Charlotte Højholt

Participant Observations of Children’s Communities—Exploring Subjective Aspects of Social Practice

This article contributes to ongoing discussions in psychology about how to explore psychological phenomena as embedded in social practice. While recognising the valuable contributions from ethnographic methodology, we argue that ethnographic explorations in psychology can be developed further in order to shed light on psychological problems in practice. As an exemplary empirical field, we draw on studies of the everyday life of children and how children’s problems in school can be understood and explored as part of their conduct of everyday life across contexts and together with others. Through concrete examples, we elucidate an approach where theoretical concepts guide how researchers conduct observations. It is concluded that such situated observations are at odds with a tendency in psychology to focus separately on isolated individual characteristics. Situated observations thus shift awareness from categorisations of individual children to conflictual social interplay between persons in social practice.

Children Participating and Developing Agency in and Across Various Social Practices

This article addresses how situated studies of children’s participation and social interplay can contribute to theory on the development of children. The article focuses on children’s personal agency in relation to conducting an everyday life across different social practices. The everyday life of children in Nordic countries constitutes a situation where children live their life across societal institutions (such as the family, kindergarten, school, institutions for children’s leisure time) and together with children of the same age. This draws attention to the meaning of child communities in relation to children’s personal development. Children’s families and peer relations intermingle and make up meanings for each other and for the children’s development of agency. This approach gives a certain view on social problems in relation to children’s life. In particular, the article will discuss the situated significations of social conflicts around and for children. The empirical background is several research projects observing and interviewing children and their adults in their different developmental settings, such as their family, kindergartens, schools, institutions for children’s leisure time and special help arrangements.

Psychological perspectives on children's conduct of everyday life

This texts is introducing the special Issue “Psychological perspectives on childrens conduct of everyday life” touching on the concept of conduct of everyday life and some of the theoretical debates in relation to this. The common aim of the issue is to unfold and explore the concepts potential meaning to a psychology for children and their development. By addressing development as persons activities and involvement in a collective, shared everyday life, the authors emphasize the relations between the context and the person as a dialectical relation of developing through the process of gaining access, influencing and contributing to the collective, social life conditions. In this way, the discussions of the text are dealing with some of the fundamental theoretical debates about persons and their social lives. The discussions in this special issue is anchored in the Nordic, pedagogical traditions, and draw on a number of different empirical research projects involved in childrens everyday life across different contexts, such as family, child care and school. Additionally the issue investigates different problematics related to childrens lives across the so called normal, and the special pedagogical area. Conclusively this text resumes the different articles in the special issues, their theme, intentions, main points and contributions to the development of the concepts of childrens conduct of everyday life.