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- Günther-Hanssen, Anna, fil. Doktor
(författare)
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A new materialist rethinking of preschool children’s interests and explorations
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A new materialist rethinking of preschool children’s interests and explorations Anna Günther-Hanssen1 1Department of Education, Uppsala University, Sweden I aim to explore gender connected to children’s interests and explorations in preschool using new materialist theory, with focus on Barad’s agential realism and Deleuze and Guattari´s philosophy of immanence. The Swedish preschool curriculum is diffused by a notion of the importance of following, challenging and highlighting the interests and explorations of the children. I am especially interested in affordances of using the concepts of desire, the virtual and performative agents to explore this notion further. In applying these concepts I hope to open up new possibilities for understanding children’s interests and strategies connected to gender aspects and new potentialities in subjectification and learning. For example, I am interested in exploring the concept of desire as a thinking tool instead of looking at children’s explorations as motivated by ‘interest’. Sandvik (2013) states that desire can be seen as constituted by the performative agents (Barad, 2007) in each situation. She also points out that the performative agents in preschool, at least partly, get their agency from the virtual landscape (thoughts, images, dreams, the past, the present, potential becomings) that surrounds them in that moment. Thus, this virtual landscape, which can include gender in different ways, can be seen as co-creator of agency or power, in other words co-creator of children’s explorations, interests and potentialities. At the conference I will present some preliminary results from my analysis of video recordings of preschool practice, and would like to discuss the potentialities of the concepts mentioned connected to gender and preschool.Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics of the entanglement of matter and meaning. London: Duke Universal Press.Sandvik, N. (2013). Medvirkning og handlingskraft i småbarnspedagogiske praksiser : Horisontalt fremforhandlet innflytelse. (2013:141), NTNU.
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| 2. |
- Günther-Hanssen, Anna, fil. Doktor
(författare)
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Children´s constructions of questions and theories in bodily encounters with “the more than human” in preschool
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of my research is to, together with new materialist philosophy, explore preschool children’s construction of questions and theories related to transdisciplinary natural science, as well as the mutual processes of learning and (gendered) becoming´s in which this takes place. The preschool environment and materials have for a long time been considered as something very important for children’s development and learning. However, a perspective on meaning making as starting from human beings/the subject has been common, as well as a focus on interpersonal relations when it comes to gender. Every day, children and teachers are entangled with, as well as co-acting with, various kinds of materials, things, rooms, spaces, toys and so on in preschool. According to new materialist thought, we both learn and become as (gendered) subjects in these entanglements or intra-activity (Barad, 2007). One of the main questions of the study is;What new insights/ understandings concerning children’s questions and theories in relation to natural science, does a focus on children’s co-acting´s with materiality, as well as a transdisciplinary approach, open up for? The first preliminary results will be conducted as the field study starts, autumn 2016/spring 2017. The data collection/construction will be in close collaboration with teachers and children and consist of video recordings, photographs and focus group interviews. Some of the expected outcomes of the study is to create knowledge concerning how children’s construction of questions and theories takes place in their entanglements with “the more than human”(Blaise, 2014) or/and in their co-acting, vibrations and resonance, together with the surrounding/world (Olsson, 2009). The analysis is also likely to bring aspects of how these entanglements connect to “bodily potential” (Ibid, 2009) to the fore. The transdisciplinary approach aims at constructing knowledge concerning how natural science can be understood in new ways in preschool. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics of the entanglement of matter and meaning. London: Duke Universal Press.Blaise, M. (2014). Gender Discourses and Play. In L. Brooker, M. Blaise & M. Edwards (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood: SAGE Publications Ltd.Olsson, L. M. (2009). Movement and Experimentation In Young Children's Learning. Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education. London: Routledge.
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