Day care as an integrational arena and inclusive environment: Newcomer Migrant Girls’ Sociocultural Transitions and Negotiations of Identity, Home and Belonging

The overarching research question for this thesis is: What facilitates integration and inclusion for newcomer migrant children in everyday social reality in day care?
The supplementary research questions for the four articles in the thesis are:

(1) How do possibilities for newcomer migrant children to participate in defining their needs relate to practitioners' attitudes to the children’s needs?

(2) How can newcomer migrant children's negotiations regarding inclusion and social positioning work be understood as multimodal access strategies into peer group activity? With the concept of "modality", the author refers to gestures and gazes, for example, but also to objects used by the children to communicate their opinions to others.

(3) How can role play be understood as a representation of newcomer migrant children's social attachment and well-being within their surroundings?

(4) What types of social and structural conditions contribute to newcomer migrant children's social exclusion within everyday child-governed activities in day care?

The four articles in the thesis focus on how the migrant girls' opportunities for inclusion in everyday social reality not only depend on the girls' ability to negotiate identity and belonging, but also on the opportunities they receive from the other children and teachers.

The first article is based on qualitative interviews with two day care teachers. According to the author, the article indicates that the teachers' perception of the two newcomer migrant girls' needs are characterised as culture-bound perceptions of what is normal or "appropriate" development for children, including what it takes to be ready for school. According to the author, such perceptions can influence how the teachers work with the children, and the possibilities the children have to participate in decisions regarding their own needs.

Based on four narratives, the second article shows that multimodal negotiations can unfold in all parts of children's lives in the day care institution. The article illustrates that the two newcomer migrant girls' negotiations on social positioning aim directly at high-status children, and that these negotiations are realised through multimodal means of communication. The article shows that social status is determined by the children's ability to uphold and protect the group's interests and values. In addition, the child's personal qualities and abilities, such as writing, can be used as a negotiation platform and to indicate the child's value to the group.

The third article is based on observations of role play by one of the two girls. The author describes how, as a result of a loss of social and cultural reference points and belonging, the girl enters a borderline territory between positions in her new day care surroundings. The girl's daily negotiations and attempts to reconstruct her social connection and attachment are used to demonstrate how migrant children's role play reflects their sense of belonging.

Based on a single video observation, the author analyses in the last article the interactions taking place when a group of girls in the day care institution exclude a newcomer migrant girl from participating in a social activity. The author uses this analysis to show that day care groups are characterised by struggles over power and social position. The author assesses that the results nuance the general positive view of day care for newcomer migrant children, as they reveal that these children's experiences with relational aggression risk going unnoticed when they take place in seemingly harmless, child-governed everyday activities.

During nine months of field work, the author focused on two 4-year-old newcomer migrant girls' experiences in moving from an introductory group in the day care institution to a mainstream day care group with peers. The field work was conducted in one Norwegian day care institution with two mainstream day care groups and two introductory groups for newcomer migrant children. The study's empirical material was collected through participatory observation, field notes and various participatory methods such as photos of the children, tours of the day care institution and arts-based activities. Similarly, the author conducted semi-structured interviews with two pedagogical leaders and held informal conversations with children, staff and parents.

Kalkman, K. (2017). Day care as an integrational arena and inclusive environment: Newcomer Migrant Girls’ Sociocultural Transitions and Negotiations of Identity, Home and Belonging. Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2017:67. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences, Department of Social Work.