Eila Estola

Does Santa exist? Children’s everyday narratives as dynamic meeting places in a day care centre context

The article attempts to answer the question: What is the nature of children’s everyday narratives in a day care centre context? The theoretical framework of this study is based on a narrative approach. The research material was gathered through applying the methodology of narrative ethnography. The article is based on observational material collected from three groups of children within day care centres over the course of one year. The material was analysed through dialogic analysis of narratives. For the purpose of the article, one narrative is used as an evocative anecdote to illustrate research findings revealing the emerging nature of children’s narratives characterised by fragmentariness, multimodality, collaboration and a complex relationship between narrative and context. The article challenges the predominant formalist discourse on children’s narratives, and suggests utilising the pedagogical potential of young children’s narratives in the day care centre context.

Having, loving, and being: children's narrated well-being in Finnish day care centres

The aim of this study is to answer the following question: what do children tell about their well-being in Finnish day care centres? The theoretical and methodological framework of this study is based on a narrative approach. The research material was collected by participating in the everyday life of three groups of children and listening to their narratives. The research material, consisting of observations and tape-recorded conversations, is reflected in a model of well-being developed by a Finnish sociologist, Erik Allardt. This model consists of three dimensions: having, loving, and being. With the intention of understanding childrens well-being, the meanings of having, loving, and being are explored. Instead of arguing for one objective truth, this study offers diverse narratives, conveying both positive and negative experiences of childrens well-being. The most positive experiences deal with inspiring and enabling material environment, responsive adults, good friends, and opportunities for meaningful activities. Darker shades permeate the narratives characterised by unyielding institutional structures, childrens separateness from adults, the exclusion from peer relationships, and not being respected as a subject. This study demonstrates both potentials and limitations involved in narrative methodology when exploring young childrens experienced well-being.

Gender and emotions in relationships: a group of teachers recalling their own teachers

This narrative inquiry analyses the memories of a group of female teachers telling about their own teachers. We ask how gender and emotions are intertwined to teacher–student relationships. Gender was present in the stories where the teachers described being a schoolgirl in relationship with a teacher and told about their teachers as women and men. The collective process of recalling evoked the emotions experienced as students, but these emotions were also interpreted in the present context. When recalling, the teachers were reconstructing the past in the light of the present and the future. The article highlights the significance for teachers reflecting on their own educational histories.

Well-Being Narratives and Young Children.

Abstract Whereas research on children’s well-being in education has largely focused on adult perspectives rather than on children’s understandings, recent scholarship argues for a stronger focus on children’s experience and perceptions of their own well-being. Adopting a narrative approach, this article puts children’s stories centre stage as we explore a philosophy of well-being for early childhood in two distant but similar countries, Finland and Aotearoa New Zealand. The article reports on two independent narrative studies (one from Finland, the other from New Zealand) in which children tell about their own well-being. Both studies acknowledge the difficulties in obtaining unfettered access to children’s experiences and emphasize the importance of human connectedness and community in children’s lives. After a brief introduction, the article compares eudaimonic and hedonic conceptualizations of well-being. In keeping with the characteristics of narrative, children’s perspectives form the central core of the text, with tentative observations offered by the author/researchers as they attempt to interpret the embedded context of the children’s narratives. Connections are made between the two philosophical understandings of well-being and some pedagogical considerations about children’s lives.

Silenced Truths: Relational and Emotional Dimensions of a Beginning Teacher's Identity as Part of the Micropolitical Context of School

This article focuses on teacher identity. Based on two small stories told in a peer group by a beginning teacher, we ask: How does a beginning teacher tell about her identity as part of the micropolitical context of school? Theoretically and methodologically, the research is committed to a narrative approach in understanding teacher identity. The material consists of small stories based on videotaped peer group discussions of 11 Finnish teachers. The results of the research illustrate the micropolitical context at the heart of how a beginning teachers identity is constructed through diverse emotionally significant relationships. Narrative ways of working, such as group discussions, can offer teachers an opportunity to recognize different dimensions of their identity.

