E-STEM in Everyday Life: How Families Develop a Caring Motive Orientation Towards the Environment

Internationally there is growing interest in how young children engage with and learn concepts of science and sustainability in their everyday lives. These concepts are often built through nature and outdoor play in young children. Through the dialectical concept of everyday and scientific concept formation (Vygotsky LS, The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Problems of general psychology, V.1, (Trans. N Minick). Editor of English Translation, RW Rieber, and AS Carton, New York: Kluwer Academic and Plenum Publishers, 1987), this chapter presents a study of how families transformatively draw attention to STEM and sustainability concepts in the everyday practices of the home. The research followed a focus child (4–5 year old) from four families as they navigated everyday life and talked about the environments in which they live. Australia as a culturally diverse community was reflected in the families, whose heritage originated in Europe, Iran, India, Nepal and Taiwan. The study identified the multiple ways in which families introduce practices and conceptualise imagined futures and revisioning (Payne PG, J HAIA 12:2–12, 2005a). About looking after their environment. It was found that young children appear to develop concepts of STEM, but also build agency in exploration, with many of these explorations taking place in outdoor settings. We conceptualise this as a motive orientation to caring for the environment, named as E-STEM. The study emphasises for education to begin with identifying family practices and children’s explorations, as a key informant for building relevant and locally driven pedagogical practices to support environmental learning.

Time Regulation as Institutional Condition for Children’s Outdoor Play and Cultural Formation in Kindergarten

Time regulation is an important aspect of the everyday life in any kindergarten and has an impact on which activities are given priority. In this case study, the outdoor playtime in one kindergarten in China and one in Norway is compared based on the understanding that children’s cultural formation develops in a dialectical relationship between children’s interests and motives and societal, institutional, and weather conditions. The aim of the article is to identify how time regulations provide conditions for children’s play and cultural formation during outdoor playtime. The research question is: How does institutional time regulation interplay with the pedagogical practice and children’s activities in the outdoor playtime? Employing a cultural-historical approach, drawing on Hedegaard’s concepts of development and cultural formation as an individual, institutional and societal process, the dialectical interplay between institutional time regulation and children’s engagement in outdoor activities is the unit of analysis in this study. Our findings indicate that the kindergarten teachers in the Chinese kindergarten as well as the Norwegian kindergarten aim to adjust the pedagogical content and time schedule to the traditions, values, and conditions in both countries. This chapter contributes to knowledge about the interplay between institutional conditions and children’s activities and cultural formation in outdoor play.

‘All of the Wild’: Cultural Formation in Wales Through Outdoor Play at Forest School

This chapter takes the specific context of outdoor play in the Foundation Phase in Wales to explore how children’s activity and participation is mediated through the socio-material affordances of muddy puddles at forest school. The research was underpinned by the cultural-historical tradition of making visible the sociocultural practices and individual participation which shape the child’s experience within an educational setting. The discussion in this chapter is centred upon the following questions: During forest school sessions for pupils aged 4- and 5-years old, what conflicts may be surfaced as classroom teaching staff aim to meet Welsh Government expectations for both outdoor play and self-regulatory skills development? How do these conflicts shape the child’s experience of participating in outdoor play? The analysis draws upon data gathered during 8 months of fieldwork; audio-visually-recorded observations and video-stimulated interviews with classroom teachers and forest school leaders are used to consider an episode of conflict during play in a muddy puddle. We explore, from child and adult perspectives, the institutional values of the Foundation Phase, demands for reception year practice and subsequent expectations about children’s participation, highlighting the mediating messages being given about ‘how to be’ and what competencies are valued in the activity setting of mud play.

