In this article, I approach day care centers as stages upon which various small stories are constructed and performed by young children and other interlocutors. The aim of the article is two-fold. Methodologically, the paper is a tentative application of Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective onto narrative research with children. Empirically, the aim is to explore day care centers as narrative environments that constitute children’s lives and identities. I anchor my analysis and interpretation of research material, collected in two groups of children, in three perspectives. Firstly, I focus on the spatial practices of the day care centers, framing the construction of small stories. Secondly, I deal with the production of small stories between cultural routines and active reconstruction. Finally, I draw attention to children’s identity construction as a continuous process influenced by a variety of individual, material, contextual, cultural, and interactional factors.
2016. A Narrative Inquiry about Values in a Finnish Preschool: The Case of Traffic Lights. International Journal of Early Childhood 48:2 ► pp. 193 ff.
Karjalainen, Satu
2020. Joy as a practice: performing joy in children’s everyday relations in early childhood education settings. Early Child Development and Care 190:10 ► pp. 1654 ff.
Keränen, Virve, Elina Viljamaa & Minna Uitto
2021. Touch in children’s everyday peer relations in preschools. Childhood 28:1 ► pp. 86 ff.
Kinnunen, Susanna & Anna-Maija Puroila
2016. ‘If my sister was here’ – The narrative in-between space in young children’s photography process. Childhood 23:2 ► pp. 236 ff.
Moran, Lisa, Kathy Reilly & Bernadine Brady
2021. Concluding Comments: Challenges, Opportunities and Future Directions in Narrative Inquiry. In Narrating Childhood with Children and Young People [Studies in Childhood and Youth, ], ► pp. 405 ff.
Piipponen, Oona & Liisa Karlsson
2019. Children encountering each other through storytelling: Promoting intercultural learning in schools. The Journal of Educational Research 112:5 ► pp. 590 ff.
Piipponen, Oona & Liisa Karlsson
2021. ‘Our stories were pretty weird too’ – Children as creators of a shared narrative culture in an intercultural story and drawing exchange. International Journal of Educational Research 106 ► pp. 101720 ff.
Puroila, Anna-Maija
2019. Who Am I? Shaping Young Children’s Identities Through Everyday Narratives. In Story in Children’s Lives: Contributions of the Narrative Mode to Early Childhood Development, Literacy, and Learning [Educating the Young Child, 16], ► pp. 55 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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