‘I’ve let myself get tired’ – one teacher’s self-reflection process in a peer group

This paper adds a new perspective to the research on teachers’ reflection by applying the concept of self-reflection developed in psychotherapy studies. The study focuses on the self-reflection process of one teacher in a facilitated peer group. The peer group was formed to promote the participating teachers’ well-being and to support them in their work. Methodologically, the group was based on the idea of narrative approach in which the sharing of personal experiences could offer new ways of looking at personal and professional experiences. The research material consisted of videotaped group sessions. Dialogical Sequence Analysis (DSA), originally developed for therapy contexts, was applied as a method of studying changes in the teachers’ self-reflection. The results indicate that peer groups can contribute to the self-reflection process by (1) supporting the self-understanding that permits an altered relationship with the original experiences, and (2) offering more realistic views of one’s professional options. The results highlight the meaning of self-reflection of more personal experiences from the perspective of work life.

The Gift Paradigm in Early Childhood Education

This paper promotes a philosophy derived from the direct distribution of goods to needs that occur in mothering and invisibly in many other aspects of life. Such a philosophy is suggested as an alternative to market based values, which currently permeate society. It is important to bring alternative values to consciousness and validate them for both teachers and children so that the orientation towards the other that characterizes the gift paradigm will not be lost in the fight for survival endemic to a market society. The hope is that we can find solutions that are viable for all. After presenting this philosophy, we show how it already exists among educators and children, and we suggest ways in which it may be validated and promoted in early childhood education.

Narrative Pedagogies for Peer Groups

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to feature exemplars of narrative pedagogies used in teacher education in Finland. The theoretical framework of the chapter is based on two commitments. First, we argue that narrative pedagogies are meaningful, since becoming and being a teacher is a constantly changing and developing identity story. Narrative pedagogies also link to the notion of “participant knowledge,” in contrast to “spectator knowledge,” which has been the dominant view on epistemology in the modern scientific world. Participant knowledge is something typically narrative in nature, which has much to do with emotional and expressive ways of understanding the world around us. In this chapter, we first introduce practices of autobiographical writing as examples how to promote skills of critical reflection. We then introduce narrative pedagogies, which have been organized for peer groups. During the first project, a special method, KerToi, was developed both for preservice and in-service teacher education. The newest model is the Peer-Group Mentoring (PGM) model, in which peer group practices were further developed to support early career teachers in Finland, and to be used as the European Paedeia Cafe model. We conclude that narrative pedagogies in Finnish teacher education offer an excellent environment that links theoretical, spectator knowledge to participant knowledge. The narrative approach to peer-group mentoring can be seen as a promising pedagogy, which can promote a more humane teacher education experience and reinforce the professional and personal growth of future teachers.

Issues of responsibility when conducting research in a northern rural school

This article focuses on how interaction meetings between researchers and research participants in a northern Finnish village and its village school develop the researchers’ sense of responsibility as part of their research ethics. The ethics of caring is often seen as the root of the ethics of responsibility, but the authors suggest listening to both the “justice voice” and “caring voice.” Reflecting on the research project and on events in the field, three senses of responsibility are distinguished and described: one, the responsibility for relationships; two, political responsibility; and three, the responsibility to maintain a democratic process when presenting results. We argue that the local and bodily experiences of a researcher in the field give a researcher new emplaced knowledge that transforms his or her sense of responsibility.

The challenges to discussing emotionally loaded stories in Finnish teacher education

Abstract It has been increasingly acknowledged that emotions are a significant dimension in teachers’ work and professional development, and an inseparable part of reflection promoted in the research-based teacher education. However, at the same time the difficulty of prompting student-teachers to reflect on their emotions in teacher education has been recognised. This article focuses on this difficulty by examining how emotionally loaded stories about teachers’ work were dealt with by soon-to-graduate Finnish student-teachers attending peer group mentoring sessions. We illustrate this group-level phenomenon (the challenge of discussing emotionally loaded stories) through the examples provided by one of the participants, Hannele (pseudonym). Our results revealed that emotionally loaded stories in this peer group were often responded to with laughter and humour or via masking or silencing. Participants seemed to avoid deeper emotional reflection on uncertainty related to oneself and to the teaching profession, therefore maintaining an image of a proper (student) teacher. Our results have implications for both peer group mentoring and pre-service teacher education.