Abstract
AbstractBy examining Polish parents’ perceptions of outdoor activities in Norwegian Early Childhood Education (ECE), this chapter discusses how focusing on the child’s perspective can change and challenge parental gender-related value positions, thereby changing perceptions of the cultural formation taking place through outdoor activities. The empirical data on the basis of which this question is answered are comprised of group interviews with 30 Polish migrant parents (18 mothers and 12 fathers) whose children were in Norwegian ECEs. The applied theoretical toolkit of a cultural historical wholeness approach (Hedegaard M, Mind Cult Act 19:127–138, 2012) enables the description of (parental) experiences of cultural formation through outdoor activities as anchored in the value positions established within and across involved societies. It also allows us to grasp those moments when the focus on the child’s perspective in outdoor activities challenges parental value positions and cultural traditions of heteronormativity. The concluding remarks point to the importance of enhancing both the child’s perspective and the specific plane of interpersonal interactions in ECE collaborations with parents and caregivers.
Highlights
Apart from their other tasks, Norwegian Early Childhood Education (ECE) are expected to “work in close co- operation and agreement with the parents” (UDIR, 2017, p. 29), and these parents may sometimes represent other value positions and thereby have different perspectives on various institutional practices as well as the cultural formation that takes place through them.This chapter examines Polish parents’ perceptions of outdoor activities in Norwegian ECEs and their children’s cultural formation taking place through these outdoor activities
As seen in the empirical quotations below, the parents operate with a general concept of outdoor activities; the presentation of the results starts with a list of the outdoor activities that were detected across the whole research material
4.8.1.1 “Manning the Boys Up”: Outdoor Activities Safeguarding Heteronorm. Those parents who declared themselves to be gender-traditional and who were parents of boys perceived the outdoor activities in the ECE as “good for the boys” (Father 4, technical secondary education, 9 years in Norway)
Summary
This chapter examines Polish parents’ perceptions of outdoor activities in Norwegian ECEs and their children’s cultural formation taking place through these outdoor activities This creates a foundation to discuss how a focus on the child’s perspective on the process of cultural formation through outdoor activities can change or challenge parental perceptions of these activities, challenging the silent assumptions regarding heteronormativity present in the institutional lives of modern Western societies. We present the research project, including its methodology, a presentation of the participants, and the results These findings form the final basis for the discussion, which focuses on the possibility of challenging conservative gender attitudes as well as heteronormativity in general by including the child’s perspective on cultural formation through outdoor activities
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