Purpose
The thesis investigates how well-being is established and develops in a kindergarten context, and how well-being is played out between children and employees in everyday kindergarten life. The study is concerned with how kindergarten life is experienced from a participant perspective, while at the same time focusing on how the kindergarten as a socio-structural framework forms a background for the participants’ experiences, choices, priorities and daily organisation of tasks. The research question is: In what ways does well-being develop between children and the pedagogical staff in kindergarten, and what barriers and potentials for well-being can be identified in everyday kindergarten life? The three research questions are: 1) How can the well-being of children and pedagogical staff in a kindergarten be identified analytically? 2) What physical and collective experiences do children and the pedagogical staff gain, and in what ways do these have an impact on well-being in kindergarten? 3) What conflicts can be identified in everyday life, and how do these have an impact on well-being in kindergarten?
Result
The author has conducted three analyses showing how well-being in kindergarten must be understood in relation to the institutional context, the working environment and a social orientation that the children and staff share, challenge and follow. Kindergarten life is identified as a life where children and adults are physically accessible to each other, while being mutually vulnerable and visible in relation to each other. This will have an impact on how kindergarten life is organised and the ways in which children and adults get the opportunity to be present. The analysis highlights a picture of a demanding, contradictory and exhausting working life that includes elements of alienation. The social orientation is analysed as a collective life that develops in a physical and conflict-filled everyday life. Presence, participation and co-determination emerge as important elements for well-being in kindergartens. Both children and adults want to experience days without disasters, with fun and free adults, where there is time and opportunity to be together.
Design
The empirical material has been collected using participatory observation, interviews and future workshops (defined in the thesis as a collective investigation room where children and kindergarten employees gather to share knowledge, experiences, criticism, dreams and opportunities for improvement in kindergarten). This sample consists of employees and children in two Danish kindergartens. The author also has a sample of 36 kindergarten teacher students in supervised professional training, who, using a snap-log method, took pictures of and wrote short texts about their experiences of well-being in kindergarten. The snap-logs were subsequently followed up with interviews, group discussions and joint analyses.
References
Lind, U. (2019). «Trivsel i daginstitutionens hverdagsliv: et spørgsmål om det kropslige, kollektive og konfliktuelle». Akademisk avhandling. Roskilde Universitet.