Sang som performativ for samspill i småbarnspedagogisk praksis

The thesis investigates the interplay that occurs between the youngest children and teachers in kindergarten when they sing together. The research question is: What are the meanings of interplay through singing for early childhood and care pedagogical practice through a performative knowledge apparatus?

The following research questions are asked:

1. What moments of interplay occur between singing, the youngest children and kindergarten educators?
2. Which performative agents are active in moments of interplay through singing?
3. How does the researcher’s affective collaboration with the research material contribute to perspectives of early childhood and care pedagogical competence and ethics?

A prominent result is contact-creating song in the form of embodiment, musicking, musicality of moments of interplay, and the rhythmic tone. Another result highlights interplays with emphasis on improvisation, affect, embodiment and human and non-human materiality.  The third result concerns the educator’s participation in interplay, with emphasis on embodiment and affect. The fourth result is in relation to methodology and concerns performative research in the early childhood and care context and the researcher position as centred and de-centred.

The data material consists of partially participatory video observation from everyday situations in a toddler department with seven employees and 28 children under the age of three. The researcher was present in the kindergarten for six months, and the observations consist of recordings of interplay between the children and the educators where singing played a key role.

Bjørkøy, I. (2020). «Sang som performativ for samspill i småbarnspedagogisk praksis». Akademisk avhandling. Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet.