This study examines encounters with social class in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). It is situated within the Swedish‑speaking ECEC in Finland, where the educare model emphasise accessibility, quality and equity. Although equality and diversity are highlighted in steering documents, social class is rarely explicitly addressed. This risks normalising middle‑class standards and delaying recognition of widening inequalities (EDUFI, 2022; Harju‑Luukkainen et al., 2022). This study´s research question is: How does social class appear among children and staff in ECEC? 

Children use material artefacts and everyday routines as status markers, using them to structure inclusion and exclusion within peer culture (Donner et al., 2022; Watson et al., 2015; Alm & Odenbring, 2019). At the same time, staff report a need for more tools to critically engage with and deconstruct the concept of social class (Mikander & Mansikka, 2023).  

The study applies Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of capital, economic, cultural, social and symbolic, to illuminate how resources and recognition appear in the ECEC field. Habitus explains the automatic and, in many cases, unconscious actions and ways of thinking that are shaped by our life experiences and social background (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2013), while the concept of field positions ECEC as a structured space in wich certain capitals are valued. Reproduction clarifies how systems committed to equality can nevertheless legitimise middle‑class norms through everyday assessments (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). To complement this, the notion of institutional habitus is used to illustrate the collective norms, values, and expectations that characterise particular institutions (Vuorisalo, 2013; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2013). 

Lareau’s (2003) distinction between concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth further clarifies how children’s competencies and expectations shape institutional encounters. While some children approach institutions with a sense of entitlement, others do so with a sense of constraint that encourages constraint. These patters become visible in peer interactions, where economic and symbolic capital are either leveraged or deflected. 

In Finnish ECEC, the absence of social class from equality discourse mirrors broader European trends in which diversity is emphasised, yet social class remains unspoken.  

This study is part of a broader project on inclusion and exclusion across language, gender, racialisation, and social class in Finland’s bilingual ECEC. We sampled 18 Swedish‑speaking centres in southern Finland spanning urban and rural communities with varied socioeconomic profiles. We conducted a multi‑sited short‑term ethnography across 18 ECEC centres. 74 semi‑structured staff interviews with 28 teachers, 11 leaders/directors, 25 childcare workers, and 10 others were carried out. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Four fieldworkers spent one month per site doing participatory observations in the groups. Researchers adopted a participatory stance with informal conversations and joining play, adjusting their presence to daily activities and the needs of children and staff (Köngäs & Määttä, 2021). Municipalities, directors and staff granted permission, and guardians consented to children’s participation. Children’s assent was sought continuously, with sensitivity to verbal and non‑verbal cues and the right to decline at any time (Köngäs & Määttä, 2021). Per university policy, an ethics committee pre‑review was not required; procedures followed the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK, 2023) guidance. Data were pseudonymised, stored on secure, password‑protected university servers, and accessible only to the research group until the project end (TENK, 2023). After close reading, material relating to social class was coded in Atlas.ti within a “social class” category and subgroups of cars/home, celebrations, travel, family, education, toys, clothes/things. Collaborative coding by four researchers supported shared interpretation and consistency. The Critical Discours Studies framework examined 1) discursive strategies like structure and cohesion 2) social layers like hegemony and normalisation of standards such as travel, and 3) cognitive layers like speech acts and attitudes (Van Dijk, 2015; Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000). Children’s discourse was analysed through word choice, turn‑taking, silence, and non‑verbal cues. We grouped staff discourse similarities into three result categories: walking past the cracks: avoidance, spotting the gap:partial recognition and building bridges: strategies. COVID‑19 compressed observation windows for some centres and some participants opted out from being interviewed. We did not compile systematic socioeconomic profiles beyond spontaneously mentioned details, noting social class only when theoretically and discursively warranted. Future work could expand child‑centered ethnography longitudinally.

Findings align with Bourdieu’s (1984) theory and Lareau´s (2003)research showing that educators’ implicit biases and institutional norms are strong even in systems devoted to equality. Children from less‑resourced homes, adopt face‑saving and avoidance discourses to protect dignity, indicating a habitus attuned to managing stigma, while peers with more resources use economic and symbolic capital confidently, reproducing middle‑class entitlement. Staff discourse predominantly avoided naming class, framed equality as sameness and thereby postponing recognition of inequalities. Where class was acknowledged, it was through families or material markers. Some compensation strategies like removing toy day or providing spare Santa hats buffer stigma without addressing structural causes. These patterns show lack in explicit tools and collective engagement, everyday practices normalise middle‑class standards and inadvertently reproduce hierarchies. We advocate shifting from silence to dialogue and from compensation to structural practice. Professional learning should equip teams to recognise class dynamics, discuss fairness and difference in age‑appropriate ways, and pair material buffers with explicit inclusion strategies. Initial and in‑service education should include social‑class knowledge so that recognition does not depend on individual engagement. Incorporating these practices in centre‑wide routines can cultivate a reflexive habitus that challenges inequalities. In ECEC, the question is not whether we can afford this, but whether we can afford not to, because children’s inclusion and long‑term wellbeing depend on institutions that actively counter classed inequalities.

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