Adult-Child Joint Play in Turmoil: Can Play Overcome the Challenges of Performativity in Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care?

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Abstract

Play has had a strong place in Finnish ECEC. Also in the newest ECEC 2016 curriculum guidelines in Finland adult-child joint play, and adult’s participation in children’s play, is recognized as valuable both developmentally and from the perspective of equity. Teachers are encouraged to create joint playworlds together with the children. At the same time, preschools in Finland have met rising expectations of efficiency, leading to pressures to demonstrate performance (Author 6, 2015). In this paper we will critically analyze the possibilities and challenges for adult-child joint play in Finnish preschools in the era of accountability.

Our paper draws from the results of two recent studies. The first study (Author 1, 2017b) uses diaries of 13 Finnish preschool teachers, document aided interviews of the teachers and ethnographic data from one preschool group. In this study, the concept of ‘imaginary’ (Jessop, 2010) that highlights the intertwining of governing tools and discourses is used as an analytical tool: Each act reported by a teacher is examined from the point of view of which discourses teacher uses to justify the act and from the point of view of what kinds of governing practices surround the situation. The second study (Author 7, 2010) is an ethnographic case study of a play pedagogical project in a Finnish preschool, and uses narrative interaction analysis on video-based interaction data to study children’s agency in the playworld pedagogy. Our findings suggest that outcome-based governance tools, together with the discourses of individual rights and preparing for further life, direct the everyday practices of ECEC to require children to excessively adapt to rigid, narrowing institutional demands (Author 1, 2017a). Consequently, there are signs that the principles of equity and democratic participation in Finnish ECEC are diminishing. One of the reasons for this is the lack of adult involvement in play.

Teachers felt that some children needed teacher’s help joining and engaging joint play in order to have a sense of belonging and agency - teachers found play essential to ensure equity. Yet, play activities often received minimum input from adults, especially in the situations where different aims conflicted. Activities that were more directly organized by teachers (such as making animations and planting a vegetable garden) were usually selected when the teacher needed to decide between engaging in different activities. This shows that although there is a clear appreciation of adult-child joint play both in the ECEC curriculum as in the practitioners’ talk, teachers feel that there are rarely opportunities for systematic organization of such play.
However, at its best, adult-child joint play can enhance children’s agency and active participation and make visible (and workable) several contradictions that influence preschool teachers’ work (Author 8, 2016). Such play might therefore have an underexamined potential in solving problems related to the recent challenges in ECEC, such as schoolification development and inequalities regarding children's possibilities to influence their everyday life. Based on the second study (Author 7, 2010) we will discuss the possibilities and pitfalls of developing joint playworlds at times of scarce resources and tightening pressures.

Authors

• Maiju Paananen, University of Helsinki

• Anna Pauliina Rainio, University of Helsinki