Guiding children towards individual and collective growth. Educative participatory experiences in a preschool setting

ABSTRACT

This article is based on a fieldwork study that explored a 1-year-long process of integrating children's human rights-respecting practice in a preschool through a project with a popular culture theme. Drawing on John Dewey's educational theory, educative participatory experience is suggested as a useful concept to further understand and develop different forms of participation practices. The twofold aim of the article is to demonstrate the children's educative participatory experiences and relate these to the teacher's acknowledgement of both children's collective agency and their individual capacity to participate. The methods used are semi-structured interviews and video-documented and participatory observations. The data mainly consists of field notes, video recordings, photographs and transcripts. The results show that the teachers are viewing the children, and providing possibilities for them to act, as knowledgeable experts, competent conflict-solvers and reflective and caring practitioners. Furthermore, they consider both the children's individual and collective rights and responsibilities when creating a rights-respecting preschool environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education
• popular culture
• participation
• John Dewey
• children's rights

Introduction

Participation is one of the keystones of children's human rights and is expressed in a number of articles in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Article 12 (United Nations 1989) in particular states that children have the right to be consulted and their opinions should be taken seriously when making decisions that concern them. They also have the right to express their views and communicate in ways that they prefer. Several studies show how educators can play a significant role in enhancing participation in early childhood educational practices (e.g. Emilson 2007; MacNaughton, Hughes, and Smith 2007; Bae 2009; Fleer 2009; Covell, Howe, and McNeil 2010; Hudson 2012; Emilson and Johansson 2013;Venninen et al. 2014).

In conformity with the UNCRC, the curriculum for preschools in Sweden emphasises the importance of imparting and establishing respect for human rights and fundamental democratic values through participation (The Swedish National Agency for Education 2018). Educating children about their human rights by encouraging and supporting various forms of involvement and democratic decision-making in everyday preschool practice is therefore perceived as an important task for the preschool teacher. However, previous research identifies several obstacles to implementing children's participation rights in early childhood educational settings.

First, teachers’ view of preschool children as immature, irrational and incompetent, due to their low age or supposed lack of experiences and knowledge, leads to a general underestimation of children's capacity for participation (MacNaughton, Hughes, and Smith 2007; Bae 2009; Dunphy 2012). Second, the interpretation of what participation in preschool means in praxis varies considerably, particularly among the youngest children (Quennerstedt 2016). Children's involvement can be limited to choosing between pre-decided alternatives, or their views may not be taken into account if considered inappropriate or irrelevant in decision-making processes: in other words, participation takes place merely on the adult's terms (Emilson and Johansson 2013; Konstantino 2013).

Third, although the UNCRC states that parents and governments are responsible for upholding children's rights, it is also important that the children discover the inevitable connection between rights and responsibilities: while enacting their rights, children also have a responsibility to respect the freedoms and rights of others (Howe and Covell 2010). For instance, as a child you have the right to play, which means that you also must respect the play of others by not disturbing or disrupting it. There is a tendency, especially in the Nordic countries, to neglect collective rights by focusing on the individual rights of the child, instead of ensuring that all children be given the same opportunity to participate on equal terms (Johansson et al. 2016).

The aim of the study and its contribution to the research field

This article contributes to the research field by offering a new concept – educative participatory experience – to support teachers’ development of participation practices which are equally based on children's individual and collective rights and responsibilities. While previous research is often based on the sociology of childhood, we take another theoretical stance by using the educational philosophy of John Dewey in the elaboration of this concept. In this way, we contribute to the theorising of the rather untheorised field of children's human rights (see Quennerstedt and Quennerstedt 2014).

This study is based on fieldwork conducted in a Swedish preschool and is part of a broader research project that investigates the role of education for children's development as holders and practitioners of human rights. Drawing on John Dewey's concepts of experience and growth, the teachers’ year-long process of integrating children's human rights through a themed project of popular culture is explored in view of two aims: (i) to demonstrate what can be interpreted as children's educative participatory experiences and (ii) to relate these to the teacher's acknowledgement of both children's collective agency and their individual capacity to participate.

