now happy and sit themselves down at the table. The father takes the drink cups as the children finish them. As the children’s program finishes, the children begin to move about the table or family room, but are still looking toward the television, apparently to see what might be on next. Jason moves out of his chair and wanders around. Jason wants to return to his chair, but Mandy is now sitting in it, so he calls his father as he walks into the kitchen and asks him to solve the problem. The father goes back into the family room with Jason, and as he does, Mandy simply moves out of his chair. The father then goes 5

“Magpie chair” refers to the black-and-white colors of the chair, which represents the colors of the football team that the family supports. “Magpie” is a black-and-white bird, and this word is used as the nickname for the football team in Melbourne, Australia.

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back into the kitchen, where all the adults are now sitting at the table, except Uncle Matthew who is playing computer games. Alex does not eat his dinner at all, so his father takes him into the kitchen, lifting him and his food and setting him next to his grandmother. The grandmother tries to encourage him to eat by offering him a game on the computer if he eats. Eventually, he eats a few more chips and then he goes with Uncle Matthew and plays Mario. (Period 1, Visit 3, May – Winter) The Family Practice: Demands and Conflicts at the Dinner Table The children expect to be seated at the table to eat their evening meal. The children can begin eating as soon as they are seated (or standing if they are waiting for their seat, as was observed in the picnic example). They do not have to wait for each other. The adults are in attendance, but they do not eat with the children. The children put demands on the mother to make sure they each have a chair, and Jason in particular wants to have the seat that the mother has put Mandy in – even though there is another chair exactly the same that he could have sat in. The grandmother solves the conflict by suggesting that another special football chair be brought in from the shed and be made available to Jason. This is accepted, and Jason is happy to wait for the special chair. Alex takes the initiative to sit in a chair quickly when the two chairs are put around the table. He watches as the conflict emerges between Jason and his mother, and later with Cam. But most of his attention is directed to the television. Watching television and not eating leads to the grandmother threatening to turn off the television. This is met with an instant response of eating. Having the television on while the children are eating means that they do not make any demands on each other or the parents. However, when the program finishes, it becomes obvious that Alex has not eaten. So the father takes Alex into the kitchen and sets him next to his grandmother so that he can be encouraged to eat. Alex does not wish to eat, but when offered a chance of having a game on the computer, he eats a few chips. In the Westernport family, the mother organized a special picnic for the children’s evening meal of fish and chips. Although the seating arrangements had to be specially made for this, it appeared that this was a practice the children were familiar with and were pleased about. Creating special spaces for the children to eat was a valued practice in the family for supporting the children’s eating. The adults took special care that the children were seated and were together for their evening meal. This was also observed at other times in the family when

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the children sat at the table for their meals. The children generally stayed at the table until they finished eating their meals. However, having the television on meant that the children did not engage in any conversations while they were eating. The conversations about the chairs, and football, occurred only while the seating arrangements were being made. Having the television on meant that the children stayed seated throughout the eating period, and when the program was over, the children became restless and moved about the table, chairs, and family room. The children did not have to stay at the table to wait for the others to finish. However, the parents took special care that the children had eaten some food, as was evident when the father removed Alex from the picnic area and seated him at the kitchen table next to the grandmother so he could be given closer supervision.

values around the evening meal Mealtime Practice and Demands at the Dinner Table From the observations of the four families reported in this chapter, it is obvious that there are several ways of sharing dinner and socializing children into different relations around meals. The mealtime practice can be seen as related to how a community shares general values and motives about how to eat the evening meal, as pointed out by Korvela et al. (2007). In Scandinavia as well as in Italy (Pontecorvo, Fasulo, & Sterponi, 2001), we find values about the practice of sharing dinner. In this chapter it was shown how both Danish families used the dinner table as an important cultural site for learning manners (cf. Aronsson & Gottzén, 2011) and for opportunities to learn healthy eating habits (Ochs, Pontecorvo, & Fasulo, 1996), such as when, in the Vanløse family, they discussed eating too much salt. In this family, the food that was served was not especially presented as children’s food, even though it was modified in relation to them. They were served steaks and Indian curry. In the Fredriksberg family, the choice of food was more oriented to children: pizza, pancakes, and meatballs. In the Vanløse family, we saw how table manners went two ways (Pontecorvo et al., 2001), because when the mother wanted to be nice to Anne and she gave her the big piece of lamb steak, Anne commented on this and asked why her mother was not consistent: when her mother said that Anne could not take the big piece of meat, but nevertheless gave it to her. This also occurred when the guest questioned why they had cutlery in the salad when she was allowed to pick up the salad with her fingers. Having everyone sit together for a family meal is not a family practice for either the Westernport or the Peninsula families, although in the Westernport

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family being with the children to eat was important; an adult in the family was always present when the children ate their meals. In the Westernport family, children all ate their meal together at the table, with the adults looking on. But there were no rules about how they should be seated, perhaps because the children eat without the adults at the table. However, the family did expect the children to eat their food, and effort was made to ensure that all the children had eaten some food. In the Westernport family, there were lounge chairs circled around the small table, which the adults could have sat on while the children ate their dinner. Instead, however, the adults stood and watched the children. The kitchen table also did not have enough chairs for the whole extended family to sit at, so it would not have been possible for all of the family to sit together to eat. This was also the case in the Peninsula family, who also did not have enough kitchen chairs for all members of the family household. Not having enough chairs for all members to sit together to eat a meal gives insight into what are valued family practices. In the Peninsula family, there were very few demands placed on the children, and mealtimes were not a cultural site for learning manners or discussing the day. Rather, the children had full responsibility for how they managed their meals, where they ate, and when they finished eating, even though the food was served to the children at the table. The children in that family learned how to eat their meal while moving about the house, demonstrating a high level of coordination and agency. Family mealtime practices seem to be family specific, even though a particular community may share general values and motives on how they eat their evening meal. Even when general values are oriented toward families sitting together around a table and talking to each other, as Korvela et al. (2011) points out, it is clear that because of the parents’ work conditions and values, this does not always happen in this way for all families. Socializing Children: Mealtime Conversation In the Fredriksberg family, the shared interaction was more relating to conversations about the events that had happened to the children during the day than conduct at the table. But table manners actually had been acquired, which we saw at another mealtime when Emil’s friend Tom visited. Tom started here to take a pizza slice before the parents were seated, Emil told him to wait until everybody was at the table (Period 1, Visit 2) (See Hedegaard 2012b). In the Fredriksberg family and in the Westernport family, even though the actual setting was different, conversation about topics outside the home was seen as important, and the parents engaged the children by bringing up topics. In the Westernport family,

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the topic for conversation about their football team was initiated by the adults and acknowledged by the children at the table. Having the television on while they ate their food meant that the children did not speak to each other or to the adults watching them; therefore, opportunities for socialization were limited, with only “eating” while watching television being enforced by the grandmother. Children become socialized (Aronsson & Forsberg, 2009; Aronsson & Gottzén, 2011) around the dinner table to orient to what is important. How parents orient their children both depends on the pressure they have from other chores, the age of the children, and what the parents actually see as important in the upbringing of their children. The difference in topics for conversation between the Vanløse family and the Fredriksberg family shows that school matters were a more important theme in the Fredriksberg family. Themes that both children and adults in the Fredriksberg family brought up related to events in kindergarten and school. In the Vanløse family, talk about manners dominated more than what went on in school. With the Peninsula family and Westernport family, the children are so young that school matters are not so important yet, but because the parents do not try to keep the children at the table or discuss anything in the Peninsula family when children are having their meal, one would not expect school matters to become a theme there. Children’s Development of Motives In the extract from the second dinner observation in the Vanløse family, Martin was seen as obstructing several of the demands for table conduct (see Table 9.1). This could be interpreted that he starts to get a new orientation to being a big, not a small child. Also he was glad and proud of setting the table and later doing his sister’s job of cleaning it, which supports his orientation to a new position in the family as a competent child, and not a small one. Martin starts to claim a new position that fits with his change in school of becoming a “first grader” and not a “kindergarten class child” any more. The same kind of obstructive actions were also found when Emil, in the second visit to his family (Period 1, Visit 2), tried to gain a place at the homework table so he could be together with his older siblings. To get his mother’s attention, he put his legs on the table, talked very loudly, and emptied her purse. At this particular time, Emil had recently changed from kindergarten to school. As a result of this, he also seemed to position himself in a new way at home. In the Peninsula family, Andrew (as one can see in the following chapter) also started to object to being a small child and tried to gain a new position as a school child in relation to not going to bed so early. These connected objections in an activity setting could be related to the developmental change that takes place for the three children in the school context. They start to

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develop a new social orientation to those who care for them in their family. Kaisa, Emil’s younger sister, also provokes her parents by announcing at the dinner table that she has to go shitting and later uses the same word when she comes back, which is when the father asks her to stop. Her use of unacceptable language could be interpreted as asking for attention and also as learning what she is allowed to do or not do, rather than seeking to acquire a new position in the family. In line with Bozhovich (2009), we argue that the children’s positions in an institutional practice influence the way they orient themselves in relation to other persons, and if change takes place, this change can be followed in the children’s relation to all the different institutions they attend. So when a change takes place in school or between kindergarten and school, it will influence the children’s relation to their parents at home.

Chapter 10 Bedtime Routines

Going to bed, being put into bed, or being sent to bed are three different ways of enacting the bedtime routine. We find all three approaches across different families. Bedtime routines can be the “habit of the hearth” as Sirota (2006) has characterized them. They are very emotional for both children and parents. In Western culture, where children sleep by themselves, the bedtime routine is a kind of separation period. We find that young children often try to delay the time of this separation. Some parents prepare for bedtime by having a cozy time with their children before going to bed or when being in bed. In some families, this cozy time is about reading a book together or singing a song to the children in order to help children to relax and wind down. For other families, it is about providing a pacifier or a transition object, such as a soft toy (Rogoff, 2003). When children try to delay the separation process, they sometimes enter into a conflictual situation (Grieshaber, 2004; Sirota, 2006). How families deal with these conflicts varies, and, as will be shown in this chapter, forms a focus point in every evening for families’ ongoing life. In the examples that follow, we will see how Martin in the Vanløse family deals with, and contributes to, the bedtime routine. The way the parents define the bedtime setting influences the type of activity before bed, and it can also determine how the conflict appears and develops. We also see how children in the Westernport family respond differently to the same bedtime routine, where Jason, Cam, and Mandy participate in a game that takes them into their beds, while Alex, the next youngest, actively resists the pending separation. How individual children respond to the demands and the conditions that are created within families contributes to the variations that are found within specific and across families’ bedtime routines. Previous research has documented variations (Hale, Berger, LeBourgeois, and Brooks-Gunn, 2009; Tudge, 2008). However, little is understood about how children themselves are active agents in shaping the bedtime and its associated routines. The concept of a regular bedtime and the use of a bedtime routine have been shown by Hale et al. (2009) to be enacted very differently in the families they 136

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researched. Hale et al. noted when examining the bedtime routines of 3,217 threeyear-old children from fragile families that 81% of children in the sample have a regular bedtime, but only 67% of the sample actively enforced a bedtime. Of those sample children who had a bedtime, just 5% were put to bed before 8:00 p.m., 39% between 8:00 and 8:59 p.m., 46% between 9:00 and 9:59 p.m., and 11% at 10:00 p.m. or later. They argue that less than half of the children go to bed “before the commonly used US-based recommendation of 9:00 p.m.” (pp. 396–397). This finding is consistent with research undertaken by Tudge (2008) who investigated the everyday lives of children across countries, noting that no common time or approach across the families could be found. The pre-bedtime activities noted in Tudge’s study were as variable as the families. For instance, in a working class family from Greensboro, Patty lies in bed in her bedroom watching a videotape before falling asleep. In a working-class Russian family, the focus child, Volodya, resists the bedtime routine by taking out some toys and playing, but when his mother asks him to undress and go to bed, he does so. His mother reads a book to him while Volodya falls asleep. Tudge’s study across cultures also showed the diversity of places where children fall asleep. For example, in a working-class Estonian family, the mother says to her child Eva to not fall asleep in front of the television in the family room. While in Kenya a working class child “goes into the room where his mother is. She’s weaving a basket, and he climbs into her lap as she continues to weave and has fallen asleep in her lap as the observation comes to an end at 8:45” (p. 254). Tudge (2008) argues that for some families the bedtimes were after 11:00 p.m., with the pre-bedtime activities including a late meal or extended evening church activities, meaning that it is simply not possible for children to go to bed early. Going to bed follows the dinnertime settings, and what happens over dinner can influence the bedtime routine. For instance, Grieshaber (2004) has written that the bedtime routine was often framed in this setting, where the children used the prior dinnertime period to negotiate the after-dinner activities in the hope that if they were successful, bedtime would be delayed. How children negotiate bedtime rituals, how they act in these settings, and what conditions are created for children to go to bed, is the focus of this chapter. Children are active agents in their own lives. As Grieshaber has successfully shown in her research, children contribute to how the bedtime routine is enacted. In this chapter we take the child’s perspective in our analysis of the bedtime routines.

bedtime routine in the vanløse family The Vanløse family are preparing their children for bed. The parents clean up after the evening meal and settle the children for bed. In the observation that

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follows, we see how the kitchen timer is used for scheduling all of the afterdinner activities so that the children go to bed on time. The father and mother clean up after dinner in the kitchen. When Martin and Anna, in their night clothes, enter the living room, their mother asks, “What will you do while I am reading?” Anna says she will draw; she fetches a drawing that she started earlier and shows her mother how she has started to draw clothes on elf girls, which she continues. Anna’s drawing is very detailed. The mother then asks what Martin will do. He will also draw. The mother calls on the father who is still in the kitchen cleaning up. He brings lollipops to the table, and each child is given one; he also takes one himself. He sits down at the table together with the rest of the family. The mother sets the kitchen time to 20 minutes and starts to read a chapter from the first book about Harry Potter.1 She pauses after a while and comments on Anna and Martin, who are eagerly listening to the reading: “You do not get anywhere with your drawings.” They both point out to their mother what they had drawn. mother: There is four minutes left – can you finish with your lollipops? Martin and Anna say they are not able to finish their lollipops. mother: Then you can save it. The timer rings. anna: Oh no! The mother agrees to read one-and-a-half pages more to end the chapter. Martin frames his drawing. The mother says, “Finish,” and then sings “da da da da.” Martin yells that Anna has not finished her lollipop and neither has he. His mother then says that either they will have to crunch it or put it off until tomorrow. Anna will not crunch it, but Martin does. Anna starts the procedure to get ready for going to bed and goes to the bathroom; her mother joins her. The father helps Martin to brush his teeth, then they are back in the living room, and his father asks Martin to pee, but he does not want to. His father then asks if they should make a wheelbarrow, and Martin lies down on the floor (Martin then plays that he has become a wheelbarrow); his father takes his legs, and Martin moves with his hands. His father says they will go an extra round and then asks: “What was it you had to do?” 1

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (UK title); Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (U.S. title).

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martin: Take a piss. father: You have to make a pee. Martin does. father: Wash your hands, and I will go and sing for you. What do you want me to sing? Martin takes the songbook. father: You have to go into the bed and lie down. Martin keeps playing with his watch, sitting on the floor. The father sings, and then says: “Now, go to bed.” From the other room, his mother says: “Go to bed, Martin.” Martin does so. He shows his watch to his father. His father then says the Lord’s Prayer. The observer leaves for Anna’s bedroom. Her mother is there and asks Anna what song they should sing. Anna giggles and says a good one. They discuss several possibilities, and finally they agree on “The Earth Rotates on Its Axis.” The mother says, “I may not be very clear” (her voice). She sings and Anna joins in. Anna cannot remember the words so she just sings a few of them, then she begins yelling the words. mother: Do not destroy the song. Anna stops yelling and begins to sing again. They choose a new song, and then the mother keeps the songbook open. Anna asks: “Why do you do this?” mother: Often when there is a nice song, I feel like singing. anna: You and Dad sang to me when I was inside your stomach. Her mother kisses Anna good night and leaves. (Period 3, Visit 8, October – Autumn)

Practice Traditions for Going to Bed There is a fixed routine for the children to go to bed. The family members are sitting together at the dinner table listening to a novel the mother is reading. This is used by the parents every evening as a transition from dinner to sending the children to bed. The father and mother sit together with the children and enjoy the story the mother reads. The children are asked to do something at the same time as she reads and they draw. The mother uses a kitchen timer so that she does not have to have a discussion with the children about how much or for how long she should read. Today she agrees to continue reading after the timer has rung so that they can hear the story until the end of the chapter.

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There is a three-and-a-half–year difference between Martin and Anna, but they have to go to bed at the same time. Martin still receives help with brushing his teeth and getting into night clothes; Anna has mastered this herself. Each of the parents sit down at the bedside: the father sits at Martin’s bed, the mother at Anna’s. They sing a song together, and say the Lord’s Prayer with the children. Demands and Conflicts The mother ensures that both Martin and Anna draw while she is reading. Anna is the one who asks the mother to finish the chapter, but there are no delays in going to bed even if they have not finished their lollipops. Anna prepares, without further comment, to go to bed. Martin is more reluctant, and his father has to urge him and play wheelbarrow to get him to the toilet. Later, Martin delays being put into bed by sitting on the floor playing with his watch. When his mother yells at him, he gets into his bed, and there he shows his watch to his father. Anna starts to yell instead of singing but stops when her mother asks her not to spoil the song. Anna’s yelling could be because she is a little embarrassed to sing when the observer is there. She seems actually very fond of her mother singing to her, which she demonstrates through her comments about her mother having sung to her before she was born, when she was still inside of her mother’s stomach.

bedtime routine in the westernport family In the Westernport family, going to bed at night is a whole-family affair. The adults all work together to prepare the children for bed, with the grandmother providing commentary, and the father and the uncle playing a piggyback game with the children to physically move them into their beds. Dressing them in their pajamas is done in the family room with all the adults helping. In the observation that follows, we can see that before going to bed, Alex and Cam play computer games with Uncle Matthew, taking turns to play the game, while Jason, the next–eldest, dresses for bed. Uncle Matthew and Alex play a computer game. Uncle Matthew asks Alex if he remembers what buttons to use. They have a quick discussion on the use of the keys, and then Uncle Matthew asks him if he is ready. Alex sits on Uncle Matthew’s lap. When he says yes, the game begins. Cam looks on as Alex plays. While Uncle Matthew plays computer games with Alex and Cam, their grandmother reads a picture book to Mandy. The father has just put

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Mandy into her pajamas, and she is ready for bed. The father asks Alex and Cam what time it is. Alex goes to the microwave and says “3.” The father asks, “Guess what time it is?” He looks at the children and says, “Bedtime.” Alex says, “Oh, I don’t want to go to bed.” Cam plays one more game on the computer. Alex asks, “Now whose turn is it?” Uncle Matthew says, “What time did Dad say it was?” The children say good night to their grandmother. Alex says, “I don’t want to say good night.” The grandmother accepts this. All the children except Alex begin playing a game of getting on the backs of their mother and of Uncle Matthew, with the view to being taken to their beds in this way. The father gets the bed ready and calls the children. The children do not come, so the father returns to the family room. The mother takes Cam on her back and puts him into bed. There is great laughter as this happens, and some of the other children wait in the family room eager for their turn. Cam asks, “Where is my teddy?” His father says, ”I will go and get him.” Swipey the bear is found. Uncle Matthew puts Mandy on his back and takes her to bed. He tucks her in and kisses her good night. The grandmother explains to Jason that “Sleep helps you grow, and that’s why Gran is little; she didn’t have enough sleep.” The father takes Jason on his shoulders and puts him into bed. The father then calls Alex, but he does not come. The father then goes back to the family room and carries Alex to his bed. He does not resist. His mother tries to kiss him, but Alex turns away. Alex is not happy, and cries, saying, “I don’t want to go to bed.” His father asks, “You don’t want to go to bed?” but he just keeps tucking Alex in. The father explains that he has a really big day tomorrow. Alex says, “I want to stay up really late.” Jason says, “Grownups stay up really, really late.” The father asks Alex several times if he is a grown-up. Alex does not answer, but quietly sobs. All the children stay in their beds and go to sleep. (Period 1, Visit 3, November – Spring) .

Practice Traditions for Going to Bed The Westernport family tradition for going to bed is led by the father who announces to the children when it is bedtime. The father, with other members of the family, helps the children to put on their pajamas, and this signals that they will be going to bed soon. The routine is for the adults to give the children a piggyback ride to their bedroom, followed by an adult tucking the children into bed, giving them a kiss, and ensuring they have a cuddly toy to sleep with. The lights are turned off, and the children stay in their rooms and go to sleep.

