Troubled Sleep in Early Childhood Education and Care: Exploring Contradictions Underlying Two Finnish Kindergarten Groups’ Sleep Time Practices

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  In Roundtable Session: Spaces for Emerging Expertise (Table 15)

Abstract

This microethnographic study explores the contradictions underlying sleep practices in early childhood education and care settings from a cultural-historical activity theory perspective. Drawing on interactional analysis of childrens’ and adults’ sleep time conduct in two Finnish kindergarten groups and an analysis of their interviews on sleep time troubles, the study provides a more nuanced and layered picture of the conflicting demands placed on sleep time in ECEC settings than existing research has been able to provide. Moreover, the study provides insights into how sleep time troubles are managed by the ECEC participants. By focusing on sleep time as an example of basic care activities prevalent in ECEC, the study also diversifies our current cultural-historical lines of research on ECEC.

Author

• Jaakko Hilppö, University of Helsinki