The fieldwork, methods and empirical material

The fieldwork of the study was conducted in a Swedish preschool over a period of 4 months, approximately 60 h, although interviews were done before and after this period. The preschool unit was recommended to us by local principals when we asked for early childhood educational settings where teachers were striving to integrate children's human rights in everyday practice. It consisted of a group of 21 children aged 3–5 years (10 boys and 11 girls), and one male (Carl) and two female (Alice and Bea) preschool teachers, who had at least 8 years of working experience in preschools. When invited to take part in the study, the teachers were asked to undertake teaching about children's human rights. However, they were free to choose the educational content and working methods and were given no further instructions or guidance by the researcher.

The main methods used were in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and video-documented as well as participatory observation. The interviews with the preschool teachers individually and in pairs were done before, during and after their children's human rights-themed project. A wide variety of everyday routines and activities were observed including both children's free play and teacher-led assemblies indoors. During observations, the researcher alternated between filming with less interaction with the children and actively participate without filming, for example by taking part in play situations, assisting the children in different tasks or engaging in conversations. The data consists of field notes, video recordings, transcripts, photographs, the children's stories and art work, as well as the teacher's own visual and textual documentation of their themed project.

Ethical considerations and analysis process

Ethical principles relating to basic individual protection requirements were followed (Swedish Research Council 2017) with regard to information, informed consent, confidentiality and the use of data. These requirements were met orally and in writing by informing the preschool staff, the children and their parents about the purpose of the study and their right to refrain from participation. All but one child's parents gave their consent. When this child approached the camera angle, the camera was switched off or turned in another direction. Initially the children were interested of the hand-held camera and allowed to use it, but after a few days they mostly ignore the researcher who was filming while walking or sitting next to them. Before each filming session, however, the researcher asked for the present children's oral permission to film. Any inconvenience or unwillingness to participate during filming was fully respected. This required careful observations and a high level of creativity and reflexivity, since it could be expressed nonverbally by walking away or shutting the door of the playroom. Eventually, the children perceived the researcher as an adult friend rather than a teacher and often invited her to film their play (see Warin 2011).

The analysis was conducted in several steps. At first, the whole year-long themed project was summarised by mapping its overall structure and progress in relation to the teachers’ pedagogical intentions. Subsequently, the process was divided into three phases: the inventory phase; the (re) interpretative and implementing phase and the reflective phase. Thereafter, various forms of participation practices during the different phases were identified as well as their educative potential in terms of (a) being based on the interest and/or previous experiences of the children (b) including different sorts of equally valued expression and communication (c) allowing shared power and mutual respect for each child's participatory rights. Finally, these educative participatory experiences were thematised according to the teacher's notion of the child as an active participant (see Patton 2002).

In the following, we introduce the concept of educative participatory experiences by first turning to the educational philosopher John Dewey and then discuss the concept in relation to other theoretical models of participation.

Education as a process of growth

For John Dewey, education is a continuous process of growth. He views the child as an active social agent with the inherent capacity to grow, and this growth is not to be enforced or elicited by adults: ‘Growth is not something done to them; it is something they do’ (Dewey 1916/1944, 42).

Growth denotes a process through which the children strengthen their capacity to fully participate in the world; not only to adapt and adjust to different circumstances and contexts but also to reconstruct, improve and change them. Accordingly, Dewey also links children's plasticity to ‘the ability to learn from experiences; the power to retain from one experience something which is of avail in coping with the difficulties of a later situation. This means the power to modify actions on the basis of the result of prior experiences …  ’ (Dewey 1916/1944, 44).

Learning and growing through educational experiences

Throughout his work, Dewey often returns to the concept of experience. However, to be educative, the experience needs to stimulate growth. Also, the educational experience is grounded in children's interests and builds on their previous knowledge and experiences to lead to a new understanding of the world and a development of new capacities and skills. The experience must be interesting and captivating, so the child becomes fully engaged and absorbed by it. Further learning and development of skills will then occur naturally, since the child sees the purpose of acquiring more knowledge about the topics (or interests) involved. In other words, by continuing to explore and reflect upon experiences their knowledge and skills expand and deepen (Dewey 1938/1997). Ultimately, Dewey insists that the main content of the curriculum should derive from children's interests, needs, experiences and existing knowledge. By foregrounding these, Dewey argues various subjects ‘represent the possibilities of development inherent in the child's immediate crude experience’ (Dewey 1990, 190). Instead of transmitting predetermined knowledge, the preschool teacher should carefully observe and transform children's interests into rich educational experiences in a continuous process of reconstruction (Dewey 1990, 1936/1997).

