Exploring children’s participation from Froebelian practitioners’ perspectives in Scottish context

Abstract

ABSTRACT Participation has been discussed as a multi-layered concept with varied outlooks on children’s lived experiences. Children’s participation occupies a complicated terrain in that whose participation counts and how it manifests itself within complex adult–child relations are enduring questions in the early childhood field. This qualitative study explored early years practitioners’ perspectives about children’s participation through their Froebelian lenses in the Scottish context. Semi-structured in-depth interviews (n = 14) were conducted online (May 2020–September 2020). As a result of the thematic analysis, three interrelated themes unfold practitioners’ conceptualisations of children’s participation: (i) listening to children’s perspectives, (ii) acting upon children’s perspectives and (iii) active learning and development. The study shows that Froebelian approaches open diverse intellectual spaces for practitioners to consider children’s participation, agency and competency alongside everyday pedagogical encounters. Children’s participation, which was not a common concept in Froebel’s time, is reconceptualised by the practitioners in this research and identified as a substantial but fluid concept in children’s multiple experiences, which is also acknowledged as children’s rights.