Nationale praktikker i børnehaven: Om relationen mellem forskelsstrukturer i småbørnspædagogikken og en nationalstatsorganisering.

The purpose of this study is to examine how pedagogical practices relate to nationally established cultural norms and thus to the organisation of the national government. Moreover, the study examines the impact of nationally embedded practices for the determination of similarities and differences, i.e. how to distinguish between the community to which you belong and that which is outside the community ('them and us').

The study shows that early childhood pedagogy is linked to the organisation of the national state. According to Bourdieu, this has an influence on the content and distribution of cultural capital and therefore also on differentiation mechanisms. Differentiation mechanisms are defined as ways to handle otherness. The study presents and analyses the child in five different forms: the social and verbal child, the social and emotional child, the natural child (the child outdoors in nature), the bodily-controlled child and the linear child (the notion that the child develops in line with age). It is in these forms the national element appears as a way to create cohesion, harmony and unity. The study also shows that the national element is not explicitly made a matter of ethnicity or national state. The kind of nationalism that is seen in everyday life at a daycare centre becomes apparent in matters of age, of becoming good friends or of letting go of anger and letting in happiness.

The data material consists of field notes from observations made at two daycare centres. In addition, a total of nine child carers/childcare assistants/other pedagogical staff were interviewed. The staff represent a variety of nationalities. The study is a cultural sociological study of pedagogy as a nation-state phenomenon supplemented with a cultural and social historical perspective. The theoretical framework is inspired by Bourdieu's practice theory and Archer's critical realism.

Larsen, V. (2010). Nationale praktikker i børnehaven: Om relationen mellem forskelsstrukturer i småbørnspædagogikken og en nationalstatsorganisering. Roskilde: Roskilde Universitet. Institut for Psykologi og Uddannelsesforskning.