The socially shared growth and the preschool as a community

Accordingly, the main task of the preschool teacher is to provide a stimulating and collaborative environment for children in which they can actively participate in joint activities and practice ‘cooperative and mutually helpful living’ (Dewey 1990, 116). By deliberately shifting between activities and changing focus, the teacher re-directs the course of future experiences together with the children (Dewey 1916/1944). In this way, the teacher creates conditions for both individual and socially shared growth to take place. Viewing learning as primarily a social activity, Dewey emphasised that a person benefits from other's explorations and experiences (Dewey 1916/1944). By being engaged in, sharing and reflecting upon previous and immediate experiences with others, a common ground is created and thus a feeling of membership of a community. The preschool can be regarded as a form of community, often divided into smaller groups of children (Dewey 1991). In an ideal situation, a child will gain new perspectives and understandings of the world by interacting in different groups whose members have a wide range of interests, needs and ideas (Popp 2015). In other words, the child's growth is deeply intertwined with the growth of the community (Nelsen 2016). The teacher needs to acknowledge this mutual interdependence and maintain a balance between the rights and needs of the individual child and the child's responsibilities and obligations towards other members of the group. Therefore, it is crucial that children act in ways that do not constrain or inhibit further growth for their peers by, for example, excluding each other in play. Dewey highlights the importance of children's free play, which he defined as a self-chosen, intrinsically motivated and purposeful activity. At the same time, he argues for teacher-guided free play in early childhood education to support children's learning and growth (Dewey 1916/1944). As a part of his inquiry-based approach, play is also regarded as essential in children's processes of discovering and solving problems, such as conflicts between peers (Dewey 1938; Beatty 2017).

The dialectic relationship between the individual and the collective is also reflected in Dewey's understanding of democracy. When providing all its members with equal opportunities to grow, democracy leads to self-realisation (Dewey and Tufts 1909; Martínez Alemán 2002). However, self-realisation also requires active participation in a collective form of life where both rights and responsibilities, in terms of respecting other's rights, are equally addressed. Dewey highlights that direct involvement and voluntary sharing in a reciprocal process of mutual give and take is the best way of practicing membership in a democratic society (see Visnovsky 2007).

He argues that the ‘[a]bsence of participation tends to produce lack of interest and concern on the part of those shut out. […] Where there is little power; there is correspondingly little sense of positive responsibility’ (Dewey 1991, 223). As a vehicle for self-realisation, participation involves exercising one's agency but it does not necessarily mean acting in one's self-interest. Collective agency can be promoted through participation practices by the sharing of common goals, collaborative problem solving and equal co-determination (Dewey 1916/1944; Martínez Alemán 2002).

The concept of participation

Definitions of participation vary considerably both in theory and practice, as the term denotes a variety of possibilities, from merely attending to sharing power. Theoretical models of participation often describe different degrees of participation and non-participation; most commonly, the ladder of participation (Arnstein 1969; Hart 1992) with 8 steps from manipulation to child-initiated, shared decisions with adults, and Harry Shiers’ (2001) five levels of participation with three stages of adult-based commitment at each level. However, these models have been criticised for depicting certain forms of involvement as ‘better’ – regardless of context, purpose or function – as well as focusing only on adult–child relations and thereby not including peer-learning or power relations between children (Andersson 2017). We argue that it is important to address issues of power, and to reflect upon who is involved, how, on whose terms and for what purpose. Participation can contribute to a change of existing unequal power relations, but it can also reproduce and maintain them (White 1996) which can lead to miseducative experiences of democracy (Dewey 1938/1997). In a preschool setting, this means that the inevitably asymmetric power relation of adults and children needs to be challenged to prevent children's participation taking place solely on adults’ terms. Equally important, the power balance between children must also be considered; to alter structures that lead to exclusion and marginalisation, all those involved must be empowered (White 1996).

The educative participatory experience

Inspired by Dewey's educational ideas, we suggest the concept of educative participatory experience as a complement to established models of participation. By emphasising interdependence and a reciprocal relationship between individual rights and the responsibility to respect other's rights, these specific experiences can contribute to the creation of a democratic and right-respected environment. An account of collective agency is put forward, which aims to lead to a socially shared growth and to focus on meaningful participation that contains elements of reflective discussion as well as problem solving. For the participatory experience to be educative, it must be based primarily on the children's own interests and previous experiences. Furthermore, all children should attend on equal terms and various ways of expressing and communicating should be equally valued. Finally, the teacher must ensure that the children are sharing power and enacting with mutual respect for each other's rights.