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Demands, Initiatives, and Conflicts – Alex The bedtime game gives some interest and motivation to the children for going to bed – except for Alex who does not want to go to bed. The father uses the expression, “What time is it?” to signal to the children that it is now their bedtime. However, Alex does not interpret this as a cue for bedtime. Rather, he goes to the microwave to look at the clock and to try and work out what time it is. His father entertains this idea briefly by asking him to guess the time. However, his father quickly announces that it is bedtime, and Alex becomes upset, expressing the wish to stay up late. His grandmother tries to console him by informing him that sleep helps people grow, and then jokes with all the children that her short stature is because she did not get enough sleep. None of the children respond to this joke, and it does not have any effect on Alex who continues to resist the demand to go to bed created through the routine of the mother, father, and Uncle Matthew, who all put the children on their backs and carry them to the bedroom. Alex is still not pleased but resigns himself to being in bed, and sobs as he goes to sleep. Demands, Initiatives, and Conflicts – Jason Jason responds positively to the bedtime routine even though he is busy playing computer games with Uncle Matthew when the father announces that it is bedtime. Uncle Matthew reinforces the bedtime routine by asking, “What time did Dad say it was?” Jason is accepting of this and moves to the family room to join in the game of hopping on an adult’s back in order to be carried to bed. Jason joins in the discussion about adults being allowed to go to bed late, highlighting the point that the children do not have this option, but have to go to bed early. His father does not explain why, but continues to take the lead in tucking the children into bed.

bedtime routine in the peninsula family The bedtime routine in the Peninsula family is also a shared activity. As with the Westernport family, the father takes an active role in the routine. It is winter. The children have just been asked to come inside because it is getting dark. The father takes the children back inside, and he helps the children brush their teeth, followed by both the mother and father preparing the children for bed. Louise is put to bed by her mother. Nick and Andrew immediately set up a game in the family room while their father puts a nappy on J. J. The cushions from the furniture are

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removed and placed upon the floor. Both Nick and Andrew take a lead in the game, running from the family room into the kitchen and down the hall, and reappearing in the family room. As they arrive in the family room, they jump onto each of the cushions they have placed on the floor, and then continue their path around the inside of the whole house. Once J. J. is dressed for bed, he also joins this game, although he does not participate in it as vigorously or with as much skill as Andrew and Nick. Occasionally the mother appears from the bedroom and picks up the cushions. The children simply return the cushions and continue their game. The mother now sits down on the sofa and begins to read a book to J. J. He is pleased and looks on, but the content is apparently not interesting to him, and he eventually points to another book on his mother’s lap, appearing not to listen to the story that the mother is reading. Andrew is playing with his mother’s old mobile phone. His mother growls at him, taking the phone, but Andrew simply takes it back. The mother continues to read the book to J. J., and Andrew and Nick stop and look briefly on, but then continue to run around the family room. Their mother takes no notice and continues to read. She takes another book from the shelf, which is out of easy reach of the children, and begins reading. She plays a game with J. J., saying that the animals in the book will bite his nose. J. J. is delighted by this game and eagerly participates. This game draws the attention of both Andrew and Nick, who slow down their running and stop and look on, eventually standing close and listening to the story. Nick climbs the sofa and bookshelf, takes down a book, and gives it to the mother, who then starts to read this book with Nick. J. J. runs around the house with Andrew. Nick snuggles in to his mother, and his mother reads parts of the sentences, inviting Nick to finish reading to the end of each sentence. The picture cues, the repetitive text, and the familiarity of the story for Nick ensure he successfully “reads along with his mother.” His mother says, ”Good boy” each time he finishes the sentence, and, when needed, the mother cues Nick by sounding out the first letter for the key word. Nick is successful each time this occurs. Both Nick and his mother beam with pride when the book is read, and share with the researcher Marilyn how Nick can read the home readers that are brought home by Andrew. The researcher’s positive response leads to the mother taking out the school reader and inviting both Andrew and Nick to read it. Although Nick rubs his eye, indicating he is very tired, he successfully reads the school reader together with Andrew. Andrew reads less of the text than Nick. The mother explains that Andrew will

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“stay down in class because of his ADD.” The mother puts all the books up high on the shelf, picks up the cushions, and then makes a bottle for Louise. Nick, Andrew, and J. J. jump around the family room until Nick falls and hurts himself, screaming loudly, and goes looking for his mother who is in another part of the house. Most of the children are now calling or crying loudly, including Louise who wants her bottle. The mother returns to the family room and says, “Andrew, are you now ready for bed?” The mother claps her hands and says, “ready for bed,” again, and Andrew says “No” and walks off. His mother says “Yes” firmly. J. J. begins to scream, saying “No,” and then cries. His mother takes J. J. by the hand and leads him toward the boys’ bedroom. J. J. screams out, “No, no,” repeatedly, crying as he is taken into the bedroom. His mother says, “Usual time, usual thing. Don’t start, J. J.,” apparently anticipating that he will cry. J. J. cries loudly. His mother calls out for Andrew. Nick is now in bed, and Andrew is walking throughout the house. The children ask for food, and their mother says there is nothing left to eat. The children get out of bed and go and say good night to their father. J. J. then asks for his mobile phone. He is now crying loudly. The mobile phone provides a personal night-light for J. J. The whole family looks for the phone and eventually finds it, but the battery is missing. Andrew, when playing with the phone, has taken the battery out and mislaid it. J. J. continues to cry, wanting the phone. Nick asks for something, and the mother says “No” crossly, asking him not to show off. Nick says, “I am not. You are trying to scalp me.” The mother gets cross, and asks all the children to go to sleep. J. J. whimpers. His mother says, “It is seven o’clock. Your bedtime.” Andrew says, “That’s early.” His mother says, “Don’t back answer me. You go to bed the same time you go to bed every night.” His mother says to the researcher Marilyn, “They get out of bed and they get into trouble.” Andrew says, “I want to stay up.” The mother says, “No, you are not staying up. It is no different to any other night.” Andrew says, “Sometimes I do when I haven’t got school.” His mother says, “You do not, Andrew. Don’t tell fibs. Don’t get out of bed.” The mother asks, “What do you want?” Andrew asks for a drink of water. His mother says he does not need one. Andrew then says, “I want to go to bed with my bottle.” This frustrates his mother, who says “Ahhh,” and then she sighs and says, “You know the rules about having bottles at night time.” His mother leaves the bedroom to make a bottle. One of the children begins to make monster noises, and J. J. starts to cry loudly. The mother says, “Lie down. Stop your screaming,” as she hits one of the children. She

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then asks, “What did you scream for? If you don’t go to sleep, Nick, you won’t be going to Sharon’s birthday party. Go to sleep, Andrew. Go to sleep. Good night. Don’t get out of bed.” Louise asks for another bottle. Her mother goes and prepares a bottle. The mother gets cross with the children because they are not sleeping. She says, “I keep telling J. J. that I am going to send him out there with the boogie man.’” A male visitor to the house comes in to look for his lighter. He overhears the conversation the mother is having with J. J. and says, “I will smash the boogie man.” He then leaves. J. J. begins to cry loudly again. The mother asks, “What’s wrong? Is it the boogie man again?” J. J. cries even louder, saying “Yeah.” The mother says, “It’s scary out there.” Andrew gets out of bed and the mother growls at him. Nick is told in a growling tone, “Roll over, stop your crap, or you won’t go to McDonald’s tomorrow.” The researchers leave. (Period 2, Visit 1, June – Winter) Practice Traditions for Going to Bed In the Peninsula family, the parents set a particular bedtime for the children. It is Andrew who mentions that this time is extended when he does not have to go to school the next day. His mother completely refuses this correction and accuses Andrew of fibbing. Bedtime is also signaled to the children when they begin the bedtime preparation routine of brushing their teeth, putting on their pajamas, and having a story read to them in the family room. Being asked to go to bed is the explicit approach that is adopted by the mother after the children have prepared for bed. Demands and Conflicts – Andrew Andrew does not wish to go to bed. He actively resists his mother’s demands when she announces that it is bedtime by initially refusing to go to bed. He then invents reasons for staying up, such as needing food, a drink of water, and later his night bottle of juice. He also refutes his mother’s comments to the researcher about the time he should be in bed, stating that 7:00 p.m. is too early. He also refutes his mother’s claim that the children are always in bed by 7:00 p.m., stating that when he does not go to school, he is allowed to stay up. Andrew takes the initiative to not only refute his mother, but to correct her statements. Through these initiatives, he attempts to resist the demands placed upon him by his mother and the bedtime routine. Because Andrew took the mobile phone and lost the battery, J. J. no longer has a night-light. Andrew tries to remember where he put the phone, but was

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unable to recall. His mother finds the phone, but was unable to locate the battery. Andrew does not appear concerned, and his mother is annoyed but does not scold him. She does not place any demands upon him, despite how important the mobile phone is to J. J. The mother does not appear to be aware that J.J. uses the mobile phone as a night-light, and therefore she does not appear aware of how important the transition object is for going to sleep. Accordingly, Andrew does not get into serious trouble. Demands and Conflicts – Nick Nick has an invitation to a birthday party that he is scheduled to attend the following day, and his mother states that he cannot go if he does not go to bed. This puts an additional demand upon Nick to be compliant, as otherwise he will miss out on a birthday party. Nick goes to bed when asked, but his mother is unhappy with how he has positioned himself in the bed, asking him to roll over. This is an additional demand on Nick that is not directed to the other children. His mother states that he is showing off, and Nick takes the initiative to refute this, which only makes his mother angry. Nick receives a smack as he is asked again to roll over. The conflicts are resolved by his mother’s threat that he will not be able to go to the birthday party and by his mother giving him a smack. As a result, Nick is compliant. Although J. J. is frightened by the idea of the “boogie man,” neither Nick nor Andrew are bothered. However, J. J.’s fear is used by the children to “make fun.” Because it is dark in the bedroom, it is difficult for the researchers to know which child initiated the “growling monster noises” to frighten J. J. These sounds generate great fear in J. J., and the children continue to make these sounds while their mother is away preparing a bottle of juice for Andrew. They stop making these sounds as soon as the mother reappears in the bedroom. They seem to know that this fun is unacceptable, and have possibly been in trouble for it previously.

the end of the day – winding down Practice Traditions in the Families for Going to Bed The families that are discussed in this chapter all have traditions for putting their children to bed. In the Vanløse family, the kitchen timer is used to schedule the activities so that the children are in bed on time. The timer is accepted by the children and, as a result, conflict between parents and children is reduced. In the Westernport family, the father takes the initiative

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for bedtime by asking, “What time is it?” It is through the announcement of the father that it is bedtime that the children go directly into bed without protests, except for Alex. In the Peninsula family, both the mother and father discuss 7:00 p.m. as being the official bedtime of the children, but this is refuted by Andrew as being too early and not relevant because the next day is not a school day. Here both parents reinforce the view that it is now time to be in bed, and this creates a frenzy of negotiation from the children. A specific time for going to bed is clearly something that families use to set up the conditions for going to bed. In drawing upon Foucault, Grieshaber (2004) has shown in her work that disciplinary power is used to regulate people through norms, which in turn make individuals compliant subjects. She argues that these rules become regimes of truth that must be followed by a family. These regimes of truth become folklore that is not usually questioned. Focus on a specific time for bed acts as an institutional norm for making judgments and therefore for regulating the children. Families develop their routines for children’s bedtime in different ways. But what we find in general is that families seek to have their children in bed around the same time in the evening so that the children can easily rise in the morning for school. This also gives the parents the opportunity of having some time for themselves. Hale, Berger, LeBourgeois, and Brooks-Gunn (2009), drawing upon the American Academy of Pediatrics, have suggested that preschool children should have a regular bedtime, that bedtime activities are important for children in falling asleep, and that these activities help “them to associate the pre-bedtime period with the upcoming sleep period” (p. 394). Grieshaber (2004), in referring to comments made by a leading Australian pediatrician about 7:30 p.m. being the accepted time for toddlers to be in bed, states that these kinds of comments create a normalizing effect on what is an appropriate time for bed, resulting in the creation of “common sense truths,” which she says generate “grounds for training and correction”’ for parents, and, as was shown in this chapter, create conflicts between children and parents. What this means from the child’s perspective is a central point that we seek to highlight in our analysis. But as discussed above, societal expectations, reinforced through research and public opinion from leading pediatricians, become normalized as common sense truths that place demands on families, which in turn create conflict between parents and children as they negotiate the realities of “going to bed” each evening. As Grieshaber has shown, only one family in her study enforced a “set” bedtime of 7:30 p.m. each night, and this was also consistent with the cross-nation study of everyday lives of children by Tudge (2008) who also found great variations in family practices and actual bed times.

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Grieshaber (2004) used post-structuralist theory in her analysis. In our conceptualization, we draw on Hedegaard’s (2008, 2009) cultural-historical model of child development. Like Grieshaber, we also analyze family practices from a societal perspective. However, we argue that what a society expects of families in terms of going to bed at night has to also be understood in relation to the other institutions in which a child participates, such as childcare, school, and evening clubs or going to church. Tudge (2008) has shown that Noel, a working-class black American boy, could not go to bed until after 11:00 p.m. because the family was in church worshiping until 9:15 p.m. (the day of the observation was a Wednesday). Andrew in the Peninsula family also challenged the bedtime of 7:00 p.m. because it was a Friday and he did not need to go to school the next day. His participation across institutions was understood by him, and keenly felt on this occasion because he did not wish to go to bed so early when it was a weekend evening.

Demands and Conflicts around Bedtime How a child relates to the family pedagogy of bedtime routines must be understood in relation to how a child deals with the demands and solves the conflicts that arise during the enactment of the bedtime routine. The traditions that are found within families are shaped by how a child deals with the demands and what motives the child has. In Western societies, families must create bedtime routines because they separate their children from their parents at night. In these families, parents must create conditions that will help children to separate from parents and extended family members. Sirota (2006) writes that these closing routines do not run their course automatically but instead are realized collaboratively, with even their most predictable, formulaic aspects built in concert by co-participants on a turn-by-turn practice (p. 205). The parents initiated bedtime routines by reading a book, singing, creating fun by “riding on the back of an adult,” or by playing a wheelbarrow game with their children, and these activities helped the children in their transition to bed. Taking turns is seen in the Westernport family with the game of being taken on the back of the adult to the child’s bed and being tucked in. Alex here is the one who objects. In the Vanløse family, the turn taking also runs, but again with an objection from Martin to the routine: he objects both to going into the bathroom (his father had to make a game to get him there), and to entering the bed (his mother had to yell at him). The situation is more

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stressful with Andrew and Nick jumping on the cushions, drawing J. J. into it, until their mother starts reading a book. The only one who still objects is Andrew. He is like Alex being very much opposed to going to bed. Then when they have to go to bed, their mother ends up scaring J. J. and smacking one of the children instead of closing the day down with a positive emotional relation. Children’s Motives for Delaying Bedtime From the children’s perspective, they meet the demands of “going to bed at set times” in different ways; through this, they contribute to the family pedagogy, and over time shape the traditions of the bedtime routines, contributing to building the intimate relatedness that is central in the bedtime routines. However, this is not always positive, as we see in the Peninsula family, who do not seem to manage this as well and who do not necessarily create a peaceful winding-down period at the end of the day for the younger sibling. Children can resist the bedtime routines by avoiding being kissed and by not saying good night. This is also exemplified in Sirota’s research. In the Vanløse, Westernport, and Peninsula families, the children put different demands upon the parents in order to delay bedtime and the separation process for as long as possible, for instance, via the children’s requests for a favorite sleeping toy to be found, for food, for a drink, and for a night bottle. The bedtime routine was contested especially by Martin, Alex, and Andrew because they wanted to delay the closing-down time. This was especially evident for Andrew who worked on engaging his siblings in the process of delaying bedtime by getting Nick and J. J. interested in jumping on the cushions and by scaring J. J. with the boogie man (although it is uncertain who initiated this). The children succeeded in making a rather long fuss before their mother succeeded in settling them down and demanding that they sleep. The relations among societal, institutional, and personal values and motives surrounding bedtime routines have to be considered in any study of going to bed for a particular child in a particular family within a specific society.

section 3

CHILDREN MEET NEW DEMANDS IN SCHOOL PRACTICE

Chapter 11 Entering into School Practice

In the previous chapters, we have followed the children’s morning activities, their transitions into school, and their transition from school to home, analyzing the children’s motives and the demands they meet in these different settings. In this chapter and the next, we follow what actually takes place in school: the practice and the different activity settings within the school in which young children participate. We specifically examine the demands the children meet and the kinds of engagements that occur as a result of the change in their setting from home to school. We also examine how the children develop new motives in this setting and orient themselves toward new competences. Going to school can be seen from two perspectives. The first perspective is the transition from home to school in the morning, which includes preparing for school, walking to school in the morning, and arriving at school. The other is the transition from kindergarten to school, as happens for children beginning school. In Chapter 4 we presented how children in the four families handled the morning task of getting out the door and how they got to school. We will continue from where we left them and discuss from the concrete examples of a day in Emil’s, Martin’s, and Andrew’s school life, how it is for them as they meet the demands of school, and how they become settled into the recurrent practice of being at school. In this chapter the two 6-year-old children from the Fredriksberg and Vanløse families will be followed when they enter the classroom in the first year at school. In the Danish system, this is called the kindergarten class.1 In the following chapter (Chapter 12), Andrew from the Peninsula family will be 1

The kindergarten class is located the first year in school and is different from preschool or daycare programs both in aim and structure. Kindergarten class is also different from the grades that follow, even though the kindergarten class is located on the school grounds, as will be described in the following section.

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followed. His first year of school is called prep (short for preparatory year), and this school year begins for children in the year they turn six. It is obvious that the school system is different for children beginning in school in these two societies, but at the same time there are also many similarities. Entering school gives the children a shared setting for development; however, the different traditions in the school means that they have different conditions for development within the school settings.

entering the kindergarten class The kindergarten class in the Danish school system is located in the school. It is a dramatic change to be transferred from a cozy kindergarten with lots of play material to the school with little play materials and with a formalized class-hour structure. Winther-Lindqvist (2009a) describes that even if the kindergarten prepares the children, the transition can be very difficult for some. However, Winther-Lindqvist also found that others meet the new challenges on entering school in ways that contribute positively to their development, so they even thrive in this new setting. The social settings change when entering school. The first year in school, even in the kindergarten classes, is much more structured and organized across four hours in the school setting compared with the shorter and less formal setting of the daycare programs in preschool (Brostrøm, 1998). The children meet the new demands of sitting still, being at school on time, and talking only when allowed. The activities in kindergarten class are in some way the same as those in the daycare programs, but at the same time they are more structured in the ways they have to be done. For instance, painting, singing, and playing are framed in completely different ways, within a fixed system and with a planned structure. In the WintherLindqvist study she describes the change for a child who was the “king” in the preschool and took the initiatives on the football field, but when he started kindergarten, the change for him led to difficulties. He had difficulty when he found out that his friends and co-football players became oriented to other activities, and he therefore no longer could keep the position as the “king of football” in his group of playmates, as had been the case when he was in kindergarten. In the Danish society, most of the children age 6 to 9 attend after-school care (see Chapter 6). In after-school care, there is more freedom, but there are more children located in the same room with fewer pedagogues than in kindergarten care, which also implies a change for the children and their relations to friends and what activities they can do.

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The Pedagogy of the School for Children in Kindergarten Classes The tradition in the kindergarten class in Denmark is that the children should learn about going to school but not actually learn subject matter. Children’s time in school is scheduled into class hours and recess. In class hours, they are supposed to learn to listen and do as the teacher asks. At recess they learn that they can initiate talking and playing and running around in the schoolyard. In kindergarten classes, the children have folders to collect their work, mostly drawings. The children also go to the library. Most of the activities are about drawing, listening to stories, and engaging in planned play activities that are oriented toward a predetermined structure. Accordingly, the idea is that they learn the procedures for going to school and being in a new setting, but the actual school learning of subject matter competences first takes place in Year 1 (second year of school). For some children, this is confusing because they expect that going to school will mean they gain competences in reading and calculating. What we see in the observations is that in math, children repeat work done with competences they actually mastered before they entered the kindergarten class – that is, they count and draw, but do not do any calculations. In reading, they talk about events and perhaps play with letters and listen to stories, but they do not really learn to read. At the library, they borrow picture books. Drawing, music, and play hour are also scheduled into the weekly scheme for kindergarten classes. In Denmark, children start school by entering kindergarten class, when they are 6 years old. The age can vary from half a year before they are going to be 6 to half a year after. In kindergarten class, they have four classes each day, mostly with a recess break between each period. Children eat their lunch together at school; they bring their own lunchboxes. The school hours at Emil and Martin’s school run from 8:00 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. with a half-hour break for lunch before the last class hour. A class hour is 40 minutes with 10 minutes recess in between classes.

