‘Becoming-with bees’: generating affect and response-abilities with the dying bees in early childhood education

The study investigates the educational possibilities of getting kindergarten children engaged in sustainable development, with a special focus on the death of bees. The research question is: What kind of pedagogy and stories can be used to engage young children in the life of bees and their potential extinction?

The results show that when the children themselves were allowed to take on the role of bees, a relationship was created between them and the bees, simultaneously creating an emotional reaction to the bees’ death. The researcher believes that this type of pedagogy, where children become one with the bees, is an alternative way of teaching children about sustainability. The focus shifts from a pedagogy that teaches children to love and care for nature as an object separate to themselves, to a perspective where children become one with nature and see people as an entangled part of it.

The researcher has used a post-qualitative approach and observed and participated in daily routines in a Swedish kindergarten department with 16 children between the ages of four and six. This study is based on a play the children watched about bees and the death of bees, in which the children themselves were allowed to participate and take on roles as bees (becoming one with the bees). The researcher observes and analyses the children’s conversations and products they made based on the play.

Weldemariam, K. (2020). “‘Becoming-with bees’: generating affect and response-abilities with the dying bees in early childhood education”. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3):391-406.