The next section is structured according to the working process of the themed project where the children are perceived by the teachers, and given opportunities to participate, as (1) knowledgeable experts, (2) competent conflict-solvers and (3) reflective and caring practitioners. Every part begins with a short summary.

The educative participatory experience as knowledgeable expert

In the initial inventory phase, the teachers use the children's interest for popular culture and active participation as a point of departure for the project. They view the whole group of children as knowledgeable experts and members of a community of peers. Furthermore, they provide time and space for sharing knowledge and exchanging experiences as a way of supporting socially shared growth.

A children's rights project with a popular culture theme

At the beginning of the field study, the three teachers, Alice, Bea and Carl, were asked to undertake teaching about children's human rights. They started a project with a popular culture theme that proceeded from one child's initiative. Bea describes how the teachers had emptied their project wall, a place where pictures and texts were put up to show the working process of current projects:

And then there was a child who came in the morning with a poster of My Little Pony. And then she said: ‘It's gonna hang here’. And she put it on our project wall. And I think that's awesome, because it means the children have learnt that whatever they are interested in is important. There's space for that in preschool.

Over a longer period, the teachers had noticed that certain kind of popular culture had a great impact on this group of children, particularly as a source of inspiration in their play. After a mapping procedure in which they observed and filmed the children's play, they concluded that the children's most frequently used characters and narratives originated from seven films, comics and/or TV-series: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (hereafter Ninja Turtles), My Little Pony, Spiderman, Lego Ninjago, Frozen, Cars and Transformers. The influence of popular culture was evident both in their talk and play. In their own project description, the teachers state that they aim to use the popular characters ‘to discuss ethical dilemmas, life questions and approaches here at the preschool’.

When one girl expresses a common topic of interest, popular culture, a potential for a socially shared basis for growth forms in the whole group. Teachers took the individual child's initiative into account, but they reconsidered it in relation to collective agency, in terms of ensuring that all children are familiar with the theme of the project by including other popular culture phenomena, not just My Little Pony. According to Dewey, the theme itself is of less importance; as long as it is based on the current interests of the group of children it can serve as means to evoke their enthusiasm and involvement.

Sharing knowledge and experience

To develop a deeper understanding of the children's social interactions and play patterns, the teachers realised that they had to increase their own knowledge of the characters and stories of children's popular culture. Instead of watching films, playing games or reading comics, they turned to the children for information. First, one of the teachers showed a picture of one of the selected characters to a small group of children and asked questions about its appearance, capacities, behaviours and everyday life. She asked open-ended questions that didn't require previous knowledge, such as ‘What do you know about the figure?’, as well as specific ones such as ‘Does the figure have any friends?’ All kind of answers were accepted and received with curiosity, as all three teachers’ knowledge was limited. Therefore, their ignorance was genuine and, as the teacher Carl later remarked, ‘it is easier to ask a follow-up question when you don't know the answers’. For Bea, letting the children teach the teachers about a subject that was unknown to them ‘makes the children feel that they are important’. When asking the children about the intention of working with this theme of popular culture, they refer to the teachers’ lack of knowledge:

Jill: Well, Alice [teacher], she wanted to know what they [the characters] are doing.

Andy: Yes, all the teachers wanted to know that.

Sam: We haveńt learned anything, but the teachers have!

Nevertheless, Alice admitted that it was challenging to approach children's popular culture in an impartial and open-minded way, especially when some of the children showed a great interest in the character's weapons, fighting techniques and violent behaviour:

It is always difficult to know how to approach it. They talked about how cool the sharp stuff was and how you can cut off the throat [with these]. And you don't want to tell them that any of these figures are bad to play with.

The children are perceived, and encouraged to act, as knowledgeable experts who can provide the teacher with all s/he needs to know about the topic in question. The teachers genuinely embrace the children's interest and strive not to judge it by different quality standards or imply its low status. Furthermore, they support their participation by acting as facilitators. First, they initiate a discussion by asking questions and then listening to the children's views and opinions without questioning or correcting their answers. In this way, the teachers give legitimacy to the children's own specific understanding of popular culture as highly valuable and important knowledge. For Dewey, such meaningful participatory experience is educative, leads to an increased empowerment, and supports the children's emotional and social growth. In addition, sharing experiences with, and being taught by, the children expands the teacher's understanding of the children's peer community and its culture, which in turn contributes to the teacher's own growth.

