Norwegian and Nordic phenomena of (self-)formation – Historical perspectives on early childhoods

Project summary

From different historical perspectives the project addresses the question of what key lines and tangles of development and features are of early childhood education and danning such as it has emerged in the Nordics in the last century or so (in full diversity), to give (nonetheless) the impression of a ‘Nordic model’ of early childhood education and care. From a historiographical perspective the project in turn addresses the question of how history of Nordic early childhood education can be figured as having to do with sustainability, referring to presents and futures as much as to pasts (for example, in terms of pursued safeguarding – through imagined childhoods and early childhood education – of particular values, skills, dispositions, behaviours, forms of knowledge, senses of belonging, and sites of teaching, learning and cultural formation, etc.

The aim of this project is to engage in (post)critical, (post)reflective, ethically responsible ways in the shaping of knowledge about early childhood-, kindergarten- and kindergarten teacher education and danning. We set out to map dense space-time points in the development of such forms of education and entangled experiences on the part of selected actors. We also consider ideas and imagined ideals that have helped shape Norwegian and Nordic experiences concerning early childhood education and danning related to relevant (inter)national events, organisations, and charters and other publications. Links and references to the latter may serve as didactic resources for kindergarten (teacher) education and as resources of anyone keen to know more about developments in early childhood education and danning and the kindergarten sector. History in these areas is not thought of in static linear-temporal terms as the distanced study of an immutable, bygone past. Rather, history – just as childrearing and danning and play and art (Ødegaard and Krüger 2012) – is understood as something fluid, processual, which etymologically captures practices of both seeking knowledge and effecting knowledge through precisely such seeking (Thyssen et al . 2021; see also Barad 2017).[1]

So far, the project consists of these four main parts:

1. Dense space-time points (key nodes, tangling lines) in the development of early childhood-, kindergarten- and kindergarten teacher education in Norway and the Nordics and beyond
2. Oral histories of selected actors who can be thought of as "untimely" (Grosz 2004; 2010) [2]
3. Historical analyses of key documents to explore key current and past questions through each other in more detail
4. Exploratory investigations related to children, materiality and historical artefacts and places such as museums etc.

The project started in 2009 with historical research on key documents in search of ideas and imagined ideals concerning early childhood- and kindergarten (teacher) education and danning. Such research can help analyse past and present issues in more detail through one another, not least with a view to facilitating possible (just and sustainable) futures. Materials resulting from this should provide insight and knowledge but also inspiration and provocation.

We also sought out people with long professional experience and unique personal stories to tell about education and danning in early childhood and the kindergarten field. With Grosz (2010), such people can be perceived as "untimely", as both of and "beyond" their time, in the sense that their work and experiences still have unused potential for the present and future, manifest past in the materialising present, and open up unknown "be-more"-s and "be-other"-s. The main selection criterion adopted was that people had to have stories to tell that could help rethink various aspects of the development of early childhood- and kindergarten (teacher) education and danning.

These untimely actors’ stories are assembled in the form of digital narratives and mini documentary films. Through life history interviews, the project elicits living and personal voices. Various aspects of history of early childhood- and kindergarten (teacher) education and danning are documented and disseminated in this way.

The research group has worked with narratology, source critique and reflexivity to produce narratives that not only are the actors' own private stories but that can offer new insights and understanding for Norwegian and Nordic early childhood education and history of education more generally.

In addition to this work, it was also proceeded with carving out spacetime lines in the development of early childhood- and kindergarten (teacher) education and danning in Norway and the Nordics and beyond. An ongoing work is to further develop these lines and facilitate new research nodes for early childhood education research.

The latest work added involves studies on the meaning of history, heritage, sustainability, materiality, artefacts, and places. In a series of exploratory studies and videos, we collaborate with kindergartens and museums that have an interest in the historical project, in cultural and educational heritage, and the involvement of children of a very young age in the creation of history. Here, posthumanist theories and methodologies are an inspiration.

Method

Historical methods (such as source critique, text analysis (document and discourse analysis), narrative inquiry, biography, posthumanist/new materialist analysis (such as diffraction), video documentation.