Curious Curiosity – Reflections on How Early Childhood Lecturers Perceive Children’s Curiosity

Curiosity and wonder are considered fundamental for children’s development. However, no precise definition of curiosity exists, and there is little research on the nature of curiosity. There is also a lack of knowledge and ideas about how pedagogy can sustain and stimulate curiosity. Drawing upon empirical material from semi-structured interviews with seven Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECTE) lecturers from the disciplines of mathematics, arts, literature, drama, pedagogy, science and physical education about their view of children’s curiosity, the authors aim to explore the lecturers’ understanding of children’s curiosity and how this understanding varies between disciplines. Children enact their curiosity in a cultural-historical context. The cultural-historical tradition of outdoor play is a part of the institution’s practices influencing the children, while the children may use curiosity to influence the content of these practices. Although the lecturers are from different disciplines, their understanding of curiosity were consistent, particularly with regards to their focus on bodily expressions of curiosity. Expanding the concept of curiosity, we suggest the term bodily curiosity to recognise and operationalise a sensory, active and embodied search for answers. Similarly, we suggest the term bodily wonder about a kind of embodied philosophising.

Princesses (Don’t) Run in the Mud: Tracing the Child’s Perspective in Parental Perceptions of Cultural Formation Through Outdoor Activities in Norwegian ECEs

By examining Polish parents’ perceptions of outdoor activities in Norwegian Early Childhood Education (ECE), this chapter discusses how focusing on the child’s perspective can change and challenge parental gender-related value positions, thereby changing perceptions of the cultural formation taking place through outdoor activities. The empirical data on the basis of which this question is answered are comprised of group interviews with 30 Polish migrant parents (18 mothers and 12 fathers) whose children were in Norwegian ECEs. The applied theoretical toolkit of a cultural historical wholeness approach (Hedegaard M, Mind Cult Act 19:127–138, 2012) enables the description of (parental) experiences of cultural formation through outdoor activities as anchored in the value positions established within and across involved societies. It also allows us to grasp those moments when the focus on the child’s perspective in outdoor activities challenges parental value positions and cultural traditions of heteronormativity. The concluding remarks point to the importance of enhancing both the child’s perspective and the specific plane of interpersonal interactions in ECE collaborations with parents and caregivers.

Children’s Play and Social Relations in Nature and Kindergarten Playgrounds: Examples from Norway

In kindergarten, outdoor playtime is usually a break from more structured activities. It is leisure time and an opportunity for children to engage in free play with friends. Previous research indicates that time spent outdoors facilitates playful physical activity and that playing in nature inspires children’s creativity, imaginations and play across age and gender. In short, play and social relations are crucial for young children’s development and cultural formation. This study investigated children’s play activities during outdoor playtime in nature and on kindergarten playgrounds. Its empirical materials consisted of video observations of 12 four-year-old’s activities in nature and on a kindergarten playground and interviews with two kindergarten teachers. One child, Benjamin was the primary focus, and five more were also included. Two examples of one child’s social play in nature and on the playground were analysed to illuminate the different conditions and challenges he encountered. The findings indicate that children’s play in nature tends to be more creative and inclusive than that on kindergarten playgrounds, that kindergarten teachers participate more in children’s play in nature than on playgrounds and that children are sensitive to and try to engage in what they view as a correct form of discourse with their teachers. The author argues for further research on the subject to learn more about children’s social relations, creativity and cultural formation during outdoor playtime in nature.

Providing Outdoor Experiences for Infants and Toddlers: Pedagogical Possibilities and Challenges from a Brazilian Early Childhood Education Centre Case Study

Intense urbanization process in Brazil and Latin America has increasingly limited young children, since birth, to access outdoor spaces, especially green areas. Moreover, as conceptions of babies in domestic care support confinement practices, apprehending infants’ constitutive specificities as being intertwined with broader socio-cultural contexts requires further investigation. Notwithstanding the challenges, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions can be promising places to provide babies with daily contacts and appropriation of external areas amid an expanded collective experience. This chapter tackles the process of insertion and appropriation of outdoor spaces for infants and toddlers. We bring a case study from a Brazilian daycare centre with planned multiple outdoor environments, diversified spatial arrangements and natural elements. The empirical material, referring to the transition year of a group of under-twos, includes monthly recordings of everyday routine, interviews, field notes, institutional documents. We describe and analyze various outdoor spaces and socio-spatial practices of the daycare centre based on the cultural-historical perspective of the Network of Meanings. In the first semester, environments organized in semi-open areas connected to closed spaces were more frequently used. Whereas mainly in the second semester, given walking onset and greater motor resourcefulness, the going and appropriation of green areas unfolded as a gradual process not short of struggles. Substantial planning, projects and educational situations put forward by multiple social actors within a multidisciplinary approach modulated alternation of spaces and facilitated exchanges with peers, older children and adults – including family members.