Respecting each other's views and creating a common ground

As the children had a variety of knowledge of the seven different popular culture universes, they were organised in smaller groups that consisted of both experts and learners during these discussions. Bea says that they:

made sure that everyone could feel that they were the expert in some group […] Everyone was included in a group where they felt they knew a little more and one group where they could learn a little instead. […] They got more knowledge about it and it made it easier to play together.

Each teacher took notes and summarised the children's sayings in a few words and put those on the project wall. Next time the entire group of children had a circle time, children from each group were encouraged by the teachers to share their knowledge. By reading and referring to the written notes on the wall, the teacher helped the children who could not read to remember their previous group discussions. The children were often listening carefully to each other without interrupting or questioning, although they had various ideas, opinions and understanding of the characters. Also, they seldom gave the same replies. For instance, when they were asked to select one character and motivate their choice, they choose different ones:

Teacher: Who would you like to be and why?

Kim: Lightning McQueen, because he's fast and kind.

Marie: Elsa, because she's strong. I’ve got an Elsa-dress at home.

Teacher: Who would you like to have as a friend?

Kim: I would like to have Transformers. They help people and can turn into cars!

Marie: My Little Pony car! I’ve got it at home, it's big and nice.

Robin: Well, the one who is actually the strongest and most kind and who shoots spider webs is Spiderman. I choose him.

The listening, speaking and gathering of everyone’s thoughts on different occasions and in various group constellations is a form of cooperative learning process. The children are given opportunities to both express their views and expand their knowledge. It is a way of creating a common ground through a mutual understanding of the different popular culture narratives and characters. According to Dewey (1916/1944), social competence is primarily about being able to actively participate in exchanging experiences and understanding their value for the other person; it is a way of tearing down the barrier between oneself and others. In other words, the teachers emphasise the children’s collective agency as well as their individual influence over the project’s content and support their growth through their educative participatory experience as knowledgeable experts.

The educative participatory experience as competent conflict-solver

In the (re)interpretation and implementation phase of the project, the teachers guided the children in their free play towards self-sufficient conflict management. Conflicts in play are solved by involving children in joint decision-making discussions where they identify problems and suggest their own regulations and recommendations regarding play.

Providing tools for solving conflicts in play

Over times, the teachers observed that the children's play that was inspired by popular culture included elements of violence, aggression and exclusion strategies. When the conflicts increased, the teachers focused on guiding the children in elaborating their play and solving disputes. Instead of forbidding the play, Bea says the teachers put a lot of effort in to giving the children ‘some extra support to reflect and talk about, or even practice developing this play in another way’. She admits that it was a difficult balancing act to support the conflict-solving process without interfering too much in the children's conflicts:

Because we can't expect the children to solve everything just like that. […] But if we are present, then if needed, we can step in and … help them to think. And then it really helps a lot to just say: Now, let's stop for a while and let's think. And then they have very wise thoughts.

The teachers documented the children's play by filming it and analysed the videos together with the children. At one of these occasions, solutions to various conflicts that can occur were discussed by watching different play situations:

Alice points out good examples: Did you see Sam? When you wanted to have the same horse, you ask him nicely: ‘Can I have it?’ It went well, that's good!

Then she turns to the whole group and asks them: If you have a friend who doesn't speak so much – how are you supposed to think? Do you have any suggestions?

There is a discussion among the children and they agree upon the importance of including everyone in their play.

Alice returns to the play situation by saying: “Do you remember Tilda, who doesn't get to say anything in the play? And then Sofie, you say: ‘Tilda, don't you want to play?’. It's great to see how well you play together”.

Later, the teachers gathered the children in smaller groups to discuss their harsh physical play by letting the children identify problematic issues and suggest solutions. Thereafter, they wrote down the children's opinions and guidelines on two big posters on the wall, to which the teacher and the children would later refer when conflicts arose:

Poster 1

To ask oneself the question – Is this good play?

Play that is not so good:

Chasing play (Often gets crazy, someone gets hurt)

Thousand needles pain play (It hurts your friend)

Boxing play (Boxing on someone else hurts)

Throwing pillows play (A hundred pillows on the legs hurts)

Poster 2

To make everyone think the play is funny and nice:

We must all cooperate and everybody should decide together! How do we do this, then?