With Emil in School – The First Time First class hour in the school day We followed Emil into school three times. The first time he was actually sad to leave for school because his grandmother was visiting and he was not allowed to stay home with her. But when he entered his class he was in a good mood and seemed happy to see his friends. This late November day, as always, the teacher starts the day with a shared

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figure 11.1 Emil’s school

song in which the parents participate. It is a Christmas song – “A Child Is Born in Bethlehem.” All children have a paper with the song and a picture, but of course only the parents can read the songs. When the parents leave, the children start to talk to each other and the math teacher2 asks them to be quiet. He then asks them to sing the first verse of the song again, because not so many participated when they sang it the first time. Then the teacher registers who is in school that day. The children are placed into groups of four around a series of round tables. Emil hangs over the table sitting crooked on the chair. He talks with Turf. They laugh. The teacher says that the class can color the drawings on the song sheet they just received. Emil finds his pencil case in his bag. Because he cannot find what he wants in his pencil case, he asks Tom if he can borrow a pencil from him. Tom says he can, and Emil takes a yellow pencil. He begins to color his drawing. The other children at Emil’s table start to talk about the weather. Mille from the table asks Tom if he thinks that it should snow every day in winter. Emil breaks in and says that he believes that it should, and then the snow could cover the windows. Emil turns to his coloring again. The teacher comes to the children’s table and looks at their drawings. Emil continues his coloring. Recess Emil, along with Hector and Tom, appears to have been involved in a conflict with some of the girls during recess. The teacher comes in with 2

The math teacher is in charge of all class hours today because the head teacher is sick.

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a girl who is crying. However, the teacher does not handle the problem, and what happened is never investigated. Second class hour – preparation for math learning The next hour is with the same teacher and is a kind of preparation for mathematical learning. Once the class is somewhat quiet, the teacher presents the tasks of the lesson on the blackboard at the front of the class. The teacher shows that the task is to figure out which one of four pictures does not fit a set of animals. He shows a sheet with three domesticated animals and one wild animal. He asks the children what they can see from the pictures. Emil puts his hand up; however, he answers incorrectly, and he now seems to be bored and does not pay attention while the teacher continues his explanation. Provokingly, Emil asks Hector if it is okay to fall asleep. The children are asked to commence their work. Because Emil was not listening to the teacher explaining the tasks, Emil has to ask the children at the table what they have to do. Mille explains to him that he just has to cross out the wrong animals and to write the corresponding number of this picture into a box. Emil looks down at the sheet for a while and asks again what he has to do. “Can we color them?” he asks Tom. Both Tom and Hector reply that they may color the pictures. Emil takes a green pencil and begins to color the figures. He is rather fast, and when he is done he puts the pencil back in his pencil case, takes a lead pencil, and begins to solve the problem of writing the numbers into the boxes. Emil asks what Sofia is doing. He sees that she is not doing what she is supposed to and tells her she must do what the teacher says. The teacher comes down to Emil’s table. Emil concentrates on the tasks, although Tom and Philip talk. Emil has written the number 3 several times. He says they look like seagulls flying sideways. “It is true,” says Mille. They laugh a little and continue. Tom shows Emil and Philip how he has written incorrectly. They laugh together. The teacher comes to their table and asks them to be quiet. The teacher goes over to another table, and the children again talk a little, but they are still working on the assignments. “Oh,” exclaims Emil as he writes. The others at the table laugh and look up. “Can I see?” asks Tom; Emil shows him a strange 4-number and asks if he can borrow Hector’s eraser. Emil erases his number 4 and continues to work. Tom and Philip talk together. Emil is interested and looks at them. The teacher says that Tom and Philip must be quiet, but they continue to talk. The teacher says again that all the boys now have to talk less. Emil calls the teacher over and asks what he has to do in the last task; the teacher explains that he must count the number of squares that are shown in the figure. The teacher now goes to the blackboard

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and asks the children to listen. He tells them that when they have finished the problems on each sheet, they should come up to him so he can check their solutions. Afterward they can sit down and draw what they like. (Period 1, Visit 9, November – Late Autumn) Demands Emil has to be attentive to the teacher in order to solve the tasks, but has not yet found out that this is needed. The teacher asks several times for both Emil and the other boys at their table to be quiet. But in the end, Emil succeeds in completing the tasks on his sheets within the available time. Motives It seems that Emil’s main motive orientation was toward the other boys. He did not like it when he gave an incorrect answer in front of all of the children, and he demonstrated this by asking if he could sleep. Even when his tablemates explained the task, it seems that he wanted to continue the easier task he was doing before the break, where he had to color figures. However, he does start to solve the tasks and becomes engaged in them, even correcting a girl who he thinks is not focused on the task. The boys at Emil’s table were oriented to help each other, giggling together about the numbers they write when they become crooked. Three Months Later We Again Follow Emil at School The activities this day are painting in the first two hours of class, then recess, then music, lunch, and finally the children walk to the library for the last hour of class. We will follow Emil in the first two hours. Art lesson – a double time slot This morning the mother has left and the father is talking with the craftsmen who are going to remodel their kitchen. The time passes quickly and they have to hurry to school. Emil and his father are late, and they arrive just as the last song is about to end. Emil sits down, and when the song has ended, his father leaves along with the other parents. The head teacher appeals to the students to remain quiet. She is going to talk with the class about the activities of the day. She tries to make the students remember and articulate what they were working with in their last lesson. Mikkel remembers that they were making some charcoal drawings of themselves. The teacher confirms this and says that they

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are going to continue with that today. Using the blackboard, she is now having a conversation with the class about the technical details concerning how to draw eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. She draws a face on the blackboard and asks the class about where to put the eyes, then the nose. Emil puts up his hand and says that the nose should be put between the eyes in the middle of the face. The teacher confirms his answer. She asks the class what color they would like to use for their painting, and a boy suggests using “skin color” (that is, pink – “white” skin). Now, the students are going to work with their own drawings and the teacher goes to find some colors for the background. Emil is sitting on his chair just staring into the air. He seems a little tired and absent. He seems aware of what is going on but is not participating. He has been ill, and because of that he did not participate in the painting activities yesterday. The teacher comes back, bringing some “skin color,” and says that they can have it lighter or darker if they like, they just have to ask her. When a student asks if there is a mirror somewhere so they can see themselves, the teachers replies that there is one in the hallway. A lot of the students rush out to find the mirror, but Emil stays on his chair. He stands up and goes to the teacher to tell her that he was absent yesterday, and because of this, he did not make his charcoal drawing. The teacher says that she will help him, and then she picks up a canvas and some charcoal for him. She explains to him how to make the drawing with thin lines – just like Karen does [Karen is sitting next to Emil], and not to make it too small. Emil nods to tell the teacher he understands the task and then he begins to draw. He has his tongue out of his mouth, looking focused on the task. He first draws a circle, then the eyes and the mouth, and finally the hair, all the time focusing on his work. After a while, the teacher says that those of the students who have finished their drawings may take a break and go out. Emil remains seated and continues to draw while several of the boys go out. When he has finished the drawing, the teacher brings him a brush and some “skin color” and he starts painting. He seems quite focused and laughs only briefly as he sees the boy next to him play with some dinosaur figures. The teacher asks Emil if he has enough “skin color” and he says he thinks so. The teacher praises his work and leaves the classroom. Along with Olivia, Emil is now the only one in the classroom. When the teacher enters again, Emil asks her which color he should use for the ears. The teacher says that unless his ears are green, she suggests that he use the “skin color.” Emil finds that funny, and laughs as he goes back to paint again. However, he seems to be a little restless and to want a break. The teacher tells him that he has only five minutes, and he accepts this.

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In the schoolyard, the other boys are playing soccer, but Emil does not seem interested and is just watching. He tells them that he does not like soccer much. The children return to their classroom. There is some unrest in the class. The teacher tries to get the children to be quiet so that she can read a story to them. She has to repeat that message a few times, and finally she succeeds in having the children sit around her. She asks them if they remember what they read yesterday. When a boy says it was about Picasso, she confirms his answer and asks if anyone remembers how Picasso’s paintings were in the beginning of his career. When nobody answers, she shows them some paintings from a book and explains how his style of painting changed. Most of the children seem interested and focused on the paintings. However, Philip, Tom, and Hector, who sit at Emil’s table, are not the least quiet. The teacher reads the story about Sylvette, about her meeting Picasso, and how she first was his model, and then she too became an artist. Emil sits quietly and listens attentively. When the teacher tells them that Sylvette is a real person, Emil asks if she is still alive. The teacher answers that she does not know about that. And now they are going to pick up painting again because the colors must have dried somewhat by now. Emil runs back singing. The teacher tells them to calm down and shows them how to paint the background. Most of the students want red, but Emil, who is sitting quietly for a while, says that he wants yellow. He seems quite satisfied with his own painting and says: “It is very nice.” The girl next to him agrees. When he has finished his painting, he shows it to the teacher. She praises him for having chosen a color other than red. (Period 3, Visit 3, June – Summer) Demands The children have to follow the class schedule when drawing and painting a picture of a head. However, the class rhythm was flexible as the children could continue their painting activity over their break time if they wished. The teacher asked several times after the break for the children to be quiet so she could read a story. Emil though has learned the structure in the class activity (i.e., he has learned to listen to the teacher), and he did not participate as much in the other boys’ noisy talking. Emil’s Initiatives and Motives Emil went to the teacher and told her he was not in school the last time they had painting, and he therefore needed help to get started. He became engaged in the painting activity and did not want to have a break, but rather continued with his

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painting. He was more oriented toward his painting activity and the story the teacher read about Picasso and Sylvette than toward his classmates’ talking. Martin’s School Day The study also followed Martin into school three times. In the following section we present an observation of our second visit that is in spring. This observation was done prior to Martin completing the kindergarten class school year and before he started Year 1 (second year of school). The mother is the one who usually takes Martin to school. Martin brings his own lunch and eats this in the classroom with the other children during the lunch break where each child sits at his or her desk to eat. At 12:20 p.m., a pedagogue walks Martin and his schoolmates to the after-school care program that is located 10 minutes away. Martin stays at the after-school care program until 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. when his father comes and fetches him. Martin in school His mother has walked Martin to school today as was described in Chapter 4. He has used his scooter, and his mother helps him to find a place for it before he enters the classroom. Preparation for learning math – a double slot The clock rings and the children sit down on the floor. The head teacher calls their names to see who is present. Petrus and Martin are seated next to

figure 11.2 Martin’s school

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each other. They are huddled together, speaking softly, engaged in small talk. They are having math over the next two class hours. The teacher instructs the children about the task of the day. They have to count traffic going by on the street in front of the school (cars, cycles, and people passing by) so as to create statistics. Petrus is pushing Martin, and Martin asks him to stop. Before they start working, the teacher asks the children to share if they have anything they would like to tell everyone. Karla (Martin’s best friend) talks about a spy camera. Martin comments that he would like one. Then the teacher asks them to collect their math folders. They have to prepare the categories, formed as columns, for what they are looking for in the street. The head teacher is interrupted because she is called to the principal’s office.3 She leaves the class and the support teacher takes over. This delays their project work of going out to count traffic. The support teacher tries to fill in time and asks what kind of traffic the children know about; several boys suggest the makes of cars, and one mentions Peugeot. The teacher says yes, that is a car, but that she does not know much about makes of cars. Martin says that he is also bad at that. Then he raises his finger and tells everyone that when he was 3 years old he looked for car makes and was quite good. Martin is focused on the teacher and follows what she says for the next 15 minutes. At one time he interrupts her to make a comment, but she stops him and tells him that he should stop interrupting, to which he just says okay. Time passes and the head teacher has still not returned. Noah asks if they are going to have recess soon; the support teacher says no because they have had class for only 25 minutes. Martin comments, looking at his watch: “You are quite right.” To fill in the time, the support teacher starts a word game (“Hangman”) where the children have to construct a word. In the game they have to take turns to find a letter to spell a word, and if they choose a wrong letter, another piece is added to a “man” on a gibbet; in the end he will be hanged. The children are excited about the game, but in different ways. While the girls are excited to rescue the man from the gibbet, the boys want him hanged so he can die, and so they mention wrong letters by choice most of the time. The teacher says that they are “fools” because they pick foolish (nonproper) letters. But the boys are booing when the man is not hanged. Finally, the head teacher comes back and instructs the children about the counting project. She tells them that they shall count cars, trucks, buses, 3

It is not unusual that class hours are interrupted with other kinds of matters that the teacher has to see to. In several of the class hours in kindergarten class there is a support teacher who looks after the children more than instructs them.

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motorbikes, bicycles, happy people, and dogs. But first they have to draw in their exercise book what they want to count. They have to make columns and then draw over each column. Martin is placed next to Noah, and they talk about driving accidents; Noah says this can only happen when the driver is drunk, but Martin thinks it is also possible at other times. Noah then asks Martin if he is looking forward to being grown-up. Martin: “No, I prefer to be a child. I do not like all this with making decisions.” The boys talk for a short time about growing up. But then they talk about guns and then return to the task. The children are allowed to go out when they are finished. Martin ends up being the last of the children in the classroom. He finishes his task and explains to observer Louise, “It takes a lot of time.” Counting cars The teacher tells the children to sit down on the pavement. They start counting. John, a friend of Martin’s family, passes by; Martin says hello to him and tries to tell the children and the teacher (who ignores him) about John. When Martin repeats that he knows John, the teacher responds. Martin and some of the boys negotiate about a motor scooter that they think is either a motorcycle or a moped. After having counted for a while, they go back to the classroom and the teacher asks them to fill in the number of cars, buses, and so forth into their columns. She tells them a little about statistics. Martin interrupts, and the teacher asks him to listen to her. The teacher talks with the class about where one might expect to see different vehicles (not many tractors in Copenhagen). Afterwards, she praises the class for doing a good job. Recess Martin is eager to get outdoors into the schoolyard, and he and Karla want to play together. Some older kids ask them if they are sweethearts. Martin says they are not, just friends, but the older boys continue to bully and run after them. Martin and Karla go indoors but a teacher wants them outside. Martin runs away from Karla and meets another girl; he interacts a little with her and her teddy bear, and then he climbs some stumps. He calls for Karla but she does not react. After a little while, they are together again. Karla asks him why he is so grumpy. He says he is not. They argue a little about this. Whispering, Karla suggests for them to run away from the observer Louise; she lets them, and they do. After a short while, they appear again saying “boo” to her, giggling. Play period Emma wants to play with him, which he accepts. He rejects playing with Petrus and some other boys. Martin wants to find a toy be brought to

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school in his bag, but he is unsuccessful. There are no toys for the children to play with, so they have to find ways to play without toys or bring some from home. Emma says that they do not need the toy he is looking for in his bag because last time they played without it. Martin seems to not recall this but he goes out with Emma into the hallway where a few other children are playing with a teddy bear. Emma initiates play with Martin, but Petrus appears, disturbs the play of the children with the teddy bear, and now wants to be with Martin and Emma. Martin asks him to leave several times, but Petrus stays. Emma goes to ask the teacher for help. The teacher does not know who came there first. Petrus says they came at the same time so he has a right to be there, but the teacher takes him into the classroom to talk with him. The teacher returns and tells Emma and Martin that Petrus is very sad. One of the other children interferes with the conflict (defends Petrus), but Emma defends her and Martin’s right to play alone. The teacher leaves and returns; now she wants Emma and Martin to come into the classroom. They resist and find another place to go. Emma asks what the observer is doing, but Martin is the one who answers. Finally they seem to have some quiet time to play, but immediately Petrus returns and tries to interact with Martin. Petrus (bullying) asks them if they are kissing. Petrus and Martin start to argue about Martin’s scooter. Petrus asks who is the strongest – he or Martin? Both of the boys now use the scooter until the teacher comes and asks them to stop. Petrus starts a “shooting” game with Martin; they continue to play, and the game develops. Emma is part of the game but seems to have difficulties. She becomes a queen and verbalizes more than she acts. She is caught by the two boys who now dominate the play. They do not always respond to her attempts to have a serious part in the play. Sometimes they move away from her, but then they return. Having lunch Martin enters the classroom, picks up his lunch bag from the refrigerator, and remains quiet as he eats and listens to the story on a CD put on by the teacher. Demands in the School Settings The head teacher and the support teacher expect the children to do what they are told and to remain quiet as the teacher is speaking. The teachers are the ones who decide what to do, when, and how. They expect the children to communicate and collaborate. However, it also is a value that children contribute in their own ways to the activities, but mostly when the teacher asks, as when the

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head teacher asks if they have anything they would like to share. The teachers otherwise try to stop children from spontaneously speaking, such as when the support teacher told Martin not to interrupt or the head teacher ignores the children’s comments, such as when Martin told her that the boy passing on the street is a friend of his family. During recess, demands are made on the children to be outdoors to get fresh air. During the playtime, the teacher is framing where the children are allowed to play, and there is an expectation that the children will seek permission from the teacher. The teacher intervened when there was an open conflict among Petrus, Martin, and Carla. Her evaluations are expected to be accepted, and she tries to be fair and listen to the children – she believes that no one should feel sad; therefore, she tries to alleviate Petrus’s sadness by helping him find someone to play with. Conflicts Martin and Karla have the problem of being bullied at recess. This created a conflict between them because Karla thought Martin was grumpy. He disagreed. Together they successfully resolved the situation. Later they create an alliance against the observer, Louise, by running away from her, but they eventually came back. In this school, several children do not seem to accept that girls and boys can play together. Already in the classroom with the Hangman game there is a confrontation between what the boys orient themselves to (fighting and destruction) and what the girls orient themselves to (saving the man). During playtime, there were many conflicts, most of them initiated by Petrus because of his attempts to interact with Martin and interrupt Martin’s play with Emma. Initiatives and Motives In the math lesson, Martin seemed to enjoy talking about the makes of cars, as he was very focused on the teacher and even interrupted her once. He seemed very motivated by what the teacher introduced in the class activity, and participated rather spontaneously; although, he has started to learn the rules to put his finger up and not disturb her directly. He wanted to contribute, so he gave information about his own capacity to recognize car makes even though the contribution seemed logically inconsistent. Martin is now going to a kindergarten class and believes he is not good at recognizing car makes, even though when he was 3 years old he was good at this. He was engaged in sharing about his family’s friend in the street and stopped only when finally he received a response from the teacher. In general, he seemed

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occupied with what was going on in the class and what the teacher said. He also seemed to enjoy spontaneous conversation about a range of different matters with his classmates. Martin likes to play with girls, and was bullied twice by some older boys because he was observed in the school setting preferring to play with girls. When Karla and Martin were bullied, Martin seemed to be put into a problem situation of how to return and play with her. He took the initiative to negotiate his way back into their play. During playtime, Martin and Emma persistently tried to get started with playing. Each time Petrus returned, they tried to make him go away. This continued for a long period, but Martin’s motivation seemed to change later on when he accepted Petrus’s presence and even began to play with him. Perhaps this was to defend Martin’s right to his scooter, and possibly also that he became motivated by the idea of competition. Part of the game seemed to be a competition about “who is the strongest,” and in this part of the game there was not much room for Emma. The boys did include her, but negotiated only a minor role for her.

children change motive orientation and learning style on entering school Many children in Denmark have expectations about going to school – that they should go to school to learn, but also that school should be stricter than preschool (Brostrøm 1998), and as Winther-Lindqvist showed, not all children like the transition. The two focus children both have older siblings that have oriented them to school, but as Brostrøm states, younger siblings are not always so lucky, as one boy (5.11 year) in his study expressed in responding to the following question at the commencement of kindergarten class: “What do you think you should learn in kindergarten class?” The child’s response: “I do not know. Learn to write. My bigger brother says it is a hell. Maybe I will miss the preschool. I will go there to see how it is. I think my brother likes the break” (Brostrøm, 2000, p. 3). Having friends at school means a lot for how children come to feel about school, as Winther-Lindqvist’s study revealed. Mirkhil (2010) writes that children’s positive expectations for going to school are very much oriented to having friends in school. Both Martin and Emil, though, seem happy to enter school and participate in the school schedule and in doing the tasks each teacher sets for the classes. They both have close friends that they can play with at recess, which made school more welcoming for them. It is clear that school practices influence children’s ways of being, and on entering school they begin to orient themselves to doing school matters.

