Når børn trives i børnehaven.

This study is based on a Danish daycare centre (kindergarten) and its purpose is to conceptualise when both the children themselves and the early childhood educators perceive the children to be doing well and to be prospering.

The study concludes that the early childhood educators understand and assess the child's well-being on the basis of a subjective assessment of the child's bodily signs of joy and satisfaction, and on whether the child generally seems "harmonious"; a word used to indicate well-being. Interviews with the children show that their understanding of well-being is linked to friends and places to play at the daycare centre, and well-being is particularly linked to acknowledgement and status within the group of children. In addition, the interviews show a considerable absence of adults in their narratives, and this indicates that the children's well-being and joy is highly associated with "living their own life" at the daycare centre.

The study concludes that these divergent interpretations of well-being by the early childhood educators and the children do not constitute a conflict, but merely are two different perspectives of the same phenomenon. While the early childhood educators see the "harmonious child" prospering, the children are occupied by the things that give them status in the child community.

The data material is based on field work in one daycare centre in Denmark for a period of two-three months in 2009. The material consists of observations in the daycare centre and interviews with early childhood educators and children. Moreover, a questionnaire survey was carried out among the parents of 419 5-year-olds about the well-being of their children at daycare centres (The Child Health Questionnaire CHQ-PF50).

Koch, A.B. (2013). Når børn trives i børnehaven. Ph.d.-afhandling. Syddansk Universitet, Aarhus.