The Entangled Intersection of Children’s and Educators’ Engagement in the Educational Environment of a Preschool

Abstract

AbstractThe study presented in this article shows some aspects of how children between the ages of three and five and their educators perceive and describe the educational environment in early childhood education in Sweden. The data is generated using pedagogical walk-throughs with the educators and camera tours together with the children. The study is conducted as a case study with three municipalities as cases and shows how materiality, places and relationships appear in the intersection of the educators’ and children’s verbal and visual descriptions of the indoor educational environment. We put diffractive readings to work to follow the entangled inter-connections and the intra-acting agency of the sociomaterial assemblages. These assemblages consist of different types of materiality, spatial conditions, the educators’ verbal descriptions, the children’s photographs and their verbal and bodily actions when using the cameras. The findings suggest that children and educators use, engage in and relate to the educational environment and materiality in both different and similar ways. Moreover, the children transform the educational setting organised by the educators as place changers, while materiality constructs places as placemaking materiality.