Merja Koivula

Reconsidering passivity and activity in children’s digital play

The discussion around children’s digital game culture has resulted in two contradictory images of children: the passive, antisocial children uncritically and mechanically consuming digital game content and the active, social children creatively using and interacting with digital game content. Our aim is to examine how these seemingly contradictory ideas of “active” and “passive” children could be considered. By means of empirical examples of children playing digital dress-up and makeover games, we will point out that for the successful use of these concepts, they need to be thoroughly contextualized. By discussing the context and referent of activity and passivity, it is possible to overcome the unnecessary polarization of the discourses on children’s digital game culture. If the purpose is to advance the multidisciplinary discussion on digital games and childhood, the naive or careless use of the concepts of activity and passivity should be avoided.

Building children’s sense of community in a day care centre through small groups in play

Abstract This study examines the process through which children build a sense of community in small groups in a day care centre. The study asks the following: how does children’s sense of community develop, and what are its key features? Data were collected by applying ethnographic methods in a group of three- to five-year-old children over eleven months. The results show that children’s sense of community developed through three stages. In the first stage, it evolved gradually through experiences in joint play. In the second stage, stable friendships were formed and strengthened in play. In the third and final stage, sense of community was fully established and children’s emotional bonding was strong, manifesting itself in affective and physical closeness, sharing and caring and togetherness.

The Emotion Detectives Game: Supporting the Social-emotional Competence of Young Children

The potential of digital games to enhance learning in different areas of child development has drawn increasing interest amid growing concern about children’s emotional well-being, social-emotional difficulties, and problem behaviors alongside diminishing economic resources for intervention and habilitation. However, digital games designed to promote social-emotional competence are surprisingly scarce. In this chapter, we explore children’s use of the digital game Emotion Detectives (ED), designed to promote children’s acquisition of emotional knowledge skills (e.g., recognizing, appreciating, and understanding emotions and their expressions), prosocial behaviors (e.g., helping, sharing, comforting, and showing concern for others), and problem-solving abilities. Analyzing children’s gameplay sessions in two Finnish day care centers improved understanding of children’s gameplay experiences, social-emotional knowledge, and collaborative learning. From the double effect of practicing social-emotional skills simultaneously in the game and in peer interactions, ED has the potential to be an effective learning environment for children. The game’s humorous features, creative opportunities, and possibilities to make progress while playing clearly motivated children to learn.

Digital Games in Early Childhood: Broadening Definitions of Learning, Literacy, and Play

Digital games attract children and young people with imaginary worlds, fascinating stories, and shared experiences with peers. They also can add children’s learning and motivation and offer a variety of new affordances to explore and play with. The pedagogical use of digital games has been found to potentially intensify a more critical use and understanding of varied forms of media. In this chapter, we will focus on analyzing the role of digital games in early childhood, especially from the perspectives of learning, literacy, and play. This chapter examines digital games as playing an essential role in young children’s overall technology experiences, particularly in the context of the social dynamics of families and children’s other close communities. In our mind, the analysis of young children’s learning while they are engaged in digital games in informal contexts furthers our understanding of the potential of game-based learning in formal early childhood education settings.

Finnish and Greek early childhood teachers’ perspectives and practices in supporting children’s autonomy

ABSTRACT Kindergarten teachers from different cultural backgrounds attribute various meanings to children’s autonomy. There seems to be cultural differences in early childhood education curricula with regard to how a child’s autonomy is described and how it is supported. This qualitative study asks: how do teachers narrate their perspective and pedagogical support of children’s autonomy, and what kinds of similarities and differences in the pedagogy and practices can be found in Finnish and Greek early childhood education (ECEC) contexts? The data of this qualitative study consist of a semi-structured questionnaire of 14 kindergarten teachers and observations of their pedagogical practices in the day care groups of 4- to 5-year-old children. The results suggest that teachers’ overall conception of autonomy was identical, but the different cultural contexts and curriculums affected the way the teachers emphasized and valued different dimensions of autonomy.