Å gjøre demokrati i barnehagens kommunikative fellesskap. En studie av de yngste barna sitt språk, barnehagen sin relasjonelle og romlige kvalitet og dets betydning for de yngste barna sin tilgang og meddelelse av livsverden i barnehagen

The author examines how the language and communicative actions of the youngest children can be understood as initiatives to participate in the communicative community at the ECEC centre. Furthermore, the study explores the relational and spatial qualities that influence participation and democracy of the youngest children at the ECEC centre.

The author's analysis suggests that the youngest children's initiatives to wanting to participate in communicative communities are expressed in four repeated non-verbal actions:

(1) Bodily, soundless actions such as pulling the ECEC teacher's sweater or pointing. According to the author, these actions are typically not detected in the large community, but can gain another visibility in small communities such as a pushchair.
(2) Non-verbal language with sound, but without a voice such as slapping the table. This language is detected by the community, but does not lead to dialogue or maintain contact over time.
(3) Children's voices followed by a high-volume sound, used especially to establish contact to the community, keep the dialogue going or to indicate that the child wants to participate in the community, regardless of community size.
(4) Children's voices as a sound, crying or laughter. The applies to both large and small communicative communities.

These four non-verbal actions provide the children with different possibilities to participate in the community's dialogues and in this way experience democracy. The author indicates that the youngest children's conditions for non-verbal participation are in some cases complicated by the spatial dimension, for example when they are placed in high chairs around a large table with distance between them. According to the author, in this context, the pushchair with four seats has a democratic potential, as it can serve as a meeting point for dialogue in a smaller community, where bodies and faces meet and are close.

The study's empirical material was collected from the author's master's thesis and was reanalysed in this study. The empirical data was collected through video observations and field notes from field work in a department at an ECEC centre. The department had nine children and four adults. Five of the children were 1-2 years old. Focus in this analysis was on the youngest children's communication. The authors asked the following analytical questions: What characterises children's differentiated, non-verbal language and initiatives to wanting to participate in communicative communities? How are these initiatives met by the community, seen in relation to the children's participation and democracy? And how do different relational spaces serve as arenas for communicative communities for the youngest children? The relational spaces in focus in the analysis are meal situations at the ECEC centre and a trip in a pushchair with room for four children. The analysis was inspired by hermeneutics and theories of "second-time analysis".

Winje, A. K. (2017). Å gjøre demokrati i barnehagens kommunikative fellesskap. En studie av de yngste barna sitt språk, barnehagen sin relasjonelle og romlige kvalitet og dets betydning for de yngste barna sin tilgang og meddelelse av livsverden i barnehagen. Tidsskriftet Barn, 2017(4), 53-69.