"When the Bell Rings, We Go Inside and Learn": Listening to Children Talk About Entering Kindergarten

• In Event: 29.062 - Implementing Child Participation-Based Research in Four National Contexts

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to impart children’s perspectives on the rituals and routines associated with getting ready for school so that adults can better support them as they enter into kindergarten and the primary grades. In accordance with Article 12 and 13 of the United Nation Convention’s on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), children were asked to express their views on kindergarten, in ways that acknowledge the multiple languages of children and childhoods. As such, an intention of this paper is to encourage adults to create opportunities for children to contribute to discourses centered on readiness and the transition to school.

Methods and Data Sources
A subset of interview transcripts from a large-scale qualitative research study in the southwestern U.S. was analyzed for this study. Specifically, the transcripts from interviews conducted with 13 children, ranging in age from 4.5 to 5.5 years, were obtained. The Mosaic Approach (Clark & Moss, 2001) provided the guidance and tools needed to interview children in “child friendly” ways. To elicit children’s perspectives, interviewers used various techniques to build conversations with children including, using writing/drawing materials, and puppets and other play materials to allow them to express themselves in mediums other than conversation.

Theoretical Framework
Corsaro’s (2005) ideas on interpretive reproduction and childhood symbolic culture and childhood material culture were used to study the ways children make sense of the transition to kindergarten and being in school. According to Corsaro, as children engage in cultural routines they interpret, apply, and (re)produce information derived from their participation in social groups. He states, “The habitual taken-for-granted character of routines provides children and all social actors with the security and shared understanding of belonging to a social group” (2005, p. 19). Transcripts were analyzed using an “inductive and interpretive” approach (Corsaro and Molinari, 2005) to identify the routines and experiences that helped children build an understanding of what it means to be a kindergartener.

Results and Conclusions
Findings from this study contribute nuanced understandings of what children experience during the transition, what they learn about kindergarten, and how they make meaning of school rules and routines. Generally, children recognize kindergarten is regimented school experience, defined by work and the guidance and discipline rules and routines established in classrooms. For example, one child stated, “First in the morning, in the a.m. class, I always do work, lots of work, and then we go out for recess.”

Scientific or Scholarly Significance
In large part, research conducted in the United States on the transition to kindergarten emphasizes adults’ concerns and expectations for starting school. Further, the studies that relate to school readiness and the transition to kindergarten are primarily conducted with the intent of making decisions for and about children, not with children, and underscore performance or outcomes-based evaluations of ‘readiness’. This study provides evidence children have meaningful things to say about their life (and school experiences), and their perspectives can be used to facilitate transition practices that align with their needs, concerns or interests.

Author

• Lacey Elizabeth Peters, Hunter College - CUNY