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Vygotsky (1982) writes that the structure of school makes children orient themselves toward a system of learning specific topics. Children learn to follow programs so they can learn specific subject matter content. In school, teaching mostly takes the form of formal instruction. At home in everyday activities, adults support children’s activities when they orient them toward learning, and the activities they learn are not seen as included in a specific school subject matter. There is no program for children to learn how to eat or to dress, or how to be with the family around the dinner table. However, there are differences between families, depending on the social practices they value and enact (Rogoff, 2003; Izquierdo & Ochs, 2010; Nsamenang, 2009). In the Danish society, most children go to a daycare program. Here traditionally there is no formal instruction in kindergarten to orient children to subject matter learning. The focus is on play and also what play means for children’s learning. But the Danish daycare is in a transition. The Ministry of Education in 2007 formulated learning goals for practice in daycare (The Danish Ministry of Education, Law for Daycare, 2007). The educational curriculum should provide space for play, learning, and development of children in daycare. In preparing the educational curriculum, teachers must take into account the children’s development. Second, the educational curriculum must describe the institution’s goals for children’s learning using the following themes: 1) Personal development, 2) Social skills, 3) Language development, 4) Body and movement, 5) Nature and natural phenomena, and 6) Cultural expressions and values (The Danish Ministry of Education, p. 2). These learning goals are gradually being implemented into daycare practice. The general view that still exists in Denmark is that children, before attending school, should learn by participating in the daily activities as small apprentices (Brostrøm, 2006; Winther-Lindqvist, 2009a), and the learning goals are not formulated into subject matter areas, but instead as competences that children should acquire. For children moving from preschool programs to school, there is advice from the Ministry about play and instruction: “Instruction in kindergarten classes is given mainly in the form of play and other developmental activities. The aim is to familiarize the children with the school’s daily life” (p. 11), but the intention is that the focus should be on “language and the education and should be aimed at children’s spoken and written language development, where the emphasis is on working with concept development and children’s understanding of spoken and written language” (p. 11).

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Children’s orientation in the classroom changes, as we saw in Emil’s case, where during the first visit he was more oriented to his classmates rather than to the goals of kindergarten class or the teacher’s instruction. In order to develop a learning orientation, children meet these new demands when starting school. How they orient toward learning in classroom settings depends on both the children’s orientation on entering the kindergarten class and what the teacher focuses on. One of the central things to learn is classroom behavior: the students are expected to be silent listening to the teacher and do as they are asked (Einarsdottir, 2008). It seems that Emil is fast acquiring this orientation, but Martin too orients himself toward the skills of being in school. In kindergarten class in Denmark, teachers try to continue to focus on play for promoting children’s learning. This is one of the reasons that the school programs and the Danish school system try to incorporate play hours into the daily schedule. But the theory of how to relate play and learning to each other are not explicated to the pedagogues (Brostrøm, 2000), so the question is whether the children see these activities as play or as learning. Perhaps the children neither see the activities as play nor as learning, as it seems for Martin and his two female friends, because they are not really allowed to play as they want (see also Fleer, 2010). Relations between Home and School We have seen how school practice influences several of the daily settings at home, but what is not so easy to follow directly in the settings we have observed is how the activities at home influence school. Emil’s head teacher had a routine where the parents can stay for two songs at the beginning of the school day. This occurred every day, and this practice was expected to support children’s emotional engagement with school, according to the head teacher. However, topics and interests from home are not brought into the school. As we saw, the head teacher in Martin’s class asked if the children had anything they wanted to share, and Karla talked about a spy camera. But this was not taken up in relation to what the teacher had planned in her program. The children’s sharing is mostly a procedure taken on from kindergarten, and this practice mostly functions as a process that looks like the children have an influence, but it does not have a function in relation to what is planned as learning objects. The objective is that children learn in the class settings more through their interactions with the adults, accepting the demands of being quiet and waiting for their turn. Here it seems that home practice has influenced Emil’s participation in the class activities; especially during the

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second observation, he seems more comfortable with the school structure. His experience of starting to actively participate in the homework practice could account for his clear orientation toward the task the teacher gave him. Martin is also oriented toward the adults in the class setting, but his comments are more like the ones he gives at home as a young child, and he has to learn not to interrupt or be as spontaneous as he is at home. Relations to Friends It is obvious that classmates mean a lot for children in school, both when they support and when they tease (Højholt, 2012; Ladd, 1990; McDermott, 1998). Højholt points out that in school, friends become really important, and when positive relations to classmates do not develop, the children have problems. Parents here contribute to the establishment of friendships with classmates. Emil and Martin are allowed to invite their school friends to come to their home to play, as we saw in Chapter 6 where we describe Tom’s visit to Emil’s home and in Chapter 7 where we describe Karla’s visit to Martin’s home. Several times also when we visited the Fredriksberg family, Tom was there too. So the friends of these two children help mediate home activity to school activity. Martin though has some difficulty with being with his female friends in school, because other pupils in school start to tease him because he wants to play with girls. Especially older school children tease Martin for playing with Karla, who he is fond of playing with because she has been his best friend since they went to preschool together. In school a clear differentiating between boys’ and girls’ activity starts. This was also noted in the play of Martin and Emma, when Martin finally gives in and starts a competition and catch game with a boy. The tone in Martin’s classroom with the Hangman game also demonstrates this: the boys want the man hanged, and the girls want him saved. Children learn to orient in different ways, the girls to girls, and the boys to boys, even though this tradition is not what has dominated kindergarten or play at home, where both Martin and Emil play with girls. We see this with Emil at home in the sandbox play. But in school, Emil, together with Tom and Hector, teased the girls during recess the first time we visited the school; although, in class he did not mind getting help from Mille. School leads to change both through development of orientation to learning subject matter and appropriation of subject matter skill, and through change in social and emotional relations to adults and friends.

Chapter 12 How Schools Create Conditions for Being a Successful School Child

In this chapter we look at how Andrew, the eldest child in the Peninsula family, enters school. The leading activity (Elkonin, 1999) of being a school child is considered within the context of Andrew’s lived experiences in his classroom. Specifically, we look at Andrew in his first year of school and examine how he deals with the demands made upon him in this new social situation, and then later again in his second year of school over a further two Observation Periods. The complexity of everyday life at school and how children enter these practice traditions can be better understood when the concepts of demands and motives are used (Fleer, 2011a). In the first part of this chapter we examine these concepts before we look closely at how Andrew entered the practice tradition of schooling.

school practices – demands and motives Understanding the demands placed upon a child within the activity setting of a classroom also requires an understanding of the kinds of demands made by society through the curriculum documents used by teachers alongside of what might be the expected outcomes for children in their first year of schooling. The model developed by Hedegaard (2009, 2010) and discussed in Chapter 2, explains the relations among the individual child, the child’s family, the school, the community, and the society at large. Her work is useful to education because she argues for a dialectical relation among the societal goals for education, the institutional practices (i.e., schools and their classroom activities), and the motives that are developed through the child’s engagement in classroom activities. It is through these three perspectives that we can catch children’s intentions by following the activities they participate in, or create for themselves, or with others. We foreground the relational dimensions of society, 170

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school, and family, and through this it is possible to research and analyze holistically what happens in classrooms. This orientation allows for the reading of motives in relation to the perspective being taken, and through this, greater insights can be gained into how children enter the practice tradition of schooling. We now turn to the practice traditions found within the Peninsula school, followed by a detailed account of how Andrew enters the practice traditions found there. We specifically analyze his motives in relation to the demands placed upon him in this new institutional situation. In our analyses, we focus on Andrew’s activity so that we can gain insights into his intentions within his school context. In this kind of analysis, we move beyond a simple capturing of Andrew’s behavior as a description of what he does, and move toward an understanding of his motive orientation in relation to his school setting.

the peninsula school The Peninsula School is located in a low socioeconomic community within the eastern part of Australia. The children and their families mostly live in close proximity to the school. The principal of the school grew up in the community and is well-known to many of the families. The school has a breakfast program, employs a part-time speech pathologist, and is currently seeking funds to provide mentoring and counseling to children and their families through a pastoral care scheme (via a chaplaincy program). The school has an additional teacher who teaches art and sports across the school. There are about 120 children at the school. Volunteers from the local community and specialist staff came regularly into the school to assist with the children’s reading program. In the first year, called the preparatory year, the school’s intention is to orient children toward the new practice tradition of school and to introduce children to key learning areas within the curriculum. Mathematics and literacy usually dominate the school timetable, followed by an equal distribution of time devoted to sport, artistic activities, social studies, information and communications technology, music, and health. When time permits, students in the preparatory year also learn some science and history. However, the teachers usually orient children to print literacy – for reading, writing, and listening – and mathematics (e.g., spatial knowledge, measurement, problem solving, numbers, probability, and data). The societal aim is for children to leave their first year of school being able to read, to write a little, and to understand numbers and do some calculations, and for children to feel settled into doing schoolwork and to paying close attention to their teacher and the school rules and practices.

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figure 12.1 Andrew’s and Jason’s school

the demands on children in different age periods In Australia, it is expected that in the year that children turn 6 they will attend school. It is not only a societal goal for all children to go to school at the age of 6 in Australia, but a historical expectation within the state of Victoria where the two Australian families discussed in this book actually live. In Australia, age is used as the determining factor for beginning school, regardless of a child’s psychological development or personal motive. Families usually prepare their children for this event by enrolling them in school, by buying a school uniform, by organizing a schoolbag and lunchbox, and by buying special school shoes. These preparatory activities are regularly supported by friends and relatives of the family, commenting on the pending school starting event and frequently photographing the child in his or her school uniform on the first day of school. The societal goal of children going to school at a particular age is met by parents creating practices and a new social position within the family for their child as “being a school child.” These practices build an expectation and develop the child’s orientation to participation in new daily practices where formal learning is expected. No one questions these events: they are expected practices that have been historically formulated and are enacted as part of contemporary practice in Australia. Regardless of family practice and the child’s daily activities, motives, or needs, children who go to school are expected to attend five days per week for six hours per day, sitting still for extended periods and mostly engaging in literacy and numeracy activities for the majority of their time. However, in

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Australia, individual differences in practices between schools are expected and supported.

an overview of the practice traditions of the peninsula school The practice traditions in Andrew’s classroom included a consistent, and therefore predictable, routine. All the children participated in specific school practices that had clear rules and expectations about behaviors at school. The school day usually commenced by the children entering the classroom when the school bell rang. The children would hang their bags, coats (winter only), and hats (summer only) on hooks on a partitioned area of the classroom. The parents and siblings usually accompanied the children to the door, with only some parents entering the classroom with their child. Most parents stood outside the door to wave good-bye to their children. The children immediately sat on the carpet in a special area at the back of the classroom that was free of tables and chairs. Here the teacher was usually sitting on an adult chair waiting for them. Outside of the classroom was a foyer, where the parents stood. In this area were tables, chairs, school reading books, and displays of children’s work. Here some parents stayed and heard children read their school readers, marking them off on the child’s individual record of reading. This process appeared to be self-organized by the parents, with parents new to the activity being instructed on the processes by those who were more familiar with the school procedures. In the second year, the parents dropped their children off in the school grounds waving good-bye, and when the bell sounded, the children lined up on the asphalt area outside of their classroom. The children walked in lines into their classes when instructed by the teacher. The parents did not stay. Most school days followed a similar pattern of morning roll call to record all children who were present, an extended period of either literacy or numeracy teaching where the teacher gave whole-group instruction, followed by the children working with individual tasks at tables; morning break in the classroom to eat a snack; a further extended period of literacy or numeracy, followed by playtime; a small game or activity just before lunch; and one extended period in the afternoon where the curriculum content was often varied. For instance, sometimes the children did art, sports, or combined classes for a play period with toy materials, watched a DVD, or engaged in group singing and giving out “awards.” Lunch was for one hour, but in the first 15 minutes the children had to sit on the floor or at their desk to eat their lunch. In the second year, a similar pattern was followed, but the children were put into small groups, with approximately three to four separate but

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related activities available that groups of children were rotated through (for example, computer activities, individual reading with the teacher, small groups playing games, worksheets of literacy or numeracy). We now turn to looking closely at Andrew in the school setting initially in the first Observation Period, followed by highlights only from the second and third Observation Periods. Observation Period 1 – “Being a Successful School Child” In the first Observation Period, Andrew enters the classroom followed by his mother. He has just been to the breakfast program (as was presented in Chapter 5). Nick, the next-eldest, follows behind, wanting to join him. Andrew, who has his raincoat and backpack still on, stands at the back of the classroom where all the children are assembled. Most of the children are seated on the carpet in front of the teacher’s chair. The teacher is out of the room talking to parents. Andrew points to the school display that is hanging from the ceiling, resulting in several children looking up to see what he is paying attention to. This is a new display of children’s work. The teacher joins the group, and the children turn to pay attention to her. Andrew is still standing at the back of the group. He is the only child with his raincoat and backpack still on. Andrew walks back to the partitioned area, removes his coat and backpack, and puts them up on his hook. No one asked him to do this. When he returns to the mat area and sits down on the floor, the children are looking at a picture and word charts pinned on the wall. One child is asked by the teacher to find the “snake,” and all the children make the S sound for “snake.” They all chant, “S, S, S,” and the teacher reinforces this again and again, asking them to say, “S, S, S.” Andrew observes this, but does not contribute. While seated, he continues to look around the room at the children, swinging his body back to the teacher and back to the children. He continually moves his body around, even though he does not stand. As the teacher moves on to the letter T, encouraging the children to chant again, Andrew joins in the group chanting, “T, T, T,” but he does so each time with a slight delay in the chant. He is not synchronized with the others. As he says, “T, T, T,” he is continuously looking toward the teacher or back to the charts on the classroom wall. Andrew stands up and moves around to the back of the group. The teacher does not notice. A parent volunteer appears looking for children whom she can hear read aloud. Because Andrew is standing and obvious, he is chosen. Andrew is asked to read one of the school reading books. Andrew moves to the foyer with the parent volunteer. In the background the teacher can be heard saying, “The letter is M and it makes the sound mmm.” The children chant, “M,

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M, M.” Andrew’s mother is still at the school and is also hearing children read in the foyer. Andrew has difficulty with reading the book, but the parent volunteer enters into Andrew’s record book that he has read the book well. They select another book. The parent volunteer points to each word and reads it to Andrew. Andrew repeats the word but also looks away to what is happening around him. When the parent volunteer asks him, “What does this word say?” he does not respond. Rather, he looks to the folder near the book and lifts it up and down, avoiding answering. His hand is stamped for “good reading.” Andrew’s interest in reading school readers did not change significantly over the twelve months. The evasive behavior toward engagement in reading was a consistent pattern noted. Andrew appeared to be oriented toward the other children rather than to reading and studying printed words in books or worksheets or on the walls of the classroom. Andrew returns to the classroom and sits down. The children are reading a book together, chanting the words as a group, while the teacher points to words. Andrew joins in with the chanting as he looks around the room. He does “snapping” and “clapping” responses just after the chorus of the children. Later, he positions his hands in anticipation of clapping to simulate a “dragonfly snapping.” While the teacher reads the book, Andrew moves back and forward on the mat – from the front of the mat to the back. His activity suggests he is oriented toward all that is happening between children, between the teacher and the children, and between himself and the teacher. When he has wriggled to the center of the mat, he turns his head and body around to see what the children at the back of the mat are doing, while quickly flicking back to see what the teacher and the children at the front of the group are doing. If a child is asked to move from the mat to another part of the room, Andrew follows the movement closely. He watches what the teacher does on the easel, where she is giving instructions on how to complete a worksheet where they have to trace around the letter H. Andrew notices that another child has a “good reading” stamp on his hand, and they both discover that they have the same stamp. They discuss this while the teacher is giving out their worksheets. The teacher calls to Andrew to collect his worksheet, which he does. All the children move to their desks to complete their worksheets. Andrew is compliant but moves about continually. At the desk, Andrew also continues to monitor what is occurring across the classroom, while also attending to the letter-tracing activity that he has been assigned to complete by the teacher. As Andrew sits on his chair, he leans over the desk to the other children and back again. This pattern of movement is consistent throughout Observation Period 1 and is usually met with teacher requests to sit still, to sit up nicely, to pay attention, or to listen attentively.

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The teacher is focused on orienting Andrew to school practices of doing schoolwork and following school rules. Andrew is oriented toward what is happening between children, between the teacher and the children, and between himself and the teacher. When it is time to eat a snack, he goes to his bag, but there is no snack available. The teacher has additional fruit that one of the children did not want and she has placed this near the bag-and-coat area. Andrew notices this and asks if he can have it. The teacher hands the fruit over to him. Andrew takes a tissue and goes back to his desk and carefully peels and eats the mandarin orange. After the snack period, the children return to their work at their desks. Later, the children pack up and are split into groups for a series of activities, including small-group work and scrabble tasks. This is followed by 20 minutes of playtime at 11:00 AM. After a 20-minute break where Andrew roams around the schoolyard, mostly moving around with limited contact with other children, the bell sounds and the children line up and walk back to the class area. From there, the children are taken into another part of the school. The children are put into small groups and, with the speech therapist, the class teacher, and a parent volunteer, undertake a series of oral language tasks. The children rotate through the tasks, which include drawing pictures on a large sheet of paper where they have to use prepositional language (above, below, next to, etc.) to name where they draw. Andrew actively participates in this, drawing some small marks on the sheet, but he does not discuss where he places his figure. The other activities include playing a card game, and also a task of rhyming words with the word the speech therapist suggests (e.g., cat – mat; dog – log). The latter task is done at the table. Andrew keenly participates, but simply guesses words, as do the other children. Because the children apparently do not understand what they are being asked to do, they become restless. Andrew notes when a child does not pay attention to the speech therapist and tells the speech therapist when they are not looking at her. Andrew keenly observes the others and the speech therapist, moving his head back and forth between the focus of the teacher’s attention and what all the other children are doing at the table where he is seated. Once the children have finished these tasks, they sit together with the speech therapist who reads them a story, then the children walk back in single file to their classroom with their teacher. The children have an hour for lunch, which involves the first 15 minutes seated at their desks or on the carpet eating their lunch. A bell sounds and the children can leave the classroom, even if they have not finished eating. Andrew spends his time running around the outdoor area, calling to children he knows, who respond to him. He climbs the play equipment and circles most of the school buildings until eventually the school bell rings again, and

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he runs to the asphalt area, getting ready to go into class. The teachers assemble with the children, but the children must wait quite a long time before they move off the area. After lunch, a famous basketball player takes the children for a basketball lesson. The children spend most of their time watching him, and when given a ball are asked to sit on it while they are given further instructions. Eventually, the children use the balls and bounce them around the basketball yard. Andrew ably bounces the ball around the court, chasing it quickly each time it escapes from his hands. He smiles, laughs, and calls to the other children as he bounces or chases the ball. Eventually, the children are asked to pack up the balls, which they do quickly as a group. The rest of the day involves all the children from the two preparatory classes in the school coming together in one large room. Andrew participates in this combined class to watch a DVD and then later joins in a singsong. At the end of the day, Andrew participates in packing up his schoolbag, even though there is a lot of activity as the other children change their school readers. (Period 1, Visit 4, April – Autumn) The Demands That Andrew Meets in the School What is important to notice in the Peninsula school is that being involved in education means that children are located in specific areas of the classroom for periods of up to 30 minutes. During these “blocks of learning activity” the children are expected to stay in that area and not to move about too much. If we examine Andrew’s movements in school over a 30-minute period, it is possible to see that he does not move around the classroom. The expectation is that he will stay seated in the areas that the teacher has designated for specific tasks, such as group reading on the carpet and worksheets at the desk. In contrast to Andrew’s free geographical roaming at home shown in previous chapters, at school Andrew was in a controlled situation throughout the whole day. In order to deal with this contrast between the practice traditions at home and at school, Andrew cleverly adopted a “scanning type of activity”; that is, he seated himself to view as much of the activity as possible, and to continually scan the room in order to know what was going on. We notice this activity when he is involved in group reading on the carpet area at the back of the classroom, but also when he is at his desk doing worksheets where he traces the letter H. Andrew is oriented to the other children and to the teacher, wanting to see what they are doing. At school Andrew’s eye movements were rapid, but intent and focused on what was happening in his social and material environment. He appeared to be able to simultaneously do his work and to look about the room. The worksheet

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activity was something he could easily participate in, because it was a selfdirected task where he had to trace the letter H (even if the directions for tracing were not known, he could continue to work). He appeared to complete his work in the same amount of time as the other children. His interactions with others (verbally and nonverbally) were brief, but were part of an ongoing processing of observations of the class dialogue and dynamics throughout the room. Andrew was fully in tune with what was happening in his environment, while at the same time he was engaged in the individual task each child had been assigned. What is evident is a form of geographical scanning. This contrasts with the high level of movement about the house noted in previous chapters. Geographical roaming at home and geographical scanning at school are summarized in Table 12.1. When we consider both institutional practices, we can see the vast differences between home and school for Andrew. In order to participate in the school practices, Andrew had transformed his roaming activity with his legs to strategically placing himself in the room so that all areas could be observed and through continually moving his head and eyes across the room – to scan regularly the activities of all the 20 children in his class. This scanning activity was misunderstood by the teacher. Andrew’s class teacher had spoken to his mother suggesting that he may have attention deficit disorder and had sought approval to have him tested. From an institutional perspective, Andrew should be paying close attention to his work and to the teacher – not to all the activities of the children within the room. In many table 12.1 Geographical roaming and scanning Geographical boundary at home

Geographical boundary at school

• The teacher regularly changes • The family is an expert in geographical (approximately every 30 minutes) the roaming. The children keenly observe, learning spaces for the children. She continually move between rooms organizes the children to be in keeping an eye on what is happening in different spaces within the room or to each room, and “listen in” across rooms. go to other rooms/outdoors. • Andrew’s roaming (not sitting) is valued • Andrew sits on the carpet, but by the family. moves his head and body around regularly to scan the room. The same behaviors are observed at the table, except that it is his eyes that do the roaming while he continues to reposition himself on the chair (alternating between sitting on knees and bottom, in different angles).

