Session Information
19 SES 05, Ethnografic Research and the Tavistock Approach: The Investigation of Young Children's Developments in the Nursery
Symposium
Time:
2009-09-29
08:30-10:00
Room:
JUR, HS 17
Chair:
Wilfried Datler
Discussant:
Katy Dearnley
Contribution
Although there is much evidence that children’s transition to day care evokes painful anxieties and other intensive emotions which are often overwhelming children as well as their parents and nursery educators, there is little research concerning the question, which dimensions of every day life in nurseries are helpful or restraining children’s development. The investigation of this question is one of the main topics of a research project running at the University of Vienna. The project has an interdisciplinary design which includes Young Child Observation as a research tool.
In the first part of the presentation the ethnographic approach of doing observation according to the Tavistock model will be lined out. The second part of the paper will focus a kindergarten with “open family groups”: Children within a wide range of age between 18 months and 6 years belonged to each group and were allowed to switch between the classrooms as they liked. Focussing a young boy’s development it will be demonstrated that within this kind of environment the young boy had to miss very painfully a structure of care which enabled him to experience peers or caregivers as people who look for him and are interested in him.
The presentation and discussion of observational material stimulates some considerations concerning the importance of creating a well structured social and mental space in day care units. The assumption is outlined that there might be a close relationship between the lack of such structures and institutional defence processes.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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