In Norway's 'Framework Plan for kindergartens' digital tools are to be implemented for learning, play and creativity. Implicitly the concept of digital tools, or ICTs, tend to be tablets, computers, and interactive whiteboards, smartphones are as such not taken into account. However, we find that the smartphone is particularly interesting because…

Research concerning play and technology is largely aimed at expanding the knowledge of what technological play may be and, to a lesser extent, examines what happens to children's play when it encounters digital tools. In order to explore some of the complexity in play, this article elaborates on how Latour's concepts of 'translation' and…

Early intervention and integration are highly valued ideals in kindergartens in Norway. Building on two research projects informed by institutional ethnography, the authors address how kindergarten teachers 'do' early intervention and integration in their everyday work. They argue that this work largely revolves around managing categories, whether…

This comparative study of everyday life in Norwegian and French preschools explores how 'risk' related to children's body practices is understood, practised and negotiated by teachers and how this may regulate educational practices in a short- and long-term perspective. Studying educational institutions in two different societies illuminates…

This article describes literacy competence in the narratives of toddlers and investigates how they make use of different modalities, like gestures, sounds and physical actions. The body phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty serves as a theoretical frame for the researcher's lens, which is an A/r/tographer's lens applied in multimodal narrative analysis.…

With this study we have a twofold aim. Firstly, to develop a model for identifying and analyzing the status of students' scholarly thinking, and secondly to design and evaluate an educational practice with the aim of supporting these skills. A series of webinars connected researchers and students from Finland, Norway and Sweden and gave the…

Several authors have argued that early childhood education and care (ECEC) is essentially an ethical practice based on certain values and conceptions about the purpose of education. Is this also the case for educational practices surrounding the highly valued notion of curiosity? While psychological approaches portray it as neutral, this article…

Digital technology is a central part of young children's everyday lives in most societies today. This paper contributes to current research by exploring two teachers' pedagogical strategies when creating digital stories together with groups of six kindergarten children (age 4-5). The study has a qualitative, multiple-case study design. The…

This paper focuses on kindergarten teachers' interactions with young children during mathematical learning activities involving the use of digital tools. We aim to characterise the teachers' roles and actions in these activities and extend considerations of teachers' orchestrations current in the research literature with regard to agency and…

Various forms of digital devices have established themselves as resources within constructions of professional practices in early childhood education. This article is centred on the question of how we might rethink an example of digital practice based on a Foucauldian understanding of discourse and a rhizomatic understanding of digital practice…

This study aims to investigate the language-learning environment and educational language practices in four toddler groups measured as high quality on the 'Listening and Talking' subscale in the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale -- Revised. The empirical data are taken from a larger fieldwork conducted in four child groups, and comprise 98…

This article explores the notion of curiosity as a gateway to value dilemmas in early childhood education and care practices. The concept of dilemmatic space (Honig) is used to highlight the complexity of educational practices. Through an ethnographic approach based on video-observation and stimulated recall interviews, the reflections of the…

The present study focuses on exploring the relationships of preschool staff and children with language difficulties in Norwegian and Belarusian contexts. A qualitative case design was used, and data were gathered through video observations and video-based conversations. Through different approaches--narrative analysis and analysis of…

In computer gaming situations in kindergartens, the pre-school teacher's function can be viewed in a continuum. At one extreme is the teacher who takes an intervening role and at the other extreme is the teacher who chooses to restrict herself/himself to an organising or distal role. This study shows that both the intervening position and the…

Food practices are culturally and historically situated, and so are conceptions of 'risk'. Comparative studies of food practices can highlight these cultural norms and conceptions. In this article we will present results from a study that investigated food practices in Norwegian and French kindergartens with a particular focus on constructions of…