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Australian schools it is important for the teacher to be orchestrating what children should pay attention to. The children’s focus of attention should be oriented to their work or to the teacher, and not directed to the group. In many traditional school situations, children should be working alone and, when needed, should seek help from the teacher. In many Australian schools, children predominantly spend their time seated. Although the demands made upon Andrew did not change, how Andrew dealt with these demands did. This is noted in the second Observation Period. Observation Period 2 – “Behaving Well at School” In the second Observation Period, Andrew takes great care to follow the school rules very carefully and to do what is being asked of him at all times by his teacher. In the following example, Andrew is preparing to go home, and in this process he specifically follows all the packing-up rules of the classroom: Andrew and another boy are wiping down the desks in anticipation of going home. Andrew takes a spray bottle and sprays two desks and begins to wipe vigorously. Another child complains that Andrew has the spray bottle and tries to take it. Andrew simply continues to move and skillfully avoids the child’s reach. The teacher is called, and she jokes with Andrew, taking the spray bottle while he continues to systemically go around the room and wipe down the tables. Once he has finished, he throws the paper towel he has been using into the bin. To do this, he has to chase a child who is walking around with the bin. Andrew puts his chair on his desk, as directed by the teacher previously. Andrew then goes and collects his bag and packs his lunchbox into it. He takes his bag, reading folder, and jumper and puts them under his chair, which is on his desk. The teacher notices this and says, “Andrew, that is fantastic.” Andrew smiles and continues to go around the room putting up chairs on the desks, something each child is responsible for doing. Many of the children are wandering around the classroom, and only some are packing up toys and equipment. As Andrew places another chair onto his clustering of desks, where he normally is seated, he notices that there are two stationery boxes on the cluster of desks. He says, “We got two.” He then takes one and moves it to another table that does not have a stationery box. He then continues to put the chairs up on the desks. He does this until all of the chairs are in place, as directed by the teacher. He then looks around and sits on the carpet area near the teacher, talking to the children seated there. All of a sudden, he stands

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up and goes to the cupboard looking for a small flat inflatable disk that he was given to sit on so that he would stay seated in one place when on the carpet area. This device has been used for another child. When he goes to blow it up and sit on it, another child says, “That is not yours.” Andrew responds by saying, “Gave it to me.” Several other children attempt to take the seat from him, so he holds it tightly in his arms and moves away from them. The teacher asks, “Who is sitting on the mat ready to go home?” The children are now all assembling onto the carpet area where the teacher is seated. The teacher tugs at the inflatable seat that Andrew is seated on and asks him if it can be given to the other child. Andrew stays seated on it, and the teacher agrees he can use it today. The teacher hands out notices and asks, “Who is being actually beautiful?” Andrew is already sitting straight, but this request causes Andrew to look to the teacher. The teacher reads out what is in the notices while she continues to ask the children to sit still and be quiet. Andrew remains seated but moves about, talking to the other children during the notice reading. When he receives his notice, he walks directly to his bag. Andrew’s mother comes into the classroom, takes the notice, and packs it into Andrew’s bag before they walk home. (Period 2, Visit 5, June – Winter) As in Observation Period 1, much of the teacher’s time is devoted to reinforcing routines, and much of her talk is associated with maintaining and shaping the traditional routines of the classroom through putting demands on the children by saying such things as “sit still,” “be quiet,” “pay attention,” “put your hand up to speak,” “pack up,” and “do as you have been asked.” In addition, she has purchased a special flat inflatable seat that Andrew can use in this school to help him stay seated in one spot for extended periods of time. Consequently, it is not surprising that in the second Observation Period Andrew focuses even more on behaving well as a school child. Andrew appears to have developed a motive orientation of being good. Observation Period 3 – “Staying out of Trouble” In the third Observation Period, Andrew has changed teachers and classroom. He is now in the second year of school. During Observation Period 1, Andrew participated productively in the routines of the school, following closely what was expected in terms of routines, and as was also evident in the second Observation Period, he was a helpful member of the classroom. When Andrew worked independently of the teachers, he generally adopted a working posture, always

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holding his pencil as though he were working, even when he spent most of his time talking to the other children, moving across the desk, or simply scanning the room observing other children. Andrew’s motive was related to “behaving well at school” by adopting all of the school postures needed for “doing schooling effectively.” In Observation Period 3, his motive orientation changed. In his second year at school, Andrew’s participation in the curriculum tasks was variable, particularly for those activities that required literacy competence. Behavior continued to be reinforced by the teacher, and in a one-to-one situation, Andrew had to confront the demands of the school curriculum. A literacy example follows. Reading a School Reading Book Andrew is seated on a chair opposite Joan, the special support teacher. Joan has picked up a school reader that Andrew has recently read and asks him to tell her about the book. Andrew stands up from his chair and moves forward and away from Joan as though seeking to leave. She says, “Stop, stop, stop.” Andrew does so immediately. “Now I want you to sit down,” she says. Andrew sits in front of Joan and leans forward and back. Joan says, “No. Now, stop.” As she does this, she signals with her hand a stop action. She does this directly in front of Andrew’s face. Andrew is now rocking from side to side around her hand so he can see her properly. Joan signals again with her hand a stop action saying, “Stop,” then lowers her hand, tapping Andrew on the hand and saying, “Now, I want you to put your hands on your knees.” Andrew leans back into his chair so that his hands fall onto his lap. Joan pretends to imitate the general actions of Andrew, but in an exaggerated manner saying, “I get giddy. You slide all over the place and I get giddy.” Andrew simply looks away and does not respond. She then points to her face and says, “Right, looking at me.” Andrew now answers the original question, which was to discuss what the book was about: “It’s about an animal in a book.” Andrew points to the animal on the page held open by Joan. Joan holds the book while Andrew moves his finger over the pictures on the page. Joan does not respond to Andrew’s answer, but rather asks, “What was the name of the person?” She now does not accept Andrew’s description of the book content and points her finger, asking, “What’s the name of the girl?” (Period 3, Visit 1, December – Summer) Demands and Conflicts The demand made upon Andrew for “still behavior” when discussing a school reader was too great for him to effectively participate in the literacy discussion

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Joan was seeking to have with him. Andrew withdrew his gaze from the reader, continually moved up and down in his chair, and had to have his hands physically held so that Joan could keep Andrew still. Yet Andrew was most obliging at each point in the interaction. The movements that Joan objected to the most were created by Andrew so that he could see Joan’s face. Joan continued to try and orient him to the cover of the book, prompting him about its content and attempting to engage him in a conversation about that content. Yet Andrew had answered her question. He was more interested in the animal than he was in the people in the book. The continued demands made by Joan for discussing aspects of the content were mirrored with the insistent demands for sitting still and looking at the book. In this one-to-one situation, the demands on Andrew were heightened. In the whole classroom setting, the curriculum and behavior demands on Andrew were also evident. However, in the classroom when Andrew worked at his table free of direct teacher interaction and supervision, he could pretend to do the work by adopting a school posture of “writing” and by “not talking too loudly.” This meant he did not draw teacher attention to himself, and this ensured he did not have to engage and struggle with the curriculum content.

learning the rules of school behavior An orientation to “behaving like a school child” was a major feature noted across all Observation Periods. In Observation Period 1, Andrew’s teacher concentrated upon socializing the children into the new practice tradition of schooling. The institutional practice, by the nature of its rules, made demands upon the children, particularly Andrew, in relation to “acting in a school-like way” – sitting still, being quiet, standing patiently in lines, waiting to move, and putting up his hand up to indicate he wished permission from the teacher to speak or to move. As was shown in Observation Period 1, most of the school day was devoted to sitting still and listening to the teacher. Dockett and Perry (2007) in their research into school transition have noted that the majority of educators they interviewed indicated that children needed to be able to operate in a group. In their research they noted this meant that children needed to be able to sit and wait or stand and wait for the teacher or the other children. They also found that school practices foreground the following of routines, with specific importance placed on such things as being able to line up, look to the teacher, sit still, and follow the teacher’s directions. This was the pattern also observed in Andrew’s classroom. Like many other children adjusting to the new expectations, Andrew also found it difficult to act in the way the school demanded. Dockett and Perry noted that mostly what was featured were organizational adjustments and

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behaviors, such as children being able to sit in a group. In the first Observation Period, these institutional values and expectations were also evident, and they created demands upon Andrew, who in turn became oriented to the activity of “school behavior” as an important feature of being a successful school child. This was also clear in Andrew’s interactions with his classmates. In the first Observation Period, Andrew also noted what the other children were doing, making sure they too followed the school rules. Andrew was oriented to the other children, and when his peers did not follow the expected ways of being a school child, he would tell the teacher. Andrew also expected and demanded that his classmates be oriented to “acting like a school child.” The disparity between Andrew’s home practice, where he moved about a great deal, and the new school practice of sitting still, was vast. This resulted in Andrew applying a significant amount of his energy to meeting these new school demands. In particular, Andrew was used to paying attention to what everyone in his environment was doing, and transferring this from five individuals in a home to a classroom of 20 children meant that Andrew had to use a lot of “head movement” and “scanning of the classroom” to stay attentive to the whole group. Staying seated and keeping as still as possible, following the new rules and routines as carefully as possible, and being attentive to the teacher were new demands that Andrew spent a lot of time learning to meet. The focus on “school behavior” by the teachers continued into Observation Periods 2 and 3, where the teachers continued to maintain their expectations for “good school behavior” while increasing curriculum content demands. An orientation to the activity of “behaving well at school” was important for Andrew, as was exhibiting the “right behaviors in school,” which were goals he also worked toward in the second Observation Period. The example given showed how Andrew keenly participated in packing up the classroom at the end of the day with enthusiasm and energy, staying attentive to this task and receiving positive comments from his teacher. In the third Observation Period, Andrew’s success at behaving like a school child was not matched with his success with the curriculum. How the practice traditions are appropriated, such as “schoolwork behavior” or “curriculum content” can make a huge difference to the learning outcomes of children and their personal “learning motives.” As Hedegaard (2002) has argued: “A school’s cultural practice is expressed in the choice of subjects taught, in the traditions of these subjects with regard to methodology and knowledge domains, and in the forms of interaction used between teacher and pupils and among the pupils themselves” (p. 210). Andrew entered into a school tradition that was far removed from his lived experience at home, making it very difficult for him to focus on curricula

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learning in school. Most of the literature into transition to school is focused mostly on adult perspectives, and less is understood about the child’s perspective and how children orient themselves to schooling. Dockett and Perry (2005), in their starting-school project, examined children’s perspectives through children photographing their experience of starting school and noted that what emerged included “knowledge” to function in school (e.g., knowing numbers, letters, and phone numbers), “organizational adjustment” such as being part of a group, discrete “skills” such as tying shoelaces, and learning that “behaviors are expressed as school rules” and “attitude towards going to school” were all important for successfully transitioning to school. Children suggested that they became oriented to these school practices over a period of time, and expected practices and spaces that exemplified school rules were documented through the photographs. Entwisle (1997) has noted that when the home environment and the school settings are similar in terms of expectations, then transition is easier for children. For example, when family practices are similar to what teachers do in school, such as sitting still for extended periods to hear a story read, or asking questions of children, then the school practices of sitting still and paying attention to the teacher are easier for children. Further, teacher (Brostrøm, 1998; LoCasale-Crouch, 2008) and parent expectations (Entwisle, 1997) during the transition to school directly influence how school is experienced by children, where a match in orientation toward school practices (i.e., parents knowing what schools expected of children) was deemed important. McIntyre, Eckert, Fiese, DiGennaro, and Wildenger (2007) noted that parents wanted more involvement so they can better support their children with this transition. Families who are directly involved in transition by attending information sessions held by schools, and who have greater understandings about what is expected of their children at school, felt better prepared to help their children to start school. Dockett and Perry (2007) have noted that most research has focused on children’s readiness to begin school, and transitions have therefore been framed at preparing children, thus directing efforts at providing “opportunities to build relationships and support that can help to mitigate negative outcomes” (p. 5). In Fails Nelson’s (2004) analysis of 3,000 transition plans, it was found that “most schools do not provide a comprehensive transition plan that allows teachers and parents to exchange important information about child development and school expectations” (p. 187). Transition research has traditionally objectified the child where the family is viewed as the problem or the success, rather than examining the perspectives of all those participating in the transition process (i.e., the perspective of the educators, children, families, and community). Yet

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as has been shown in this chapter, the problem was not Andrew’s orientation, but rather the disparity between school and home in terms of demands and values. In this dialectical reading of transitions, demands can only be understood when the child’s life experiences across institutions are considered. Participation is not a one-way process, and children not only appropriate social and cultural processes by their participation but they also “reinvest and reproduce practices as they negotiate, share, and create culture without adults and each other” (Corsaro, Molinari, & Rosier, 2002, p. 324). Discontinuities between home and school have been framed in many different ways, as noted by Fabian and Dunlop (2007) who have discussed the physical, social, and philosophical discontinuities. It has been noted that as curriculum demands increase, support decreases (Pianta, 2004). For Andrew the differences from Observation Period 1 to Observation Period 3 related to an increase in curriculum demands. There was a higher expectation on Andrew to read in Observation Period 3, yet Andrew had oriented himself toward the activity of “learning how to behave in a school-like way.” His motive was to be successful in acting as a school child rather than learning to read. Andrew’s Social Situation of Development Changes in Andrew’s social situation of development can be noted in relation to his intentions and activities within the Peninsula school. Andrew’s social situation of development over three Observation Periods within the bounds of his school took the form of “Being a successful school child” (Observation Period 1), “Behaving well at school” (Observation Period 2), and “Staying out of trouble” (Observation Period 3). When Andrew began school, his leading activity at home appeared to be oriented toward learning (as discussed in Chapter 4) with an expectation for ongoing formal learning in school. His motive orientation was already toward others to collectively realize the goal of learning at school. His social position was as a school child whose affective attitude was primarily toward positively exhibiting “school-like behaviors.” Andrew’s intentions and activities were oriented toward being a successful school child. To understand Andrew’s development through his participation in school over a 12-month period requires an analysis of how his social situation of development changed over that time. Andrew brought to the school situation the personal resources he had developed from his five-and-a-half years of family life, as discussed in Chapters 4, 7, 8, and 9. Andrew entered into the practice tradition of school with the established family practice of following the intentions of all the children within his classroom, while also focusing on the teacher and what she was doing. At home he was able to achieve this by simply moving

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around, physically following the activities of others, determining what others were doing, initiating his own activities, and doing as he was asked by the adults in his family. However, in school he was not able to physically move about, which meant he had to create other activities so that his orientation to other children could be achieved and continued. Andrew was able to position himself strategically within the room so that he had a vantage point for observing most of the children in the classroom as well as being easily able to see the teacher when she was seated, greeting visitors at the door of the classroom, or when she was moving about the classroom helping other children. It was more difficult for Andrew to orient himself physically to all the children and the teacher when the children were all gathered at the back of the room, sitting on the carpet with their bodies and eyes directed to the teacher. Andrew had to move about a lot more, which attracted the teacher’s attention. She used a lot of her time to orient the children to the school rules, and it was difficult for Andrew to sit still; because of this, his attention was drawn to this particular element of school practice, and to the activity of “behaving as a school child.” Andrew’s orientation to the activity of behaving like a school child continued into Observation Periods 2 and 3, where academic failure emerged because his motive orientation was toward being a school child rather than toward learning, resulting in the curriculum demands becoming progressively too great for Andrew.

the demands made by the child collective within a school The concept of the child collective has been conceptualized by Bozhovich (2009, p. 78) specifically in relation to school settings, where the group of children within the practice of school create their own demands upon each other that are different in relation to a child’s social position within his or her family. We can discuss this aspect of the social situation of development within the context of Andrew in his first year of school. This means that we must focus on how Andrew’s teachers across two school years with their conceptions of pedagogy structure school practice, and how they create different settings for shared activities for all the children, but also how Andrew and his classmates through their activities contribute to these different activity settings and influence school practice. The demands of the child collective could be noted on Andrew just through his classmates’ participation in schooling, through their being compliant with accepted school practices, and through their reading of basic words and beginning readers. As Andrew’s peers became more successful in meeting the demands of the school curriculum, this created more demand upon

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Andrew because he became consciously aware that he was not able to read as the other children did, and therefore he avoided interacting in reading activities, as we noted when Joan sought to orient him to a school reader with the view to helping him notice the visual cues, and therefore to predict the text, making the task of reading easier. Andrew eventually turned his gaze away from the book and away from Joan. As already discussed, a child’s “social situation of development is nothing other than a system of relations between the child of a given age and social reality” (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 199). Andrew’s social reality had taken a negative turn. We conceptualize this new affective relation that Andrew had to his environment through noting changes in his intentions and activities within everyday school practices over the 12-month period as we followed Andrew in school.

conclusion In summary, what developed and changed throughout the three Observation Periods can be conceptualized as “Being a successful school child” (Observation Period 1), “Behaving well at school” (Observation Period 2), and “Staying out of trouble” (Observation Period 3). This conceptualization of “behavior” is about the ideal form of how a child must behave at school, what it means to be a school child, and what is the accepted activity of children while at school. In this reading of “behavior” it becomes possible to see how the development of a motive orientation toward “acting like a school child” by Andrew was understood by him, but also how his activity changed over time within the classroom. The focus on “behavior” by Andrew’s teachers in the first Observation Period appeared to dominate Andrew’s interpretation of what “doing successful schooling” meant. Andrew’s activity changed in Observation Period 2, where he tried to exhibit the ideal form of a successful school child, and in Observation Period 3, he found himself unable to keep up with the school curriculum demands, meaning his activity changed again so that he looked like the ideal school child, even though he was not engaged in the learning tasks set by the teacher. Andrew had not developed a personal motive for learning school curriculum content, but had focused only on the activity of “school behaviors.” The teachers were focused on Andrew’s behaviors and were not concerned with what Andrew was oriented toward, meaning that they were unable to work with him to support him to orient successfully toward curriculum learning. Learning to behave and look like as a school child became the central activity of Andrew, and the dominant motive for him, rather than learning the subject matter presented in school, resulting in Andrew experiencing more school failure as the curriculum demands increased.

section 4

THEORIZING CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES IN FAMILIES AND IN SCHOOL

Chapter 13 Children’s Everyday Life in Families and across into School

The aim of the book has been to introduce a wholeness approach for analyzing the influence of transcending to school on children’s development. We wanted an approach that could combine the different forces within a societal and historical cultural understanding of the environment with the child’s motivated activities. In the analyses of children in their everyday settings, we have focused on children’s initiated activities in interaction with other persons in the home and outside it, primarily school, and the demands they meet in these everyday setting. When children’s motive orientation and engagement in different activity settings change qualitatively, we see development. Children’s learning can be seen as change in their relation to another person and activities in specific settings, and children’s development can be seen as qualitative changes across different settings in their relation to other persons and activities in general. Development also involves a change in a child’s leading motive orientation. This can be seen as a change in the child’s social position in the family. We have formulated the approach we present as a wholeness approach because even although the focus is on the children’s motive orientation and activities in families, this has to be seen as interwoven with school and afterschool practices and how demands from these practices influence family life and together create the conditions for children’s play, learning, and development both at home and in school. The three perspectives we use in the wholeness analyses are the societal, the institutional, and the personal. In the following we will draw on our earlier analyses of children’s everyday life in the four researched families from these three perspectives. In Chapter 1 we already outlined the general approach to such analyses, and we have continued these analyses with specific examples in the empirical chapters. Here we want to pull the analyses together around the central concepts that we have been using to create these perspectives. From a societal perspective this means rules, regulations, and expectations that guide home and school 191

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practices. One of these is the societal demand made upon parents to ensure they send their children to school and prepare them for this event. This demand on parents is dominant within late-modern Western societies, and we find evidence of this in both the Danish and Australian families. From the institutional perspective, we have focused on how children’s days are structured in the different institutional practices through the demands they meet and how these demands structure the different settings. We have especially been aware of how schools also create conditions for the structure of the day at home and influence the activity settings in the families (i.e., how the weekday morning setting is scheduled so the children get up and go to school, how the transportation to school is timed so the children are not late for classes, how homework takes place, and how dinner at night and bedtime are set according to school demands in the families). It was obvious that it was the school that influences the everyday settings in the families and not the other way around. The variations between the four researched families first become obvious when we enter into the daily activity settings where interactions among family members take place. The central analysis in the book has been from the personal perspective of the children, to outline the relations between demands from the activity settings and the caregivers, and how these relate to a child’s initiated activities, engagement, and motives. This we have called the child’s social situation.1 We focused especially on the child in each of the four families who started school to follow how new demands influenced the activity settings at home and each of these children’s relations to other family members and what they became engaged in, and thereby how each child’s social situation changed. We have tried to extract from our analyses how the children responded to the new demands, and developed motives, as they participated in the everyday settings of home and school. In these analyses, we have tried to explicate each child’s perspective as he or she participated in the everyday activities of the family.

everyday activity settings mediate society’s conditions for children’s development The empirical material in this book comes from our study of four families from two different continents of the world – Europe and Australia, and within 1

Vygotsky characterized children’s way of functioning in relation to their social situation of development: “The social situation of development specific to each age determines strictly regularly the whole picture of the child’s life or his social existence” (1998, p. 198). The concept of the child’s social situation characterizes the child’s experience of his or her actual social situation that is connected with the actual activity setting. We therefore distinguish this from the child’s social situation of development as a general characteristic of the child’s development that is connected to the child’s age period and not to a direct situated experience.

