Purpose
The study focuses on how children and employees in a religiously diverse Norwegian kindergarten relate to Christmas celebrations. The purpose is to investigate how Christmas as a time of religious and socio-cultural belonging affects children’s practices, stories and opportunities to belong in the institutional context of kindergarten.
Result
The study found that Christmas celebrations are dominant from the end of November and throughout December. In parallel with the kindergarten employees explicitly acknowledging that not everyone celebrates Christmas, the activities of the kindergarten and the social environment were heavily characterised by the Christmas celebration. The children navigated Christmas celebrations in four different ways, through identification, silence, separation and imagination. The results show that children’s sense of belonging in kindergarten is influenced by their social background, and that Christmas celebrations can create both opportunities and limitations for children’s belonging and inclusion.
Design
The study is based on ethnographic methods in which the researcher observed children in a culturally and religiously diverse kindergarten in Norway over a period of 20 days. The kindergarten had a total of 57 children aged three to five years, of which 43 of the children participated in the study. Approximately half of the children in the kindergarten had parents with backgrounds from countries other than Norway. The data consists of field notes that were analysed focusing on the children’s interactions and participation in Christmas preparations, as well as informal conversations with employees and some parents.
References
Iversen, R.L. (2023). Identification, Silence, Separation, and Imagination: Children’s Navigations of Christmas in a Religiously Diverse Norwegian Kindergarten. Education Science, 13(11),1077.