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1 – 10 of over 6000Maryanne Theobald, Amanda Bateman, Gillian Busch, Megan Laraghy and Susan Danby
This chapter investigates children’s play and social interactions in a multilingual preschool context where the lingua franca (common language) is English. This investigation…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter investigates children’s play and social interactions in a multilingual preschool context where the lingua franca (common language) is English. This investigation follows the experiences of one child for whom English is a second language (L2). The analytic focus explores how the child gains access and participation in play activities in relation to the peer culture of the group.
Methodology/approach
Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis approaches, this chapter offers turn-by-turn analysis to show how the children’s interactions unfold and identifies children’s interactional approaches as they enter play and make friends. Particular attention is focused on how one of the children manages his attempts at entry into the peer group’s games using the building blocks.
Findings
The close detailed analysis of one extended episode highlighted the co-produced nature of interaction. The findings identify a repertoire of four resources used by one of the L2 children within the peer group, to access play activities in the building space: (1) linguistic resources of requests, such as “Can I play?” “Are you building?”; (2) “tailing” others closely; (3) references to the moral obligations of being a best friend; and (4) using objects as resources for entry. While the analytic focus is on one child’s strategies, analysis considers this child’s individual actions in relation to his peers. What is made apparent is that children’s uptake and participation in peer interaction is dependent on the social agenda and the local aspects of peer culture, not solely on children's language proficiency.
Originality/value
Attention to how children employ strategies to play and understanding the local conditions of peer culture can assist educators to support children’s attempts for participation and friendship in multilingual early years settings.
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The intention is to introduce the conceptual framework proposed by Brown, Odom, and Conroy (2001) for the implementation of social interaction intervention. This tiered system…
Abstract
The intention is to introduce the conceptual framework proposed by Brown, Odom, and Conroy (2001) for the implementation of social interaction intervention. This tiered system organizes intervention strategies for early childhood professionals to make informed decision on how to promote social interactions of young children who are at risk for social competence difficulties in inclusive early childhood programs.
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The purpose of this chapter is to examine everyday multilingual peer play interactions through their implications for the development of friendships among immigrant children.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to examine everyday multilingual peer play interactions through their implications for the development of friendships among immigrant children.
Methodology/approach
Bringing together linguistic anthropology and conversation analysis as methodological approaches, this chapter explores friendship processes among Moroccan immigrant girls in Spain, specifically by analyzing the structure and composition of one such peer group, as well as their multilingual and multimodal interactions.
Findings
The main findings are that the multi-age, mixed-expertise composition of this peer group, as well as the semiotically flexible forms of participation and interaction that it encourages, are conducive to remarkably inclusive groups and strong friendships among a diverse group of Moroccan immigrant girls (including, younger and older girls, girls with disabilities and girls with very different immigration histories). Solid inclusive friendships are cemented in this peer interactional environment first because being able to interchangeably negotiate expert/novice participation roles in game interactions affirms feelings of social competence among all the girls, and second because achieving shared understandings in play entails successfully negotiating rules and expectations, which promotes trust and collaboration, while minimizing conflict. The inclusive nature of these girls’ peer-groups contrasts with the exclusion they encounter in other social settings and relationships.
Research Implications
In this sense, this chapter has important implications for understanding immigrant children’s abilities to respond to forms of social exclusion by forming diverse peer groups and strong friendships of their own. These friendships offer them a path to combat the marginalization they experience in other domains of social life.
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Şeyda Deniz Tarım and Amy Kyratzis
Purpose – Disputes provide a way for children to negotiate how they stand in relationship to one another in the local peer group interaction (Goodwin, 1990, 2006). This study…
Abstract
Purpose – Disputes provide a way for children to negotiate how they stand in relationship to one another in the local peer group interaction (Goodwin, 1990, 2006). This study follows the everyday peer disputes and classroom negotiations of a peer group of 8-year-old to 12-year-old Turkish–English speaking (and Meskhetian Turkish–English–Russian speaking) children attending a Turkish Saturday School in the United States, where a monolingual Turkish norm is projected by the teachers, to see how these institutional language norms are used as a resource for the peers to conduct their everyday interactions.
Methodology/approach – This study combines methods of ethnography (data are drawn from a year-long ethnography which followed children's everyday language practices in two school settings) and talk-in-interaction, specifically Membership Categorization Analysis (Sacks, 1972, 1992).
Findings – Children draw upon the monolingual school norm of using Turkish only, and speaking Turkish correctly, by way of positioning themselves moment-to-moment during disputes with one another. Through repeated appeals to their teachers to relax the Turkish-only rule, they also collaboratively index “speaking English” as a positive category-bound activity (Cekaite & Evaldsson, 2008; Evaldsson, 2007), influencing the local moral order of the peer group.
