Embodied spatial learning in the mobile preschool: the socio-spatial organization of meals as interactional achievement

The study investigates how meals serve as an arena for children’s socialisation in the socio-spatial organisation of a mobile kindergarten, which takes place on a bus. The study explores how children and educators create space for meals both inside the bus and outdoors, and how this space is used as a learning resource. The aim is to show how knowledge about socio-spatial conditions is an important part of children’s participation in the mobile kindergarten.

The results show that meals in the mobile kindergarten serve as an important arena for children’s socialisation. Children learn through interaction with both educators and their peers to organise and adapt to the socio-spatial conditions on a bus and outdoors. This space for meals is gradually internalised by the children as a body-based habit. Meals turn out to be a complex learning situation where both educators and children actively contribute to creating the necessary spatial frameworks for meals, whether that happens on a lawn or on the bus.

The data collection took place through 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a mobile Swedish kindergarten, the ‘Pippi Bus’, where the researchers conducted participatory observations throughout the day (a total of 44 days distributed over the period), video recording (approximately 150 hours) and took field notes documenting everyday activities in kindergarten.

Melander Bowden, H., & Gustafson, K. (2022). Embodied spatial learning in the mobile preschool: the socio-spatial organization of meals as interactional achievement. Children's Geographies, 20(2), 234–250.

Online year: 2021

Issue year: 2022

Review year: 2022