Young children and their conduct of everyday life

Abstract

The article presents findings from a practice research project dealing with the everyday life of 0–2 year olds across family and different day-care settings. From a critical psychological perspective, it explores three related issues: Young children's conduct of everyday life in and across different institutional settings; professional pedagogical work related to supporting children's conduct of everyday life, and finally, the restricted political and bureaucratic conditions for exactly these forms of pedagogical practice. The article addresses the theoretical challenge of understanding children through their conduct of everyday life in the field of tension between being someone who is dependent on others, being taken care of and arranged for – and, at the same time, someone who is actively participating, arranging and contributing to the reproduction and change of the collective life conditions in the social practice of day-care. These compound processes include the professional's complex efforts to support the many children's personal conduct of everyday life in and across their different life arenas, involving ongoing situated and sensitive exploration of children's perspectives through observations, conversations and collaborative processes with the different children, colleagues, families in the day-care environment. However, at the same time, exactly these situated explorative processes tend to be unheeded as professional in the more explicit professional explanations of problems in day-care. Through a discussion of this apparent contradiction and the conditions for developing a more situated approach, the article aims to contribute to the current professional and political discussions about day-care practice for the youngest children.