Social implications/originality/value of chapter – The study provides a view of how children living in a transnational society orient to wider societal structures and “build the phenomenal and social worlds they inhabit” (Goodwin & Kyratzis, 2012) as part of their everyday disputes and negotiations with one another.
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Katharine Jones and Mark Glynn
This paper aims to investigate how social media usage by children determines their interactions with consumer brands. The paper also examines the nature of the processes evident.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how social media usage by children determines their interactions with consumer brands. The paper also examines the nature of the processes evident.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was implemented using both paired and single in-depth interviews of New Zealand children (both boys and girls) in the age group of 11-14 years. The data were analysed by thematic analysis of the interview transcripts.
Findings
The study demonstrates that children use three main processes – discerning, reacting and forming – when interacting with brands on social media. Each of these processes has different levels of interaction episodes depending on the amount of social media activity by each child. Discerning has noticing, a lower level of interaction and identifying which uses already internalised brand knowledge. Reacting consists of describing and evaluation which involves more active interaction resulting in opinion formation. Forming can involve a distant “watching” interaction or a more active relating behaviour when children are using multiple social media platforms.
Research limitations/implications
The study identifies three key modes of brand interaction behaviour when young consumers use social media, which each have two interactions. The implication for marketers, parents and policymakers is that there is a range of behaviours, both passive and active, that children show when interacting with consumer brands when using social media.
Practical implications
The current study offers a way to deepen the understanding of how children approach online communications with brands in the social media context. The research finds that the children’s use of social media is more active and dynamic than previously thought, giving rise to connections with brands that are meaningful to the children. Specific codes of practice for online brand marketers may be necessary so that children are helped to understand the commercial intent of brand practices on social media.
Social implications
The findings shed light on the range of interaction behaviour of young consumers, and such information provides insights into how children acquire brand knowledge, react to social media communication and decide the value of such communication for themselves. Brand marketers have a role to play in ensuring their brand communications practices avoid deception and clearly indicate commercial intent.
Originality/value
Investigating how children individually process brand information in a social media context provides insights into their interaction behaviour. These findings show differing levels of interest in both brand and social media activity amongst children.
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Regina Ahn and Michelle R. Nelson
The purpose of this paper is to examine the behaviors and social interactions among preschool children and their teachers during food consumption at a daycare facility. Using…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the behaviors and social interactions among preschool children and their teachers during food consumption at a daycare facility. Using social cognitive theory, the goal is to identify how role modeling, rules, behaviors and communication shape these young consumers’ health-related food consumption and habits.
Design/methodology/approach
This study was conducted in a US daycare facility among preschool children (aged four years) over a three-month period. Qualitative ethnographic methods included participant and non-participant observation of meals and snack-time.
Findings
Findings from the observations revealed that teachers’ food socialization styles and social interactions with peers cultivate children’s food consumption. In addition, commensality rules set by the childcare institution also help children learn other valuable behaviors (e.g. table manners and cleaning up).
Research limitations/implications
The study was conducted in one location with one age group so the results may not be generalized to all children. As more young children spend time in preschools and daycare centers, the understanding of how these settings and the caregivers and peers influence them becomes more important. Preschool teachers can influence their young students’ food consumption through their actions and words. Training teachers and cultivating educational programs about ways to encourage healthy eating habits could be implemented.
Originality/value
The paper offers observations of actual behaviors among young children in a naturalistic setting.
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Drawing on research findings from an ethnography conducted with young children, exploring notions of difference, identity and peer interactions, this study uncovers how four- and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on research findings from an ethnography conducted with young children, exploring notions of difference, identity and peer interactions, this study uncovers how four- and five-year-olds initiated and maintained peer interactions within a linguistically diverse Early Years setting in the North of England.
Methodology/approach
This study adopted an applied ethnographic approach to gain the emic perspectives of children in the reception class at Sunnyside over a full academic year. Over the course of this school year I spent a day a week with the class undertaking non-participant and participant observations alongside unstructured informal conversations and focused on visual research activities.
Findings
Language and identity were closely intertwined in children’s patterns of interaction at Sunnyside. For some children language had a functional value while for others it was a symbolic marker of identity. Similarly, for some children their minority language held valuable linguistic capital while for others their first or home language was viewed as being something to shun. For all the children language was only one factor that played a role in initiating and maintaining their peer interactions at school. These implications will be discussed in this chapter.
Originality/value
Situated in a particular local context, this study provides an in-depth insight into the experiences of a linguistically diverse group of children from North and Sub-Saharan African countries who have come together in a single school setting where Somali and Arabic are the two key languages that are spoken by children in the class. This chapter discusses how these children viewed languages within the classroom context and how other identity markers associated with ethnicity, religion and nationality intersected with language within the context of ‘being friends’ at Sunnyside.