Everyone can't talk at the same time

One shouldn't shout

Talk one at a time

Listen to your friend

Take turns to play according to each other's suggestions/initiative

The children's participation in a coherent democratic decision-making and conflict-solving process becomes even more evident when the children's own views are made visible on the wall. By using the word ‘we’, the message of the second poster implies that everyone in the community of the preschool, including the teachers, have a responsibility to follow these recommendations. Thereby, they are drawing attention to the collective liability. At the same time, the posters signal that the teachers rely on the individual child's ability and willingness to straighten out the difficult situations and disputes that they are involved in. It is also about seeing the connection between rights and responsibilities; as a child, you have the right to play but also a responsibility not to violate other's right by disturbing their play.

The children are encouraged to learn how to handle and master different emotional impulses and control aggression, as well as to develop empathy and respect each other's bodily boundaries. Accordingly, the teachers’ solution was not to prohibit play-fighting but to provide tools so that the children could solve conflicts themselves, although the teachers supported the conflict-solving process when needed.

From violent plays to directed actions scenes and training camps

It was evident that the rough-and-tumble-play changed during and after the project. Both Carl and Alice observed how the children's play became what they called more ‘directed’ and ‘dramatised like theatre’ and therefore ‘less violent but still physical’. The children regularly negotiated how to continue their play through meta-conversations. For example, Carl describes a play situation where the two boys decided to take turns in acting the bad guy:

Well, they somehow make an agreement that ‘Ok, now I do like this. And then you get hit and lie down’. Instead of actually breaking someone down physically. So, [they] could agree upon that ‘Ok, but this time I win and then we can start the game all over and you can win’.

Furthermore, the play theme changed from ‘action fighting’ to ‘training camps’ where the children were jumping, running, somersaulting and making obstacle courses, inspired by the martial arts exercising of Ninja Turtles and Lego Ninjago. According to Alice, when the physical play transformed into exercising sessions rather than violent disputes, it became more ‘nuanced’, eventful and attracted more children. Eventually, the whole group were deeply involved in the physical ‘training camp play’, since, as one boy said, they ‘trained pretend fighting’ instead of being violent.

When the children begin to reflect upon their behaviours, verbalise the coming course of events and agree upon the progress of the play in meta-talks, fewer conflicts arise. In this way, the children learn how to communicate and express their emotions through physical contact with a peer without harming the other person. The teachers navigate the children towards a certain direction rather than imposing restrictions on physical play, for instance by pointing at the elements of physical training that take place in the popular culture stories. It requires an understanding of play, including rough-and-tumble-play, as a manifestation of meaning making and a way of maintaining friendship. The teachers are both acknowledging the children's right to play and express themselves in various ways, and ensuring that the plays are beneficial for the whole group.

To sum up, when children are causing problems in their peer group, they are made responsible as group members to solve them together, with necessary support from the teacher. The teachers strive to guide them during and after their play by observing the conflicts carefully and providing opportunities for them to reflect and thereby find solutions themselves. By viewing them as competent conflict-solvers, it becomes possible for the children to partake in participatory experiences that involve engaging in conflict resolutions in different ways.

The educative participatory experience as reflective and caring practitioner

In the last, reflective phase of the project, the teachers cultivated a sense of responsibility and caring through different reflective processes in order to create a rights-respecting environment. They did so by drawing attention to the children's positive behaviours and actions, ensuring that the children identify and visualise good deeds throughout the day in a concrete way.

Interpretation of the key words in relation to friendship, justice and equality

The main purpose of the preschool project was to establish common values and norms on ‘how to be a good friend’, and children's popular culture was used as a tool to reflect upon friendship, justice and equality. First, the character's different abilities, behaviours and skills were described and related to friendship. Thereafter, the teachers summarised the discussion of what characterised a good friend into four key words: Strong, Kind, Funny, Helping. The key words were placed on the project wall along with several definitions of each one, using the children's own words. Many of the children's quotes were about showing care for and solidarity with others. For example, being a kind friend meant ‘playing with someone who has no one to play with’ and ‘sharing toys’. In the same way, being funny meant doing things together like ‘building a snowman’ or ‘drawing a picture’, and helping implied all sorts of support as well as ‘passing to those who can't reach’ and ‘fetching the teacher when someone is crying’.