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this from Denmark as a Scandinavian country and from the State of Victoria as a southeastern Australian state. Furthermore, the families differ in that the Danish families are two middle-class families and the Australian families are two working-class families on social welfare. The Danish families live in apartment buildings in the main city of Denmark; the Australian children live in free-standing houses with a backyard in a rural town. The material conditions of housing create a difference that crosses over the class differences because living in a house, as the Westernport and Peninsula families do, gives the children easier access to outdoor life and the freedom to move around. In these two families, the children were outside a great deal of the time; the difference was that in the Westernport family, the parents, the grandmother, and the uncle went out together with the children to play. In the Peninsula family, the children were running in and out of the house, but the parents were mostly inside. In the Danish family in summer, the children in the Fredriksberg family also went outside at home, often accompanied by their mother who placed herself in a chair reading. In the Vanløse family, the children went to sports activities; they also went outside in the after-school program as the Fredriksberg children did, but during the Observation Period that ran over the summer, we never saw Martin and Anne going out to play when at home. The housing conditions actually influenced the families differently, and counteracted a simple socioeconomic interpretation of the children’s conditions for outdoor play and freedom to move around. We do not discount the national and socioeconomic factors or the urban conditions influencing the lives of the four families, but we do not agree that these conditions solely determine children’s play, learning, and development. One of the main points in the heritage of Vygotsky (1994) and Lewin (1946) that we build upon is, as stated earlier: the formulation of a wholeness approach to analyzing children’s development. Both Lewin and Vygotsky opposed environment as being too vague a concept to explain how a single person acts, learns, and develops. Lewin argued that a child’s behavior has to be seen within a social field, where both the child’s need and demands in the field have to be taken into account in order to understand how a child acts. Vygotsky argued that environment alone cannot account for a child’s development, because a given environment can affect different children in the same setting in different ways. Bozhovich (1969) writes that it is important to analyze how children affectively and motivationally relate to their environment. A child’s understanding of the environment depends on his or her affective attitude. This view of how the environment and the child together create the conditions for the child’s acting, learning, play, and development has been a point we wanted to analyze with our study, breaking down the

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categories of primarily the family environment, and instead trying to untangle what actually happened in the families and how families and school relate when creating the conditions for children’s learning and development. To be able to do this, we found that the introduction of the dynamic between activity setting and children’s social situation has been important (see also Hedegaard, 2012c). The child’s social situation takes place for the child in relation to an institutional practice with its traditions and from the perspective of the child (i.e., What activities does the child initiate? What is the child’s motive orientation?). The activity settings are seen as dependent on the cultural tradition in a society, and it is obvious that there are some differences between the families that relate to general cultural traditions and values in Denmark and in the State of Victoria in Australia for how to take care of children. How society creates conditions for the individual child has to be seen as mediated through institutional practice and the recurrent activity settings in these practices. Interactions among family members as located within the activity settings have to be analyzed to see what different conditions mean for children’s play, learning, and development. Comparing the four families in our research, we found variations that sometimes follow societal demands or national differences, and at other times we found that the family created its own home traditions that differ across national borders.

family practice and the demands this makes on children In late-modern societies, most nations have formulated some general laws for childcare, so that in severe cases of abuse and neglect of children, they can be removed from their families. United Nations (1990) Convention on the Right of the Child contains a wide range of children’s rights that are ratified by many countries (see also Archard, 2003 for a discussion of this document and children’s rights in families and societies). In most homes though, there is not such a focus on societal demands (i.e., on laws and regulations) as to how families should care for children, except for bringing their children to school. In contrast to schools, in the home, individualized family practices dominate. Although there are societal demands, they are more implicit through shared discourses in communities. The family members meet these demands in the extended family, in the community, and in the media. As discussed in previous chapters, Grieshaber (2004) described this as “regimes of discourse,” meaning how in the community and media people talk about raising children and what

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mothers and fathers should accomplish in relation to their children. Each family though develops more or less their own individual traditions of home practice as “regimes of practice.” What is obvious in our study is that all four families care for their children’s well-being. They would not have chosen to enter into this study otherwise, because the way the families were recruited was by the researchers putting up notices and asking for volunteers to participate. The idea of following these families was not to evaluate the family pedagogy, but rather to point out how the parents in different ways contribute to and create activity settings for their children. Each child in the families also entered the families’ activity settings in different ways, as we pointed out in the first chapter where the social situation for the four children in the Fredriksberg family was discussed. The family practice is important as to how children come to play, learn, and develop, but even here we have to go one step further to look into how the concrete interactions take place, and what it means for each child. To do this, we have to focus on the child’s affective and motivational orientation to his/ her position in the family, so we will argue that even when we can find national traditions for regimes of discourse, the single family and the specific person are the central factors here. What was alike in all four families was the structure of the day; the central factor in this was the relation between family and school. The time for rising in the morning, having free (spare) time at home, eating, and going to bed were structured in all of the four families in relation to having children attending school. The differences between the families can be found in the traditions for the different activity settings at home. In the Scandinavian family tradition, the members of a family sit together to eat breakfast and dinner. This is a shared time, where the parents also take time to listen to their children. In the two Danish families, this practice also occurred. A research report (Nairn, 2011) has shown differences among Britain, Sweden, and Spain in relation to what parents think is important in their everyday interactions with children and how this is realized in practice. This report is relevant to our research for capturing the national differences between Denmark and Australia. The Danish traditions are in many ways close to the Swedish traditions. These two countries both relate to Nordic traditions. The Nordic traditions are shared by the three nations of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark because they have always been close, and through history the borders between the Nordic countries have changed. The relation of Australia to Britain can also be found because Australia is a member of the Commonwealth and thereby also has some traditions in common with Britain.

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The research project showed that Swedish parents valued being together with their children and managed this through the mealtime and shared daily activities, such as doing household chores and bringing children to and from school. In Sweden, the parents take care to be with their children through the daily activities: they take time to sit down and eat together, to talk with their children when they drive them or fetch them from school, and draw the children into the daily chores at home. In Britain, the parents valued more that they could give their children material goods, and went with their children shopping. Here the families mostly ate together on Sundays and not daily, and the children were not drawn much into the daily chores of the family. The British parents also found it important to be with the children but had to fight to find time to be with them when they came home from work, because this became an extra task. These differences in the tradition of parents being with their children can be recognized in our study. The Swedish tradition was found in the two Danish families, where families were together for daily meals in the morning and evening, and children were drawn into the daily chores together with the parents. Parents took time to bring and collect their children from school. They talked with them when they walked to school and walked home. In the Australian families, the parents did not sit down with the children for an evening meal each night; rather the parents provided the food and then either hovered close by (Westernport family) or they were completely absent (Peninsula family). However, both families had to rush to school in the morning, giving little time to listen attentively to the children, which means they had to find other times to talk with them (i.e., on the way home from school). To be with children does not just mean to be in the same room, but it also means to pay attention to the children’s communication. This we saw happening in the Westernport family, but very little in the Peninsula family. Timing in the families for the different settings during the day (as mentioned earlier) is influenced by children entering school. In the Vanløse family, the children had become very much aware of the structuring of the day because their mother used a kitchen timer to announce when there was only five minutes left in the morning to get ready to leave for school. This tool was also used in other situations to time how long the children were allowed to watch television, and how long the mother would read for the family in the evening before bedtime. Other situations were also timed (i.e., how long they were allowed to play computer games, and how long they had for reading before they had to go to bed). The use of this tool at home can be seen as preparing children for the time regulation in school, where lessons, recess, lunchtime, and end of the school day all are announced by a ringing bell.

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In the three other families, such explicit timing was not used, but timing was also part of the everyday settings in these families. In the Fredriksberg family, they all rose rather early in the morning (more than one hour before they had to leave for school) so the mother could be at work early. She left before the children had to go to school, which gave the children time for play in the morning. The father here announced some minutes beforehand that they have to leave and that the children should be ready. In both the Australian families, no time was made available in the mornings for play, because in the Westernport family they did not rise early in the morning, and in the Peninsula family they had an extended walk to the school in the morning. In all four families, the parents announced when the children had to go to bed, and in all four families the children were in bed before 8:00 p.m. There was no difference in time between the younger and the older children’s bedtime. Morning and Dinner Talk The parents in the Fredriksberg and the Vanløse families used the breakfast and dinnertime to talk to their children, but the themes differed. In the Fredriksberg family, the theme related often to school, but the father in the Fredriksberg family was also very active in playing with words at the dinner table. We noticed this at every dinner we observed. At one of the dinners the father and children exchanged riddles (described in Chapter 9). The father was the one who, at dinner the day before, had started making riddles, which Lulu referred back to. Lulu and Emil became very active in entering into this on the day we observed. Lulu succeeded by making riddles using the double meanings of words. Emil tried without much success; Kaisa also wanted to be heard and contributed a profane word, but when she continued her father asked her to stop. In the Vanløse family, much of the talk at the dinner table focused on table manners, but other topics were also brought up, although school activities were not a central topic. Conversations between adults and children at mealtimes were not a feature noted in the Australian families. Homework The differences in the activity settings between the four families were also obvious when the children came home from school. Here we saw the different settings that parents laid out for their children and what the children became engaged in and were supported to engage in by the parents. Homework was important, especially in the Fredriksberg family. This was a fixed routine where the mother sat with the two older children, and the younger flowed

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around and aspired to participate in this activity. This routine was also starting in the Westernport family, but because they only had one child in school this did not take so much time; it lasted usually only 10 to 15 minutes. In both these families, the parents made the homework the activity that structured the afternoon settings. In the other Danish and Australian families, homework was not an event that structured the whole afternoon setting.

children’s social situation A family’s everyday activity setting gives a frame for a child’s activities and motives. Each child contributes to the creation of the family activity settings through the activities that the child initiates. However, children initiate or enter into the same activity setting differently, depending upon the child’s social situation of development that characterizes his or her specific age period. An example was described in Chapter 1 in the breakfast setting, where Lulu raised a question about why the teacher in the music lessons never lets the class finish a song. Kaisa then began to sing a kindergarten song that Emil, who knew the song better, started to sing more competently. The three children had different orientations toward the activity of singing in this morning setting and therefore their social situations became different, even if they participated in the same activity setting. Lulu was approaching the activity of singing more reflectively than her younger siblings by being curious about why the teacher continued to interrupt singing in order to go over particular parts of a song several times. In this extract one can see that the school child Lulu had started to reflect and wanted to discuss the school practices at the morning table, while the two younger children just repeated the activity they had learned in kindergarten and were more oriented toward social recognition for their competences than joining Lulu’s reflection about the activity. In our research, as illustrated in this book, we have sought to capture the children’s perspectives in relation to what they were engaged in, which implies their motive orientation to their everyday activities. To understand children’s perspectives also involves exploring the conditions for their participation in the different activity settings. This means that the empirical research does not have to be limited to the children themselves but should also include the perspectives of siblings, peers, and adults with whom the children interact (cf. Bozhovich, 2009; Goodwin, 2006). Different children’s motive orientation in the same activity setting can be diverse because their motive orientation reflects the child’s developmental period. We are inspired by Leontiev and Elkonin when we characterize the

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child’s age period in relation to the child’s leading motive orientation. How children’s different developmental periods as well as the way others position the child in relation to what to expect from an older and a younger sibling become very clear in the morning setting in the Peninsula family described in Chapter 4 where the mother expected Andrew as the oldest child to be a helper so they could get out of the door to walk to school. Nick, the younger child, was not met with such a demand; instead he was the one who, in this setting, put demands on his mother and created a conflict because there was no breakfast food available. Andrew resigned himself to there being no food, and he made no demands on his mother. Nick was distressed and made explicit demands. How the children orient themselves and act in the same activity setting can be very different, and relates to what expectations and demands the children, being positioned in different age periods, meet both by others and by themselves, as in these morning settings. Bozhovich (2009) pointed to how the affective relationship between children and the persons in environment creates the children’s positions. In the Peninsula family morning setting, Nick and Andrew have different positions in their family that afford a different kind of affective relation to their mother not providing breakfast food. This particular early morning period in the Peninsula family is a good example of the significance of the position held by a child in the family, how this influences the affective relationship that develops, and how the same events in a family can lead to different social situations for siblings in the same activity setting. A child’s actual emotional expression in a social situation can be a very clear indicator of his or her motive orientation to shared activities and how this orientation is realized in interaction with others. Motives as the Dynamics in Children’s Social Situations in Activity Settings In using the concept of motive that Leontiev (1978) formulated, we have a tool for analyzing how the dynamic in a person’s activities evolves through his or her development of motive orientations. Leontiev’s theory of children’s activities starts with the concept of primary needs, but when a child’s need “finds” its object, the object becomes the need. The concept of object, however, is not to be associated with “things” as such, as pointed out by Davydov, Zinchenko and Talyzina (1983). They write that an object should not be understood as a thing that exists in itself but as that toward which an act is directed; this can be a person’s activities and ideas (but also things) that become the “object” of a person’s activity. Hedegaard (2012a) extends Leontiev’s conceptualization of the dynamic of a person’s activity when she

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sets it into the frame of institutional practice and distinguishes between institutionalized objectives as valued motives for institutional practice, and persons’ motive and intentions. Here she argues that it is insufficient how Leontiev in his theory conceptualizes the process of the transformation of primary biological needs into cultural valued motives as a straightforward process of collective activity. What is missing in this theory is the conceptualization of the historical institutionalized demands that mediate this process. To highlight the difference between institutionalized value motives and a person’s motives, she has used the terminology motive orientation to describe a child’s active motive in an activity setting. This catches the idea that a person’s motives are always established as a relation between the person and what the person’s activity is directed toward; therefore, it becomes possible to analyze the dynamic between the environment and the child as a relation between institutional demands and values and a person’s motivated activities within his or her social situation. Leontiev argues that a person’s activity is always “multiple motivated.” This gives room for a differentiation between “meaningful motives” and “stimulating motives.” Bozhovich (1969) brings this distinction further and points out that a meaningful motive is what makes sense and is important for the person in a situation. Stimulating motives are also meaningful for a child but they are also personal and affective and thereby can be motivating for concrete activities in specific situation. A meaningful motive does not need to result in activities unless the child’s activity is supported by personal important and affective activities. A meaningful motive for most children starting school is that they should learn to read and write. But to accomplish this activity, children need support. In Chapter 6 we saw how doing homework is a demand that was built into the home practice in the Fredriksberg family. The mother framed this setting and positioned herself at the table with tea and snacks, and the children joined into the situation as part of the children doing their homework. The mother did not even have to tell the children to sit down to be with their mother around the tea table. This activity was both meaningful and could be seen as a stimulating motive for the children to engage in homework. From the first to the second observation of the homework setting, Emil’s motive orientation to homework started to evolve. He did not participate in doing homework in the first observation of the homework setting but instead teased his sister Lulu about erasing the writing that formed her homework. On the second observation of the homework setting, the mother asked Emil if he had homework. Lulu commented that he did not, correcting their mother, because children in kindergarten class do not have homework. But Emil wanted to enter into the

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homework circle, and he and their mother started to draw Emil into the circle by making up some homework activities. For Emil this was a meaningful activity he was oriented to join into; thereby, his motive to participate can be seen as meaningful. The stimulating motive was that he wanted to participate in the same affective setting as his siblings and to get the same attention from their mother as his older siblings. Doing homework for Laura was already a very active motive; for Lulu it started to become a meaningful motive, but it conflicted with her motive of leaving an unpleasant situation – the situation where she could not find out about doing her mathematics homework. Here her mother demanded that she stay, and helped her to solve her problems, thereby supporting the establishment of Lulu acquiring skills that, through her continued activity, may lead to a homework motive. In the Westernport family, we saw how the whole family supported the development of a motive for doing homework. We saw in Chapter 6 how Jason did not want to leave his play to participate in the new after-school activity of homework. Like the Fredriksberg family, Jason’s mother structured the activity of homework around the kitchen table. It was the grandmother who used Jason’s leading activity of play to make the new activity of homework more motivating, thereby helping with the establishment of this new activity of homework around the kitchen table. The motive development for becoming a school child happened differently for Andrew in the Peninsula family and for Martin in the Vanløse family. Parents in these two families did not engage their children in homework. It was not through the parents’ support to engage Martin in homework that Martin acquired a motive for becoming a school child. For Martin in the Vanløse family, the orientation to read and write was in the first year in school mediated by his sister, supporting him to write at the computer. As we could follow in Chapter 7, he was rather proud of being able to write “du der [you there],” and continued to interrupt his sister who was doing homework, although both he and Anna were scolded by their mother for this interruption. In Chapter 5 we saw how the practice of becoming ready for school in the morning and walking to school oriented Andrew to becoming a school child. It was obvious that he wanted to be in time for the class. We saw that he became upset when he was late because of his mother’s demand that they look for his lost jumper and her demand that he eat all his breakfast in the breakfast program. Here he wanted to join the class lesson in time, he did not want to take time to eat, although he must have been hungry. There are several ways of acquiring and also keeping a motive orientation to become a school child, as these children’s different learning and engagement showed. The parents’ demands and support are important when

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starting school, but entering school and having siblings are also a support, as we saw for Martin and Andrew. Leading Motives and Age Periods The child’s own initiated activities do not explain how an individual person acquires and creates the cultural-historically valued motives for certain activities that come to follow him or her across institutional practice. To understand how motives related to valued activities such as learning to read become personal, one must conceptualize how values developed historically in different institutional practices and thereby come to exist as demands for persons participating in these practices. This can explain how the meaningful motives become the leading motives in a developmental period in a child’s life, because the activities have historically been valued and it has been expected that children in a certain period of development should acquire the skills that these values outline, and therefore institutional practice has been arranged to support this. This is why daycare programs and school practice become valued institutions. In Denmark, families are urged to send their children to daycare programs so the children learn to play and socialize with other children. Play is conceptualized as important for children’s development of social skills, and imagination, planning, and reflectivity. These traits are seen as important for the forthcoming learning tasks in school.2 Children through this interaction with other persons in institutional practice meet these demands, and through the interaction come to orient to what they prescribe: that is, what in a society is evaluated for a specific age period. A preschool child should preferably become oriented toward play and a school child toward learning. This should be the leading meaningful motive in the respective developmental periods for a child. So when Jason, Emil, Andrew, and Martin enter school, learning should become their leading meaningful motives; play and social orientation will then be their stimulating motives. As discussed above and in Chapter 6, we see this meaningful motive beginning to emerge in Jason’s activity. Both his school and family support Jason to orient to become a school child and to learn school matters; therefore, this motive can be expected to start to become meaningful, and in the following years become a leading motive. Initially, Jason did not yet feel the 2

In the Danish system, a transition between school and kindergarten has been created as the kindergarten class – this is located as the first year in school. So when children enter school, they are not, in this first year, expected to learn the basics of reading, writing, and calculating. This is rather different, as we have seen, from the Australian tradition where children are expected to begin learning curriculum content in their first year of school.

