One-To-Three-Year-Olds' Risky Play in Early Childhood Education and Care

One-to-three-year-olds’ Risky Play in Early Childhood Education and Care Rasmus Glærum Kleppe Thesis submitted for the degree of philosophiae doctor (Ph.D.) in Educational Sciences for Teacher Education Faculty and Education and International Studies OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University Spring 2018 CC-BY-SA OsloMet – storbyuniversitetet OsloMet Avhandling 2018 nr 7 ISSN 2535-471X ISBN 978-82-8364-086-1 OsloMet – storbyuniversitetet Læringssenter og bibliotek, Skriftserien St. Olavs plass 4, 0130 Oslo, Telefon (47) 64 84 90 00 Postadresse: Postboks 4, St. Olavs plass 0130 Oslo Trykket hos Byråservice Trykket på Scandia 2000 white, 80 gram på materiesider/200 gram på coveret Acknowledgments This study was conducted under the Industrial Ph.D. scheme, financed 50% by the Kanvas Foundation and 50% by the Research Council of Norway, with the Faculty of Education and International Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet) as degree referring institution. The study has been associated with OsloMet’s research project Better Provision for Norway’s Children in Early Childhood Education and Care/Gode Barnehager for Barn i Norge (BePro/GoBaN) at the Department of Early Childhood Education. I would first of all like to thank all the staff and children who participated in the study and to the parents who gave their consent for their children to participate. I am very grateful to my employer Kanvas for the trust, freedom and support I have experienced throughout this project. A special thanks to my supervisor in Kanvas, Robert Ullmann, and to my reference group, Guro Lund Eriksen, Pia Katarina Halvorsen, Øivind Hornslien, Lene Kjeldsaas and Lisbet Andersen. In early childhood education and care research, the link to practice is essential and continuous feedback, criticism and reality-checks from practitioners have been immensely important for the development and results of this project. I would like to thank my supervisors Edward Melhuish and Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter for your engaged supervision and for sharing your knowledge throughout the project. I am indebted to the BePro project, with special thanks to Elisabeth Bjørnestad, Lars Gulbrandsen and Jan-Erik Johansson, who promptly and throughout the project have accommodated me and my small, in-depth study. It has been very valuable to be part of and learned about large scale research from the inside. Also, a special thanks to research assistant Maren Meyer Hegna and administrator Trine Simonsen for your support and help and to the senior researchers and fellow Ph.D. students, including colleagues from the “Searching for Qualities”-project, for valuable critique and feedback. I am especially indebted to my Ph.D. colleague Erik Eliassen. Thanks for your generous help and fun discussions, and for being a close colleague and friend throughout these last three years. I am grateful for the constructive input I received in the final stages of the project from Mariana Brussoni and Tone Kvernbekk, and I am especially indebted to Thomas Moser for crucial feedback and moral support. Thanks to the Department of Early Childhood Education by head of department Mette Tollefsrud, and the Ph.D. program at the Faculty of Education and International Studies, including previous head of the program, now Vice-Dean of Research Halla Bjørk Holmarsdottir, administrators and fellow Ph.D. students for support and valuable criticism and discussions. Finally, thanks to my friends and family, especially to my parents and to my extended family in South Africa for your continuous long-distance interest, love and support. Most importantly, to the core of my life, Kaya, Sturla and Annchen: Profound love and gratitude, we are a strange and wonderful team. Summary This study examined 1-3-year-olds’ risky play in the context of group settings for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Previous studies have documented that children have a propensity towards risk-taking, and it has been argued that this propensity is valuable for children in several regards. First, because the play experience itself is intrinsically valuable, including experiences of exploration and autonomy, which may allow children to experience emotions such as hesitation, fear, excitement, pleasurable arousal and mastering. Second, several researchers have argued that risky play is essential for developing realistic risk assessment skills. At the same time, there are indications that children are increasingly being deprived of opportunities for exploration and risky play, both to avoid injuries, but also for fear of legal consequences. Since research on 1-3-year-olds’ risky play is scarce, the overarching aim of this study was to add to the existing knowledge of this aspect of children’s play. It