Even though the key word Strong originated from the superhero's powers, the children presented nuanced interpretations by relating it to both physical strengths, such as ‘carrying someone who has fallen’, as well as psychological and emotional strengths, such as ‘daring to say no and not to fight’ and ‘asking if one can join the game’. Besides verbal discussions, different aesthetic activities were used to reflect and express a deeper understanding of the key words. For instance, the children created stop-motion films in which they re-interpreted the key words by placing different popular culture characters in various everyday situations where they helped and were kind to each other.

When using the key words to understand friendship, the teachers further redirected the focus from the original stories of popular culture to the children's experiences in their peer community. In Dewey's words, they ‘take the existing impulses and desires of students and assist in the remaking of them so that these inclinations and interests become transformed into intelligently conceived and planned purposes’ (Dewey 1938/1997, 20–21). The children reconstruct new meanings when they contextualise the key words through the cooperative process of reflection.

By encouraging them to reflect upon their own or others’ experiences and actions, the teacher emphasises the importance of considering the consequences of behaving, feeling and thinking in certain ways.

At the end of the project, the teachers introduced The Friend Safe (Kompisen Trygg), a black silhouette in the shape of a child, to the project wall. The key words that were clearly marked with different colours – strong (red), funny (pink), kind (orange), helping (blue) – hung above it. During the day, the children were encouraged to pin small pieces of silk paper in the same colour onto the silhouette to draw attention to everyday deeds associated with the key words. Eventually, The Friend Safe was completely covered with the children's notes. When a group of boys were asked what they have learned from the project, they talked about these notes and highlighted the importance of being a good friend:

Henry: I have learned to be kind and stuff like that. You know you should be kind.

Andy: To be kind … You don't push, you don't pinch, you don't fight. You should comfort each other. I did that once with Willy.

Sam: Yes. I beat Eric and that was no good.

Hans: I have learned to be kind and to be a good friend.

To engage in common reflective practices means to be involved in a process of continuous collective mutual learning and individual and collective growth. Reflecting upon experiences is a way of making sense of them and the processes behind them, which leads to a deeper understanding since you become aware of your own and others’ underlying intentions and strategies. By exclusively focusing on positive social behaviours and actions, the teachers support the children to move towards developing new ways of acting. In other words, it is a way of learning through reflective educative participatory experiences.

Concluding discussion

The findings of the study show that the teacher's acknowledgement of children's collective agency and individual capacity to participate is closely related to the children's possibilities for being involved in different democratic processes. By viewing the children and providing opportunities for them to engage and have impact as knowledgeable experts, competent conflict-solvers and reflective and caring practitioners, the teachers affirm their belief in their abilities to fully participate and share power. Furthermore, they consider the children's individual and collective rights and responsibilities when creating a right-respecting environment.

When discussing children's participation in educational settings, the importance of listening to children and letting their voices be heard is urged but seldom fully explained. In practice, the result may be a pseudo-democratic situation where children are being listened to but still not heard, as their opinions are not considered when it comes to making decisions. Following Dewey's educational thinking, and using the concept of educative participatory experiences, will bring a certain meaning to children's participation. For the teacher, listening to children will then mean to hear both the loud screaming voice of one child and the low whispering voice of another child. And equally important, to make these two children listen carefully to one another, consider each other's views and learn to take collective actions and responsibilities.

An educative participatory experience is transformative for the individual when it leads to empowerment through involvement in sharing knowledge, solving problems, reflecting and making decisions by taking collective actions in a cooperative process. At the same time, the participatory experience can become miseducative (Dewey 1938, 1938/1997), rather than educative, if an exclusion and marginalisation takes place among the peers, for example in the children's play. Therefore, the children who are the dominant power holders need to be in solidarity with the less powerful and learn to cooperate in the planning and decision-making processes on equal terms. It is the teachers’ task to ensure that the whole group of children is involved and able to participate on equal terms. Also, to enhance children's participation in general means to strengthen the development of democratic skills and increase the understanding of different forms of democratic process.

Finally, the concept of educative participatory experience can be used to further understand and develop participation practices based on children's rights and responsibilities that lead to both self-realisation and a socially shared growth. In line with Dewey's understanding of democracy, the overall purpose of educative participatory experiences is not to prepare for involvement and engagement in a future democratic society as an adult. Instead, it is about exercising your participation rights as a child by living and acting in a peer community where democratic procedures are practiced here and now.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet: [Grant Number 2013-2129].