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need to participate in homework. However, the school practice of sending home a reading pack as homework as a means of supporting families to participate in reading practice oriented the whole family toward homework in order to support Jason in learning to read. As already noted, his parents and grandmother enter the homework activity together with Jason, and the sharing of the activity of the adult in the family with Jason is an emotionally stimulating motive for him to engage in the homework activity. This begins to create a motive orientation for Jason to do homework and therefore to learn to read. His grandmother also contributed to this new activity by changing the situation via creating a game that encourages Jason and creates some fun, as his grandmother playfully competes with him to read the words, although she does it more slowly so he has a chance to be first. The whole family celebrated Jason’s reading achievements with a “high five.” This activity of his parents and his grandmother’s support to Jason in the homework setting was important for his orientation toward the reading and for experiencing himself as a school child. As Leontiev writes, a person’s activity is always multiple motivated, and in Jason’s case, there was both the affective motive of participating with the adults in the activity and the play motive his grandmother initiated, which can be seen as a stimulating motive supporting Jason’s orientation to learn to read and support the emerging new motive development of being a school child. In this motive orientation and motive development, we see that Jason acquired a new social position in his family as a school child who was “busy” doing homework and could not be disturbed. His younger brother, Cam, also wished to have this new status, and demanded to help in the homework routine by insisting on sitting in the chair vacated by Jason, in order to put the cards that Jason was reading back into their plastic bag.

children’s play and learning activities Children live their lives across institutions, participating in activity settings in the different institutions where they play and learn. The questions to be asked are: how do we describe the difference between children’s play and learning in different institutions, and how do these activities contribute to children’s development over time? Children’s initiatives in the different activity settings in the different institutions are central for the children’s development. In our analyses, we therefore have focused on the children’s initiated activities, engagement, and motive orientation in the different activity settings. We have specifically formulated the children’s perspectives on these activities in the settings in which they participate throughout their day. Children’s initiated activities,

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engagement, and motive orientation are related to the demands they meet in the different activity settings. Demands and conflicts are central in everyday life in most families. Demands are part of supporting children to learn and develop. Conflicts and problems are often signs of children’s development and what they are struggling with in their play and learning activities. At the same time, in a family, the demands are often directed to several of the members by one or more of the other members (i.e., a mother asks the other members in the family to sit down at the table to eat). A family member may also repeat demands from other institutions (i.e., from school, as when a mother asks children to do homework or participate in an after-school activity). Demands become more visible in the families when children are starting in school because the school’s demands influence the activities at home. These demands were on both parents and children. These include, for example, being on time, remembering and organizing to take school materials with them each day, parents’ to be ready to go home/be collected when school hours were over, and doing homework. There are also demands in previous institutions, as when a child goes to kindergarten, but the time schedules are not so strict there. These new demands that appear when entering school may lead to conflicts between children and parents because both have difficulty living up to them. We saw this in the Peninsula family where Andrew’s mother had difficulty with ensuring that specific food for Andrew’s lunchbox was kept for that purpose, or with reminding Andrew to bring home from school his lunch wrapper and his school jumper. The conflict that emerges for Andrew in meeting his mother’s demands for looking for his jumper and also for eating in the breakfast program at school while at the same time getting to class on time created a conflict that caused Andrew to become upset. As we have seen, parents and children meet these demands differently, and in this interaction we find some of the answers to understanding how conflicts between demands and children’s motive orientation in everyday activity settings can lead to the development of a new motive orientation for children. In the following, we will pull together our different analyses of children’s play and learning activities. In this we take a double perspective because we intend to keep the child’s perspective by focusing on play and learning through childinitiated activities and how they relate to the different demands in these activities; at the same time, we also focus on the functional aspects of children’s learning and play as processes that take place over time. These processes are interwoven, and as such we want to conceptualize what they mean for the qualitative change in the child’s relation to other persons and the practices in which the child participates. As mentioned in the first section in this chapter, we

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see development as the qualitative change in a child’s relation to other persons and the practices in which the child participates. In the next sections our conception of play and learning activity will be outlined as activities including the child’s perspective and as processes that take different forms within children’s different developmental age periods. Children’s Play Activities at Home and in School In our study we could follow that all the children from the four families engaged in some form of play. In this book we have presented core examples of children from the different families. We saw that when children were free to take their own initiatives in the after-school period, the children predominantly played. We noted a range of ways that children played together, but the ways they played together in the four families were different. We begin with an example of the children in the different outdoor play settings. In Chapter 8 we followed Kaisa and Emil, the two younger children in the Fredriksberg family (now 5 and 7 years old), as they played with Laura’s friend, a girl aged 11 years, in a sandbox in the yard of the apartment, building castles, motorways, and parking lots. Their older sister, Laura (11 years now), took part at the edge of this sandbox play by putting herself in the role as an “inaugurator.” In the same chapter, we also saw that the children in the Peninsula family played quite differently. The core example showed how they played with exploring the gardening equipment, taking it with them on their new swing and slide set in their backyard. The children’s play in the Westernport family again differed from the two other groups of siblings at play, as presented in Chapter 8. The core examples showed how the whole family engaged in playing football together in their front yard. Their grandmother was the initiator of the imaginary activity of playing football, acting as though all the family members were actually in a football match. The children also played together on other occasions than in the afternoon after-school hours. The three older children in the Fredriksberg family sometimes played together before going to school, as illustrated in Chapter 1. In this example, they were running a train along a toy railway track where they built small houses along the railway. In this setting that took place 8 months earlier than the sandbox play, Kaisa, the youngest of the siblings, was not integrated yet but played by herself next to the other children. In Chapter 10 we saw how Andrew in the Peninsula family took the initiative for a rough-and-tumble game, jumping on cushions he had thrown on the floor and drawing his two younger brothers into the play in the period just before bedtime. Vygotsky (1976, 1982) has pointed out that in play, objects and actions are given new meanings. When the sand sculptures became castles, roads, and car

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parks in the Fredriksberg children’s play, the children changed the meaning of both the materials and their actions. Fleer (2011b) has taken this concept one step further by recognizing the shared nature of the play themes among the children as a collective imaginary situation. The creation of a collective imaginary situation occurred in the Westernport family when the kicking of a ball across the front yard between family members turned into a football game. The children in the Westernport family along with their grandmother’s use of football language gave the action of kicking the ball a new meaning by changing the kicking activity into a “football game.” The children came to conceptualize themselves in relation to each other in quite new ways – they were no longer siblings and parents, but football players. This was achieved collectively, even for the younger children. The children in the Peninsula family play quite differently in their play of exploring everyday garden objects; they did not create an imaginary collective situation in their play or conceptualized themselves in new ways. The development of play itself has been theorized (Bodrova & Leong, 2001; Elkonin, 1984, 1999; Fleer, 2010; Kravtsov & Kravtsova, 2010; Lindqvist, 1995) as an important element of children’s psychological development, where the child learns to take a dual role by being inside the play feeling the play, and outside of the play directing how the play can progress. Fleer has shown a dialectical relation between children moving in and out of imaginary situations in their play as a dialectical relation, where the concept of a collective imaginary situation among children is an important dimension of forming play activity, but also for sustaining and building the play themes that emerge between children. Without a sense of a collective imaginary situation, it is difficult for children to play together. To achieve this, children continually move in and out of their play as they plan and play, often negotiating the directions of the play as part of acting out their imaginary situation. That is, children are at the same time in their play feeling themselves as a player in the imaginary situation while also planning the play. Schousboe (1993, 2012) has pointed to three spheres in role play: the sphere of imagination, the sphere of staging, and the sphere of reality. These spheres are helpful when analyzing collective imaginary play situations. A sphere of reality “deals with experience in the way the children talk, act, perform, and communicate whilst playing” (Winther-Lindqvist, 2009b, p. 49). Spheres of reality allow researchers to see the movement and overlapping nature of children’s play and to work within a less rigid structure of either “in reality” or “out of reality” that has tended to accompany traditional views of play, for example, as noted by Bretherton (1984) as being “in frame” or “out of frame.” Winther-Lindqvist (2009a) argues that the term sphere is helpful because in

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the complex interplay of reality, pretense, and communication, spheres are fuzzy areas that can overlap and change. Schousboe argues that children go in and out of the play to plan their activities and also in between using the realistic sphere to evaluate their play scenario. In the sandbox play (Chapter 8), we saw that the children were in all three spheres. The children started to build castles (the play spheres), then Emil and Caroline started to negotiate that they should build a road between the castles (the planning sphere). When Kaisa announced she would like to build a tunnel under her castle as Emil was doing Caroline and Kaisa went into the realistic sphere when Caroline told her that it was better to make a parking lot, and Kaisa agrees “so the castle does not collapse.” When the mother and her baby entered, Emil also entered the realistic sphere when he announces to the mother, “We just have to take care.” In the Westernport family, we saw the same (also Chapter 8) when the whole family took care to ensure that their younger sister Mandy could get a kick; they all waited and then took up the game again (went back to the play sphere). Here it is possible to note the dialectical movement between being in and out of play (Fleer, 2011b) because Mandy’s siblings moderated their play activity in accordance with Mandy’s real situation of learning to kick the ball. In their football play, the children did not plan their play; it was their grandmother who did the planning. The emotional aspect in play is important. Bredikyte (2010) uses the term feeling connected to role play and writes that in play the child can become a different person. This is obvious for the Westernport children who were emotionally engaged in the football play as players. In the Fredriksberg children’s play in the morning setting (Chapter 1), where Emil created a shop for snowboards, Lulu went to buy some, and they negotiated how many she could afford, Emil took the role as the shopkeeper. His engagement in the play thereby changes from following the two older children to contributing to the “script” of the play, getting satisfaction from being recognized and respected in his play role by Lulu, and by being a contributor to the play fantasy. What characterized the children’s play in the family setting together with siblings and friends was that children in different age periods came together in their play. Because of the mixed ages the older children had to attune their play to the younger children, but the younger children also contributed their ideas and influenced the play. In the school and kindergarten settings, we find that children around the same age and sex mostly play together. The children’s orientation to play with the same sex is something the children develop. The teachers in the Danish school system try to counteract this by seating boys and girls together in the

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classroom in the first year of school (that was the case both in Martin’s and Emil’s kindergarten classes). The children distinguishing between boys and girls in play is a position is not yet so strong when they start in school in Denmark because in the preschool the teachers also try to oppose this, but it can be found already in this setting (Winther-Lindqvist, 2009b). Playing with the same age children, like playing with girls only or only boys, becomes a new social rule that positions the children in relation to each other quite differently when entering school. This relates to learning a new position in school that boys do not play with girls (Corsaro, 2005; Thorne, 1986). We found this also illustrated in the classroom in Chapter 11 during the Hangman game where the boys get engaged in spelling wrongly to get a gallows created to hang a stickman, and the girls did the opposite and were upset over the boys’ activity. At recess in the same school day, Martin was teased because he wanted to play with Karla and reacted in the first round by neglecting her. Also in Emil’s play with Hector and Tom we saw this tendency to tease the opposite sex when the teacher came in the classroom with a girl crying and it was obvious that the boys had teased her. When we followed Martin’s play with Emma in the following play hour the same day, it is easy to see that play in school takes place under other conditions than at home, both because there were no toys, and a boy and girl playing together have to defend themselves and also defend their play from intruders. In the play hour where Emma and Martin wanted to play together, we first saw how Martin tried to find a toy he had brought with him from home. Emma was eager to get out of the classroom and asked him to leave off his search for the toy. She seemed eager they should get out of the classroom so the two of them could play together. Martin and Emma though had difficulty actually being free to decide what and with whom to play. The teacher starts to interfere because Emma especially wanted to protect her play opportunity with Martin from Petrus, who wanted to join them. Play and learning are in many settings interwoven; children learn to play, and they play and explore in learning situations, so this connectedness is important to draw into the discussion, as we will do in the following sections. In the next section, we will illustrate how children’s learning activities also change when they enter school. Children’s Learning Activities at Home and in School In the family, children gradually enter into the activities in the different settings as they gain competences and start to participate both on their own initiative and parents’ demands. We followed this in children’s play settings,

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their homework setting, and in settings involving house chores. We saw how Kaisa was located on the periphery in the play settings in the first Observation Period in November and on her own initiative had placed herself next to her older siblings’ train play (Chapter 1). In the third Observation Period, 8 months later in the sandbox play, she entered the shared play activity and was a participant in line with the much older girl (Chapter 8). Also in Chapter 8 we saw how the other members in the Westernport family integrated Mandy, the youngest child in the family, by making room for her to kick the ball when they played a football game. In Chapter 6, in the homework setting between the first and second observed setting, we also saw how Emil’s position changed. In the first observed setting, he was at the periphery together with Kaisa, but in the next setting we noted that through his mother’s demands and his own initiative, he started to enter into the setting. Kaisa, through her own initiative to do pearl work, also tried to be part of the homework setting. We also saw in Chapter 6 how Cam, the second youngest child in the Westernport family, also placed himself so he could become part of the homework activity like his older brother Jason when he sat himself in the same chair as Jason had sat in to do his homework and wanted to assemble the flash cards left by Jason. House chore settings were also attractive to the younger children but sometimes a burden for the older children. In one of our observations we followed how the Fredriksberg family all participated in house cleaning. Emil and Kaisa were both eager to participate and started to quarrel because both wanted to wash the bathroom floor. Their mother resolved this quarrel by asking Emil to clean the toilet upstairs. We also saw how Martin in the Vanløse family on his own initiative cleared the table after dinner; Martin expressed that he was happy to do this, a task Anna was meant to do (Chapter 9). For the older children, many activities when they are allowed and mastered become boring, which was what Anna expresses in the situation of Martin’s clearing the dinner table for her. When children have difficulties, as we saw for Lulu in the homework situation in both of the observations presented in Chapter 6, they often want to be released from participating in the difficult situation. Here her mother demanded that she continue. How and when children are allowed to participate in an activity setting is determined by both the tradition for doing something and the child’s competence and initiatives. How a child learns in this situation leads us back to Vygotsky (1982, 1998) and his conception of learning within the zone of proximal development. Children’s learning within the zone of proximal development has to relate to their developmental period but has also to reach forward into the following period (Chaiklin, 2003). Interaction between a

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child and more competent persons are crucial to learning that leads the child’s activity into a new developmental period. This can be exemplified by Emil and Jason’s learning in the homework situations, as described in Chapter 6. Emil’s mother wanted him to participate in the homework activity, but Emil also wanted his mother’s attention. For Jason, his parents and grandmother all supported Jason in doing homework. The parents in both situations supported their child to orient to school subjects and to become a school child. Children’s learning takes place through orientation to demands that dominate the different activity settings and by the help from more competent persons to engage in activities related to these demands. The activity settings and demands are also influenced by and change through children’s demands and motives, as when the homework situation in the Fredriksberg family changed by Emil joining the homework activity. He competed with the two older sisters, who used to have their mother’s attention in this setting, thereby putting new demands on his mother. This ended with all three children complaining to their father when he came home that they had a headache. Over the year of the research period, Emil started to take more of his mother’s attention, and Laura started to do some of her homework alone. Also by the end of the research period, Lulu started to go down to a friend who lived in one of the other apartments in the block to do her homework. She continued to do homework but she resolved what she found a boring situation by creating a new social situation. Part of learning is how and when a child can come through with his or her own wishes and motives, finding new ways for engaging in their activities. From these analyses we will conclude that learning occurs when there is a qualitative shift in a child’s participation in an activity setting and therefore his or her relations to other persons change in this setting. The learning within the zone of proximal development takes place when learning orients the child to a new practice. Children Meet Other Types of Demands for Learning in School than at Home In different age periods the zone of proximal development is differently related to what is the dominating practice. At home the demands and instructions follow the young child’s initiatives. This changes when the child enters school. In school, children have to follow the system that characterizes different school subjects. Vygotsky (1982) points out that in school, children meet learning systems that they have to follow to acquire knowledge. At home in everyday settings, learning can be supported by the more

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competent person, more and less in relation to how the child approaches the activity. In school, the teacher initiates the activity, and the child tries to imitate and repeat what the teacher demonstrates, as when Emil tries to follow the math teacher’s explanation (Chapter 11), or when the children in Andrew’s lesson are chanting the words they are supposed to learn to read (Chapter 12). In Andrew’s case, we saw that he focused on the acts of writing and imitated what the teacher demonstrated, but not as a meaningful imitation in relation to what the teacher intended, but in relation to what he thought was expected of him to be a “good” school child. Teaching in the first years in school can be more than repetition and imitation (Hedegaard & Chaiklin, 2005; Hedegaard, 2002). This we could follow in Martin’s class where children were instructed by the teacher to count vehicles at the road and then make statistical charts for the number of different vehicles or when they were introduced to the Hangman game.

transition from preschool to school leads to an expectation of change from play to learning as the child’s leading activity The educational objectives change from daycare and home care into school. In home and daycare, the educational focus is much more to create conditions for children’s play and social interaction with other persons as well as on their acquiring skills for getting dressed, eating by themselves, and employing good hygiene, but also for orienting themselves as to where they are and taking care of dangerous objects and traffic. At an early school age, the demands children meet in school become more sophisticated as they have to orient themselves to appropriate skills of reading, writing, and subject matter knowledge. Importantly, this is also a time where the children are expected to transit into learning as their leading activity. In our study, we followed the children for 12 months over different parts of the day, giving us the opportunity to observe changes in the children’s relations to each other and to the adults around them across the different institutions. What we found was that the children, after entering school, started to position themselves differently to each other and to the adults, and this continued over the school year. We could follow how their motive for becoming a school child started to evolve. We also found that some of the children were given more responsibilities at home, and also that they started to acquire a new social position as a “school child.” In the Fredriksberg family, we saw how Emil’s mother asked him about his homework, and in the Westernport family, how Jason’s grandmother asked Mandy not to disturb

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Jason while he was doing his homework; in doing these things, the adults gave the 6-year-old children status as school children (Chapter 6). The children also started to ask for this new position, as we saw when Andrew resisted his mother’s demand that he go to bed (Chapter 10) and argued that he did not need to go to school the next day. He also positioned himself as his mother’s helper in the morning when she had to prepare for leaving for school (Chapter 4). For Martin, it could be seen when he sat down next to Anna when she did homework and started to write on the computer (Chapter 7), and when he was happy to do Anna’s job of clearing the table (Chapter 9). In schools in Denmark and Australia, it is an explicit goal for the teachers to orient children to learning the routines of school. We see this particularly in the first year of school in Denmark (the kindergarten class) where the children from the two families were being oriented toward the routines of school – it was the prime goal. Developing an orientation to the routines of school was also a focus in the first year of school in Australia (called the preparatory year) (Chapter 12), but there is also teaching that is directed toward reading and writing. This made a double demand upon Andrew: he had to orient both to learning the routine of school and to the subject matter content connected to reading and writing. This seems demanding for Andrew because being at school is very different from the way his family moves at home, where Andrew has the freedom to move from room to room as well as to move around from indoors to outdoors (Chapter 7). Andrew’s social situation of development within the Peninsula school as presented in Chapter 12 can be seen in relation to three major demands, according to Bozhovich (2009, p. 78): 1) “the demands of the social environment that have developed historically and are placed upon children of a particular age”; 2) the “demands the people around them place on children based on individual development”; and 3) the “demands made by the child collective within a school,” in our case, the Peninsula school. The first type of demand implies that Andrew should orient himself to the valued goal in school practice of paying attention to the teacher, behaving in particular school-like ways in the class, and learning to read and write. The second demand is directed directly to Andrew that he should stop moving around and that he should pay attention to the teacher, and the third demand is that he should become acquainted with his classmates and be able to interact playfully with them. How did Andrew then succeed in relation to these demands? He was very motive-oriented to participate in the class activity, as we saw when he wanted to skip the breakfast program; he paid attention to the teacher, but also to all the other children, which interfered with his attention to the curriculum tasks.

