Something to talk about: does the language use of pre-school teachers invite children to participate in democratic conversation?

Abstract

This article focuses on how kindergarten can encourage children's participation based on the idea of democratic community. The Norwegian Kindergartens Act emphasises children's right to participate and kindergarten is seen as an arena for learning. We discuss planned conversations between pre-school teachers and children during ongoing project-based work, and how the teacher's invitations advanced democratic practice in this educational environment. The research reveals that democratic approach occurred sporadically during the conversations. The choice and type of theme in projects plays a vital role for the children's engagements and language use. Different linguistic strategies were studied related to how teachers used questions, how they demonstrate their ways of listening, how they gave children time to think and how the teachers deal with the different experiences. The teachers often invite by questioning children, though a lot of questions did not seem to contribute the children's participations. This article draws attention to conversations characterised by democratic community and reveals dilemmas that need to be addressed.