Keegan, Chloe (2024) “It’s Like a Baby Jail!” The impact of regimented daily routines on children’s participation in early childhood education. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.

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Abstract

Routines are the backbone of what is deemed a high-quality early years environment. When routines are converted into an adult-regimented timetable that informs the day-to-day experiences of children, a daily routine becomes a power structure that interferes with the self-rhythm of a child, deciding when they can eat, play and go outside while demanding desired behaviours and imbedding social norms. When a routine is designed for children and not by children, it presents a practical dilemma where children’s participatory rights appear to be valued in theory but not implemented in practice. By focusing on the daily routine of an early childhood environment through a Foucauldian lens, this research explored the power dynamics that existed between adult educators and children aged 2-4 years to understand how children’s forms of expression within an adult-designed daily routine shaped their level of participation. Data collection was conducted by children positioned as co-researchers equipped with head-mounted GoPro cameras to record their daily routines that included outdoor play, art, snack and indoor free play, where video recall during weekly focus groups provided opportunities for children to further express their views on the data they recorded. The findings highlighted the rawness of being a young child in education today and the way in which children used acts of obedience and resistance to feel heard, valued and to participate, but oftentimes were ignored or silenced by educators. These moments led to the research’s development of the Ject Framework which highlights the various ways children experience power and seek out ways to express themselves through the satisfaction of their self-rhythm. The Ject Framework forms the basis of the Six Participation Personas of Power that highlights the implications for participation when children’s self-rhythm is either satisfied or skewed in favour of the adult’s self-rhythm. The conformist and revolutionary personas of Active Conformist, Passive Conformist, Active Revolutionary, Passive Revolutionary, Secure Selective and Insecure Selective were generated to highlight how children’s level of participation is shaped based on the way a daily routine is enforced on them in early childhood environments. This research generates further insight into the implementation issues relating to children's participation rights, the role educational power structures play in silencing children and contributes further thinking and rethinking about the daily power being enforced on children and the impact this has on their ability to actively participate in their own lives.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Keywords:	impact; regimented daily routines; children’s participation; early childhood education;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Education
Item ID:	19041
Depositing User:	IR eTheses
Date Deposited:	15 Oct 2024 11:08
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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