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The overall aim of the chapter is to explore how preschoolers with different language backgrounds accomplish everyday interaction at a Swedish preschool, where the lingua franca…
Abstract
Purpose
The overall aim of the chapter is to explore how preschoolers with different language backgrounds accomplish everyday interaction at a Swedish preschool, where the lingua franca (common language) is Swedish. More specifically, it aims to analyze how the target children, despite their limited language resources in Swedish, use their existing communicative resources to make friends and achieve intersubjectivity in front of two alphabet charts illustrating the Arabic and Latin alphabets, respectively.
Methodology/approach
The data are drawn from a single play episode between three boys and a girl, aged four years. Their interaction was video-recorded, and the analytical framework of the study is influenced by ethnomethodological work on social action focusing particularly on participants’ methodical ways of accomplishing and making sense of social activities.
Findings
The analyses show that the children’s trajectory of achieving intersubjectivity was partly bothersome as their interpretation of the alphabet charts diverged, due to their different language knowledge and earlier experiences. Hence, to attain joint understanding and intersubjectivity, they used a range of communicative resources: besides speaking Swedish they used word mixing, attention-getters (“look” and “check it out”), and nonverbal moves such as pointing, gesturing, intone, and screaming. It is notable that, despite some problems in understanding, their desire to make friends and have fun together seemed to compensate for their joint failure to always understand each other.
Practical implications
Detailed analyses and observations of how children with diverse language backgrounds use their communicative resources to achieve intersubjectivity and make friends can be useful for preschool teachers’ understanding of how they can further support the children’s socialization and capturing of the majority language – here Swedish.
Originality/value
The present chapter contributes to a wider understanding of how second-language learning is a complex trajectory edged with both setbacks and successes, especially when all the children interacting have diverse language backgrounds and experiences. However, the analysis highlights how, in their endeavor to make friends, the children find ways to solve problems in situ in their own way, and enjoy each other’s company despite the fragility of the play and their language shortcomings.
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Purpose – Within the growing field of interactional research on children's interactions, the present study explores how social and moral order are established through embodied…
Abstract
Purpose – Within the growing field of interactional research on children's interactions, the present study explores how social and moral order are established through embodied practices in a multilingual kindergarten classroom. It explores the interactions of immigrant children (with very limited knowledge of Swedish as a second language) and the systematic formats of teachers’ questions employed during children's disputes and tattling (children's reports of peer group conflicts and accusations of untoward behaviour).
Methodology – The study is based on a video-ethnography (50 hours of recordings) in a multilingual kindergarten class for 6-year-olds in Sweden. The analytical approach combines Conversation Analysis (CA) with analysis of multimodally mobilized actions.
Findings – The analyses highlight how interactional meaning-making in conflict situations is accomplished with very limited linguistic resources. Children's tattle telling cornered teachers into the position of being a neutral authoritative agent who acted on their responsibility to resolve the conflict. Teachers reorganized tattle telling into a multiparty interrogation. Different interrogative formats were employed to establish a ‘factually correct’ description of the event. Teachers used open questions (‘what happened?’), ‘why’ and ‘yes/no’ interrogative formats. ‘Why’ questions were lexically designed to implicitly confirm the culpability of the accused child. ‘Yes/no’ questions invited the child's ratification of the teacher's version of the event.
Research implications – It is argued that research on children's social order will gain from understanding that conflict resolution in educational settings is a multilayered social practice that both presents a locus where the institutional order is (re)established and a locus where children's peer group concerns are played out.
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This chapter explores the role of language in constructing spaces of belonging in the relational lives of young migrant children in Ireland. In particular, it investigates how…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores the role of language in constructing spaces of belonging in the relational lives of young migrant children in Ireland. In particular, it investigates how friendship is negotiated in linguistically normative school spaces.
Methodology/approach
The chapter draws on the findings and analysis of a larger study of Irish childhoods, race and belonging. The research involved qualitative work with 42 children, from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds. Research was undertaken with classroom groups in two primary schools in a large town in the west of Ireland, and with a small sample of migrant children and their parents in family homes. Arts-based and visual methods were incorporated throughout the data collection process.
Findings
Findings from the research indicate intersections between constructions of belonging in linguistic spaces such as the school and possibilities/constraints for children’s peer friendships. While ‘home’ languages and bilingual ability were valued in home contexts, even these spaces were inflected by the ‘English-only’ exigencies of school and broader societal spaces. Regarding peer friendship, the findings show that proficiency in speaking English was central, both in terms of accessing friendship rituals through ‘talk’, and, importantly, in terms of narrativizing self as viable school pupil and peer.
Originality/value
The significance of this work lies in its examination of the complexity of language as it functions in children’s relational lives. As well as being a pragmatic skill in negotiating and maintaining friendship, it identifies language as a marker of belonging that is shaped by and shapes school spaces, and which has implications for children’s peer friendships in this context. As such, the study points to a role for schools in engaging with and promoting recognition of children’s multilingual resources.
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