NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ1412718
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0966-9760
EISSN: EISSN-1469-8463
Children's Touch in a Swedish Preschool: Touch Cultures in Peer Group Interaction
Anna Ekström; Asta Cekaite
International Journal of Early Years Education, v32 n1 p103-121 2024
This study examines children's touch conduct in peer-group interaction in a Swedish preschool. Through a detailed analysis of 100 video-recorded touch episodes from everyday preschool activities, the study proposes an initial description of touch functions in children's peer groups. The results suggest that touch was primarily used to control other children and to show affection. Both affectionate and control touch played significant roles to form and protect small social units within the larger group of children. Affectionate touch also played a central role in children's friendship groups to establish and uphold intimate social relations. Children's peer relations involved extended forms of touch between both boys and girls, and in mixed gender constellations. Children both initiated and received peer touch without paying these actions specific attention, and they granted others access to their whole bodies including vulnerable body parts. Children's touch regularly occurred in parallel with other activities and was routinely not verbally topicalised as focal point of interaction. Detailed examination of touch episodes provides well-informed ground for understanding specificities of embodied conduct as socially and normatively organised children's touch cultures.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Preschool Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A