Exploring the Taken-for-Granted Advantage of Outdoor Play in Norwegian Early Childhood Education

It is claimed that nature is given temporal and cultural dimensions in Norway, in a transgression of the distinction between nature and culture. The overall emphasis on nature in the Nordic countries may represent an unconscious taken-for-granted understanding of nature as the best place for children’s play, learning and cultural formation. Understandings of a strong Norwegian cultural connection to nature, and thereby outdoor life, as an important arena for children’s cultural formation may be challenged by changes in Early Childhood Education (ECE) institutions and the contemporary society. Such changes can force conflicts that help in depicting what is taken for granted. This chapter is therefore structured around the research question: What conflicts can be found between ECE teachers’ values and motives for outdoor play versus contextual conditions and demands in personal, institutional and cultural perspectives and in the perception of nature? By exploring conflicts between contextual conditions and demands and ECE teachers’ values and motives, the aim is to get a broader insight into perspectives and conditions for children’s cultural formation. The analysis draws on 15 interviews with ECE teachers, political documents and earlier research. The analysis reveals that nature as a valued arena for cultural formation, through play, may not be as apparent as expected in Norwegian ECE.

Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical Practices and in Cultural Historical Theory

Despite the increasing awareness of the outdoors as a beneficial site for young children’s education, the status of outdoor activities varies in and within different cultures. Aiming to broaden and challenge presupposed understandings of education and care in the outdoors, we consider the empirical findings from all the chapters in this volume in order to identify a range of conditions for cultural formation in outdoor practices both within and between different cultures. Building on Mariane Hedegaard’s approach to cultural historical theory and Ødegaard and Krüger’s approach to cultural formation, our analysis is performed by identifying conflicts and alignments between the values and motive orientations of the individual and those interpreted from the contextual conditions and demands of institutions and society, particularly in relation to the perception of nature. In doing so, we depict how culture and nature are interrelated from a socio-cultural perspective, and argue that perceptions of nature shaped by institutions and society play a significant role creating conditions for cultural formation. The opportunity for play, learning and cultural formation in nature appears rich within all the represented cultural spaces described in this volume, although whether these opportunities are supported consistently within wider mainstream culture is regarded as an area of tension in some chapters. Based upon our analysis, we suggest that both pedagogical practices and cultural historical theory need to take the outdoors and nature into consideration when emphasising pedagogical practices for children’s play, learning and cultural formation.

Toddlers’ Outdoor Play, Imagination and Cultural Formation

Discussion on toddlers’ outdoor play practices in various cultural spaces is rare in literature. In Australia, toddlers’ physical development and well-being is promoted but less attention is given to cultural nuances of outdoor play. We ask the question: How does outdoor play impact on toddlers’ imagination and cultural formation? Conducted in three Australian long day care (LDC) sites, an ethically approved project “Studying babies and toddlers: Cultural worlds and transitory relationships” examines the process of three Australian toddlers’ outdoor enculturation. The concepts of imagination and play from Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory are drawn upon in relation to Hedegaard’s institutional practices model, to link contextual relations between society, community and family. Cultural formation processes in toddlers’ outdoor play, we argue, are more completely understood when daily life across home and local community is acknowledged. Data findings illustrate complexity of movement and experimentations in cultural conditions, where different spaces hold possibilities for imaginative transformations in toddler’s play. Implications suggest toddlers’ imaginative and culturally responsive outdoor play aligns with availability of interested adult/peers, shared family and community values, and varied local spaces. In this way, affective and dynamic outdoor interactions imbue cultural formation of toddler’s play and imagination with local personal meaning.