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He often did not focus on the chanting of letters because he had to pay attention to all that went on in the class. It seemed that after some time he became oriented to the teacher’s demands, but because he was distracted at the start of the year, he did not really develop a meaningful imitation of the skills, he was supposed to learn and instead he became lost. When he imitated skills it was without a meaningful understanding of them, and therefore he had to fake it, as when his hand just moved over the paper as if he were writing. For himself it seemed that he created his own meaningful imitation, but this did not lead to the results the teacher evaluated. So even when he tried his best to do what he thought was expected, he failed and was evaluated as a child with an attention problem. Actually the opposite of this was evident: he paid too much attention to everybody. At the same time, it did not seem that he connected well with the other children. He was primarily oriented to pleasing the teacher, so when he could have contact as in the second observation, where the children helped the teacher to put the classroom back in order, Andrew was more oriented to act as a school boy than to interact with the other children. The Danish school program for children in the first year is quite different from the Australian school system (the State of Victoria) and its tradition. In the first year in the Danish school, the children are not really expected to learn to read and write, but primarily to learn how it is to be in school and act as a school child. One can ask if they are better off than the Australian children with this more simple demand. At a minimum though this also creates problems, especially for children who expect that going to school will give them reading skills. In the Danish school system, they are introduced to play hours as a class activity every day. What characterizes this hour is that children, through play, should connect to school activities, but there is not any play material or pedagogy that seems to support this. The engagement in play can be found, but the children we observed were not really free to play; instead they were restricted, as we saw several times. Below is illustrated an extract from the play hour that follows after Emil’s painting hour that was presented in Chapter 11. Play hour Tom, Robert, and Emil play king and slaves together. The game starts with Robert declaring himself king; Emil wants to be a knight. Emil then grabs Tom and announces him as being a slave. “The slave must build a fortress for us,” says Emil. Tom protests. He says he will not be a slave, and they negotiate to build a castle together. Emil gets the idea that they should take some stones that are loose in a walking path in the schoolyard. They build a small mound by stacking rocks on top of each other, which they can hide behind when sitting down. A teacher comes by and tells them they are not allowed to build with these stones,

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What we notice here in Emil’s play hour, as well as in Martin’s play hour in Chapter 11, was that even though the class hour was announced as being playtime for the children, they were restricted in their play. In Martin’s case, he and Emma were not allowed to protect their play from intruders, but rather were told that they had to play with Petrus. Schools create very different conditions for children’s development, and play opportunities are significantly changed. The intention is to ease the transition from preschool to school in the Danish system by having play hour, but the play is not really in relation to supporting the children’s own initiatives, resources, and needs. We can agree with Grieshaber and McArdle’s (2010) characterization of teachers’ use of play to “trick children into learning.” In the first year in the Danish school, play is used as a pedagogical tool and a stimulating motive for supporting children to develop a learning motive and become oriented to being a school child. Even if we can accept the use of play as a pedagogical tool that should trick children into a learning activity, we will question if this is used successfully in the actual creation of play hours in the Danish school. The aim should be that these play hours should create a motive for learning, but instead they lead to the children trying to defend their rights to play and to choose their own playmates, and furthermore they often become active in negotiating their space and position to do this. The practice of using play for getting children engaged in learning can be relevant, but then it should be seen as part of a school activity (examples of this can be found in Bodrova and Leong, 2001; Fleer, 2010; Hedegaard, 2002; Hedegaard & Chaiklin, 2005; van Oers, 1999). It was obvious from our following children into school that children’s social situation changes very much because of their new position as a school child, and the demands for new activities provide quite different opportunities for play than what had been offered at home or in preschool. The new activity settings of school do not support play as a leading activity but instead are oriented toward learning as a leading activity for children beginning school. What this means for the children can be seen in how they express how they feel in relation to their new social situation. Meeting new demands can be experienced differently for a

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group of children who are transferred from preschool to school. As WintherLindqvist (2009a) writes, some children are relieved to enter school because they can find a new position in the child collective; others feel let down, because they lose a position they had among their friends in the preschool. To make the change successful, it is important to focus on how children feel in their new social position of being a school child and how they may become oriented toward learning rather than only toward play. Because schools expect children to do homework, we see that the child at home is also someone who has responsibilities in relation to school. The new social position means that children begin to conceptualize themselves and their relations with others quite differently both in school and other settings. When families do not respond according to the “school child’s new social status as school children with responsibilities,” then conflicts may arise. We saw this in the early morning period when Andrew tried to help his mother prepare the school lunch and baby bottles, and his mother continually tried to send him away, but Andrew persisted and as a result did help with the early-morning preparation. How children conceptualize themselves at home changes after entering school.

a playful orientation To characterize children’s development in relation to play as the leading activity in preschool and learning as the leading activity in school relates to societal and historical conditions for children’s development as we have discussed in earlier sections, but this does not mean that children do not learn or that they do not play in other age periods. Play and learning though take different forms in the different age periods. We find that all people may have a playful as well as a learning orientation throughout life. We will demonstrate in this section how these two orientations are interwoven and are important for creating qualitative transformation in children’s development. Focusing on children’s playfulness should be obvious, but only a few researchers have oriented themselves to this (Christian, 2012;3 Corsaro, 2005; Schousboe, 2012). Corsaro gives an example of this playful orientation of his young daughter when she had just learned to walk. Her daughter’s new mobility made her climb up onto what, from her parents’ view, seemed dangerous places. One day Corsaro heard her call out, and when he turned to look she was standing at the very top of the back of a large cushioned chair. Corsaro writes: “I gasped and jumped up to get her down, but still had to 3

Christian’s study is oriented to playfulness in school age and gives an overview of the literature of playfulness. She outlines five components in playfulness: physical spontaneity, cognitive spontaneity, social spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor. It is not our aim to evaluate playfulness, but only to point out that it is important beyond play as a leading activity.

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chuckle at the large smile on her gleeful face. She was clearly communicating, ‘Hey Daddy, look what I did this time’” (2005, p. 85). Corsaro characterizes this as the amusement with forbidden acts. In his research, Corsaro also points out that children engage in playful teasing of each other in their play and especially in children’s collectives where play themes are often in opposition to adults’ demands and treats. The playful orientation can be observed in all age periods. We will focus on the importance of children’s playful orientation that can be found in relation to children’s and adults’ interactions primarily for children in the period when they enter school. We found this teasing playfulness several times in our research both as a playful orientation of children where they both teased and opposed adult caregivers and as children’s and adults’ playful orientation together. This teasing and opposition can be seen as an important way of interaction between children and adults that can be initiated by both the child and adult. Adults, we found, used children’s orientation to playfulness not as an opposition but as a way to be together in a joyful way, and at other times to get children engaged in activities. Children Create Opposition through a Playful Orientation toward Demands In the first example of homework in the Fredriksberg family (Chapter 6), Emil tried to get Tom involved in teasing Emil’s sister Lulu about erasing her homework. There were many other examples in this homework setting where Emil opposed the adult’s expectation and demands with a playful attitude (see Hedegaard, 2012b). Martin also started to use this strategy at the dinner table as illustrated in Chapter 9 where he, in different ways, tried to provoke his parents; he used profane words to announce he wanted to go to the toilet, he brought a lamp shade from the toilet to the dinner table, and he talked loudly when he was not allowed to leave the table because everyone had not finished eating. Later (Chapter 10) when he had to go to bed, he played with his watch while sitting on the floor in front of the bed, trying not to hear his father asking him to go to bed until his mother yelled at him, pretending innocence by showing his father his watch. In all the presented examples there were joyful emotional aspects. This we also found in Martin’s classroom (Chapter 11) when the children participated in the Hangman game where misspelling contributed to getting the gallows created to hang the stickman. Here the boys had fun misspelling so the man got hanged. Children’s use of play in opposition to adults is a way to intentionally create conflicts, and can be important in relation to acquiring a new position in the family as a more competent child or a position as a child in the classroom.

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Adults and Children Create a Playful Atmosphere Together In the second observation of a homework setting in the Fredriksberg family (Chapter 6), the two older children join into Emil’s and their mother’s game of creating homework by guessing words that begin with a certain letter. When Emil had to guess words that start with the letter B, his two older sisters join in the game and they knock at the table (bord), and then draw in his trousers (bukser) to make Emil aware of words starting with the letter B. The mother and the three “school” children all played together, but because Kaisa, the youngest child, could not contribute, she tried to provoke the others in a playful way by expressing profane words. In the Westernport family, in the same chapter, we followed how the whole family also joined into a playful attitude in the homework situation, first by the grandmother playing in competition with Jason, and then by all the adults cheering Jason’s reading success and making a “high five.” The playfulness though that the adult initiates as educational practices does not always work. When the children had to go to bed, the parents in the Westernport family (Chapter 10) also made the event playful to oppose the conflicts of going to bed, although it did not work for Alex. In the Vanløse family, the father also used play to overcome Martin’s opposition when Martin did not want to pee and go to bed by suggesting that they should make a wheelbarrow. This got Martin into the bathroom to pee but he first entered the bed when his mother told him to directly. The mother in the Vanløse family also had a playful attitude to her children. She teased the children when they made mistakes, as when Anne lost the bread or spilled taziki salad (Chapter 9), and at the same dinner the mother asked Martin and Karla when they giggled, “Have you finished kissing now?” But both Anna and Martin had difficulty in catching the mother’s playful irony.

the relation between play and learning is different in different age periods and in different institutional settings The parents in the Fredriksberg, Vanløse, and Westernport families all have a playful attitude, although they play very differently with their children. In the Fredriksberg family, the father engages the children in language play using double word meanings when creating games and making riddles, and in the Vanløse family the mother teases her children in a playful way. In the Westernport family, the parents, the uncle, and the grandmother all play ball games with the children.

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The children relate differently to these play strategies. In the Fredriksberg family, the two older children were able to contribute to the father’s language games; Emil created word games and also wanted to make a riddle, but he was not so successful. Kaisa also wanted to be in on the language games, but could not really understand what she was supposed to do; she tried to provoke her parents with her expressions. In the Vanløse family, Anna understood her mother’s teasing without being able to tease back, but Martin did not understand the teasing aspects in his mother’s talk but instead took the communication at face value. In the Peninsula family, the mother teases with the “boogie man,” which can be seen as a kind of game, but this teasing had a completely different role than being enjoyable. In addition, the older children took it on themselves to scare their younger brother by teasing him with this. In the Westernport family, the grandmother uses football language to solve conflicts about chairs at the dinner table as a form of word play, and she also creates a competitive game during the homework period so that reading the words on the flash cards is more engaging for Jason. In the Fredriksberg family, we saw a couple of times that the mother played with the children. They played hide the thimble. In this game, one person hides and the other seeks, and the one who is hiding screams “it is burning” when one of the others move close to the thimble. The mother also played a string game, showing how to make figures with a string and her finger, which the children were all eager to imitate. There is diversity in how the families played with their children, and also in how the children related to the play initiated by the adults. The differences in how the children responded can be connected directly to their period of development. The main point is that play, learning, and development are interwoven throughout life in different ways, and this is dependent on where and how play takes place: if it is with the family in leisure time, if it is at the dinner table, if it is within school hours or recess, or if it is at sports events in school or in other institutional settings. The way children play relates to the play activity, and also reflects their different developmental periods. They learn playfulness in different ways, in different settings, being together both with children and adults, and participating or taking initiatives for playfulness in everyday life.

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Index

Davydov, V. V., 199 demands definition of, 11 Fredriksberg family and, 11, 13 relations between person initiated activities and, 82 Denmark, kindergarten in, 167 development, 3 children’s, 191 as contested area of psychology and education, 3 as sociocultural pathways, 5 cross-cultural differences in, 167 ecological tradition of, 18 from cultural-historical perspective, 3 motive acquisition of, 88 family differences in, 201 for playing football, pedagogy of family and, 108 Fredriksberg family and, 53, 83 social situation of in Fredriksberg family, 14 Peninsula, Andrew and, 185 theory of, 14, 17 taking child’s perspective of, 8 dinner tables. See Evening meals dinner talk, 197 Dockett, S., 60, 70, 182 doubleness of play, 115

activities, 5, 19 in families, 9 initiating, example, 11 institutional practice and, 5 activity settings, 9 children’s social settings and, 14 in family practices, 20 in school practices, 20 relations between demands and person initiated activities in, 82 variation in, among families, 21 after-school programs, 73 Andenæs, A., 18 Australia, schools in, 172 Australian families, 43 Australian families. differences in physical conditions and routines of Danish families vs., 42 Barker, Roger, 8 Bodrova, E., 113 Bozhovich, L. I., 193, 199, 200 Bredikyte, M., 207 Bronfenbrenner, U., 18 Brostrøm, S., 166 child collective, 212 Andrew and, 186 concept of, 186 childness experience, 14 children’s perspective, of everyday life, 4 children’s play, 3 children’s social situation, 9, 21, 192, 198 activities settings and, 14 child’s relationships, child position in family and, 21 classmates, importance of, 169 collective imaginary situation, 206 conflicts, definition of, 13 Convention on the Right of the Child (United Nations), 194 Corsaro, W. A., 215

ecological theory, 18 ecological tradition, of children’s development, 18 education, children’s development as contested area of, 3 Elkonin, D. B., 14 environment affective relationship between children and, 199 children’s development and, 193 child’s understanding of, 193

227

228 evening meals as focus of research, 116 at Peninsula family, 126 at Vanløse family, 117 Danish vs. Australian families and, 117 in Westernport family, 129 socialization and, 116 traditions and, 117 values and, 132 families activity settings in, 9 as core institution, 5 timing in, 196 family practices, 7, 9 activity settings in, 20 demands on children and, 68, 195 differences in material conditions and, 99 dominance of, 72 influence of children’s attendance at school on, 87 influence of schools on, in Fredriksberg and Peninsula families, 53 family research, 19 Fleer, M., 206 football play as family practice, 107 imaginary situation and, 107 imaginary situation for developing children’s competence in, 108 in Westernport family, 103 ways pedagogy of family supports children’s development of motive for, 108 Fredriksberg, family, 3, 15, 26 breakfast at, 4 child-initiated activities in, 13, 55 children’s initiated activities and conflicts, 68 child’s social situation of development in, 14 coming home from school in, 74 coming home from school traditions in, 95, 97 controversy and conflict resolution, 13 conversations in, 197 demands and, 11, 13 evening meals at, 124 family practice on coming home from school, 76, 80 homework and, 197, 200 mealtime conversation in, 133 morning routines, 54 motive development and, 53, 83 pedagogy of the family and, 31 physical conditions, 28 play in, 103, 114 routines of day/week, 30 school influence on home activity settings and, 53

Index solving conflicts in, 13, 55 strategies for handling time stress in transition from home to school, 69 values around evening meal and, 132 Fredriksberg, Emil, 3, 4, 9 after-school program and, 74 child-initiated activities and, 13 demands and, 11 development of motives and, 134 first day in kindergarten class, 155 in kindergarten class, after three months, 158 initiated activities/conflicts and, 81 initiating activities and, 11 play initiatives of, 110 solving conflicts and, 11 Fredriksberg, Kaisa, 3, 4, 9, 11 child-initiated activities and, 13 demands and, 11 development of motives and, 135 initiating activities and, 11 morning activities of, 13 play initiatives of, 111 Fredriksberg, Laura, 3, 75 child-initiated activities and, 13 morning activities of, 13 Fredriksberg, Lulu, 3, 4, 9 child-initiated activities and, 13 coming home from school and, 75 initiated activities and, 77 initiated activities/conflicts and, 81 morning activities of, 13 friends, importance of, 169 Goodnow, J. J., 17 Grieshaber, S., 18, 60, 70, 137, 147, 194 Haavind, H., 18 Hanghøj, Kasper, 26 Hedegaard, M., 199 higher education, 5 Højholt, C., 169 homework, 198 Fredriksberg family and, 200 Westernport family and, 201 housing, material conditions of, 193 imaginary situations development of children’s competence in football play and, 108 football play and, 107 play and, 115 sphere of imagination, 206 initiated activities, children’s in Peninsula family, 64 in Fredriksberg family, 13, 55 in Peninsula family, 55, 63

Index

229

morning, in Peninsula family and, 48 relations between demands and, 82 institutional perspective, 191 institutional practices, 4, 5 dynamics of, 7 institutional traditions, 7

object play, 112 object, concept of, 199 objects activities and, 7 in practice settings, 8 One boy’s day (Barker and Wright), 8

kindergarten class, 153 Emil in, after three months, 158 Emil’s first time in, 155 entering, 154 in Denmark, 167 pedagogy of the school for children in, 155 Kousholt, D., 18 Kryger, L., 26

parents in Britain, 196 in Sweden, 196 values of being, literature on, 17 parents’ models for children’s upbringing, 17 parents’ socialization of children, 17 pedagogy of school, for children in kindergarten class, 155 pedagogy of the family, 19, 21, 25 children’s development of motive for playing football and, 108 bedtime routines, 149 of Fredriksberg family, 31 of Peninsula family, 39 of Vanløse family, 34 of Westernport family, 42 Peninsula family, 6, 15 background, 35 bedtime practice traditions in, 147 bedtime routine in, 142 breakfast routine for, 62 child-initiated activities in morning and, 48, 55 coming home from school in, 92 coming home from school traditions in, 98 demands and child-initiated activities in, 94 demands and family expectations in, 94 demands between siblings in morning setting and, 53 demands on children in transition to school, 62 evening meals at, 126 mealtime conversation in, 134 morning conflicts in, 48 morning routines in, 47 morning routines of, vs. Fredriksberg family, 54 opportunities for becoming resourceful and, 52 outdoor play for, 113 pedagogy of the family, 39 physical conditions, 37 play in, 113 routines of day/week, 38 school influence on home activity settings and, 53 solving conflicts in, 55 strategies for handling time stress in transition from home to school, 69 values around evening meal and, 133 walking to school and, 59 Peninsula school, 171 early morning activities in, 60 overview of practice traditions of, 173

leading motives age periods and, 202 children’s, 14 learning, 3, 8 children’s, 191 in home vs. in school, 72 occurrence of, 210 play and, 208 play and, effect of differences in age periods, 216, 217 transition from preschool to school and, 214 types of demands for, in school vs. home, 210 learning activities of children, at home and in school, 208 play and, 205 Leontiev, A. N., 5, 9, 199, 200 Lewin, K., 193 Macoby, E. E., 17 material conditions, 21 differences in, 98 of housing, 193 mealtimes. See evening meals meaningful motives, 200, 202 Mirkhil, M., 166 morning talk, 197 motive orientation children’s, 198 defined, 200 in Fredriksberg family, 201 ways of acquiring and keeping, 201 motives children’s leading, 14 concept of, 199 institutionalized vs. person’s, 200 leading, and age periods, 202 meaningful, 200, 202 overview of demands and, in homework setting, 86 stimulating, 200 motives, stimulating, 200

230 Peninsula, Andrew, 7 child collective and, 186 conflicts of, 63 development of motives and, 134 initiated activities of, 63 learning rules of school behavior, 182 meeting demands and, 49 school demands of, 177 social situation of development and, 185 solving conflicts and, 49 Peninsula, J. J., 7 Peninsula, Louise, 7 Peninsula, Nick, 7 conflicts of, 64 initiated activities of, 64 meeting demands and, 51 morning demands/conflicts and, 50 solving conflicts and, 51 Perry, B., 60, 70, 182 personal perspective, 192 physical conditions, 25 of Fredriksberg family, 28 of Peninsula family, 37 of Vanløse family, 32 of Westernport family, 40 play adults and children creating atmosphere for, 217 as pedagogical tool for learning, 102 at home and in school, 205 doubleness of, 115 emotional aspect in, 207 Fredriksberg children and, 111 imaginary situations and, 115 in family settings, 207 in Fredriksberg family, 103, 114 in Peninsula family, 113 in school and kindergarten settings, 207 in Westernport family, 102, 103, 114 learning activities and, 205 learning and, 208 learning and, effect of differences in age periods on, 216, 217 learning cooperation and, 111 literature on importance of, 101 role, 206, 207 spheres in role, 206 theories on development of, 206 transition from preschool to school and, 214 wholeness perspective for, 113 play orientation, 215 for opposition to demands, 216 practice, 5, 19 practice settings, objects in, 8 prep (preparatory year), 153 psychology, children’s development as contested area of, 3

Index regimes of discourse, 194 regimes of practice, 194 regimes of truth, 147 role play feeling connected to, 207 spheres of, 206 sphere of imagination, 206 sphere of reality, 206 sphere of staging, 206 routines bedtime about, 136 children’s motives for delaying, 149 development of, 147 family differences in, 137 family pedagogy of, children and, 149 in Peninsula family, 142 in Vanløse family, 146 in Westernport family, 146 morning of Fredriksberg family, 54 of Peninsula family, 47 school demands and Peninsula family, 47 school, 5 coming home from differences in traditions for, 72, 73 Fredriksberg family and, 74 Peninsula family and, 92 traditions of, 95 Westernport family and, 83 conditions for children’s development and, 214 going to changes in children’s motive orientation and learning style on, 166 perspectives of, 153 in Australia, 172 relations between home and, 168 school behavior, learning rules of, 182 school demands, morning routines and, in Peninsula family, 47 school practices activity settings in, 20 demands and motives, 170 Schousboe, I., 207 social network theory, 17 socialization, evening meals and, 116 societal conditions, 4 societal demands, in homes, 72 societal perspective, 191 systemic theory, 16 Talyzina, N. F., 199 transitions to school conceptualizing, 60 demands on children in Peninsula family, 62 Tudge, J., 136

Index Vanløse family, 15, 26 background, 31 bedtime practice traditions in, 146 bedtime routine in, 146 children initiated actions and conflicts in, 67 children’s initiated activities and, 91 coming home from school traditions in, 95 coming home practice in, 90 conversations in, 197 demands and conflicts in, 92 demands on children in, 62, 90 evening meals at, 117 getting children to arrive in school and, 65 mealtime conversation in, 133 physical conditions, 32 relaxation in front of television and, 89 routines of day/week, 34 strategies for handling time stress in transition from home to school, 69 table manners and, 132 values around evening meal and, 132 Vanløse, Martin becoming oriented towards letters and words, 91 development of motives and, 134 getting ready for school and, 65 homework and, 98 in school, 161

231 initiated actions and conflicts of, 67 initiatives and development of motives by, 92 overview over conflicts and oppositions of, 123 Vygotsky, L. S., 14, 113, 167, 193, 205, 210 Westernport family, 15 background, 35 bedtime practice traditions in, 146 bedtime routine in, 146 coming home from school and, 83, 98 evening meals at, 129 football play in, 103 homework and, 198, 201 mealtime conversation in, 134 pedagogy of parents, 42 physical conditions, 40 play in, 102, 103, 114 routines of day/week, 42 values around evening meal and, 132 wholeness analyses, perspectives of, 192 wholeness approach, 4, 5 for play, 113 implementing, 4 Winther-Lindqvist, D., 154, 166, 206 Wright, Herbert, 8 Zinchenko, V. P., 199