was situated in ECEC, since more than 90% of Norwegian children between the ages of 1 and 6 now attend institutionalized care. The overarching aim was split into four areas of investigation: 1) Identifying and describing what characterizes 1-3-year-olds’ risky play, 2) describing what characterizes social interaction between ECEC staff and 1-3 year olds engaged in risky play, 3) describing what characterizes physical conditions for 1-3-year-olds’ risky play in ECEC, and 4) investigating whether there are conflicting aspects in Norwegian ECEC between keeping children safe from harm and stimulating physical activity and risky play. Due to limited existing research, exploratory methods were used to investigate these areas. In cooperation with the large-scale research project Better Provision for Norwegian Children in Early Childhood Education and Care (BePro), five ECEC-center groups were selected to represent a variety of Norwegian ECEC contexts, potentially elucidating different aspects of risky play and children’s experience. Two center groups were selected based on their respective high and low general scores on a standardized measurement of ECEC quality (the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale – Revised edition (ITERS-R)). Additionally, two nature center groups and one infant/toddler group were selected. In total, 53 children and 21 ECEC staff participated in the study. The main methodology was focused ethnography, resulting in both qualitative and quantified data. Video was also used to add detail to the qualitative descriptions. Additionally, quantitative data from the BePro dataset were analyzed. The main findings of this study are divided into four parts following the four areas of investigation. First, children were observed to engage in risky play from one year of age. This finding was interpreted with the theoretical concepts of objective and subjective risk. The first concept addresses observable (sometimes measurable) conditions that entail a possibility of a negative consequence, and the latter addresses how individuals experience these physical conditions. Compared to the existing understanding of risky play, 1-3-year-olds’ expressions of subjective risk were subtler and less extrovert in its appearance, than reported previously. Prominently, the ‘fearful joy’ expressed by older children was not always apparent, especially with the youngest children. Additionally, the risk of injury, i.e., an objective risk was often not evident. The theoretical concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was also applied to interpret the observations and was useful for, among other aspects, clarifying whether children increased the risk level and discussing potential learning within risky play. In previous research, risky play is categorized with six categories, that is, playing with heights or speed, playing with dangerous tools or near dangerous elements, rough and tumble play and running away/hiding from adults. In this study, two new categories of risky play were suggested; playing with impact (e.g. crashing an object into another) and vicarious risk (a pre- face of risky play by watching others playing riskily). 1-3-year-olds’ risky play was summarized as play that involves uncertainty and exploration – bodily, perceptual, emotional or environmental – with possible negative outcomes such as fear and/or physical harm, as well as possible positive outcomes such as mastering and/or thrilling experiences. Second, the study found that ECEC staff, in almost equal portions, either did not interact with 1-3 year olds in risky play or supported risky play appropriately. Support was interpreted with the theoretical concept of scaffolding. The large amount of no interaction may relate to risky play’s subtleness and briefness in this age-group, such that recognition and scaffolding requires keen knowledge of individual children and elaborate communicative skills. Comparing the ECEC center groups, the center group with lower general quality, as measured by the ITERS-R, had a higher degree of no interaction. In the center group with higher general quality, there was a higher degree of scaffolding. In general, the amount of inappropriate support (non-scaffolding) was low compared to scaffolding (22% and 78%, respectively). The large proportion of scaffolding might relate to Norwegian practitioners’ culturally positive attitude towards outdoor play and risk-taking. Third, indoor and outdoor environments were examined for their provision for 1-3-year-olds’ risky play, applying the theoretical concept of affordance. In conjunction with descriptions of 1-3-year-olds’ risky play, appropriate affordance was suggested to be versatile, complex and flexible. Appropriate affordance did not necessarily entail an objective risk, such as great heights, but should

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