Speakers
Description
Integrated statement
Research and political attention on bullying in Norway have largely been directed at schools, but after the release of the governmental Whitepaper “To Belong” (NOU 2015:2), Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has been included in the overall work to develop safe and secure learning environments for children, both in school and ECEC-settings. The learning environment project is a national initiative that includes ECEC settings in handling and preventing bullying and other violations.
The Learning Environment project is a national initiative from the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, where the Learning Environmental Centre is responsible for helping to create safe and sound learning environments within both ECEC settings and schools in Norway. The project aims to prevent dissatisfaction, and violations such as bullying, violence, discrimination, and harassment. In this symposium, we will discuss the intentions, content, and outcomes of the project in ECEC settings related to viewpoints from project leaders, supervisors, and participants from different parts of Norway. The symposium also included Sami perspectives. This project has inspired a group of researchers, who will present their results in this symposium. Their project has investigated how the staff intervenes in play and activities and how they can foster peer interactions. This symposium aims to contribute to knowledge about how professional development, national strategies, and the practice field can collaborate and cooperate to improve the learning environment in ECEC and also inspire research.
Keywords
The Learning Environment Projects, Safe and sound environment, ECEC, preventing, bullying
Additional field for symposia
- The learning environment project – a Norwegian innovation to promote a safe and sound environment in ECEC and to prevent, identify, and manage violations like bullying, violence, discrimination, and harassment
Anne Kristin Hansen Andresen, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger, Norway
Marianne Torve Martinsen, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger, Norway
The aim of this paper is to present a professional development project facilitated to secure safe and sound learning environments in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The project, which is initiated by The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, aims to promote a safe and sound ECEC and school environment without violations such as bullying, violence, discrimination, and harassment.
The Learning Environmental Project (LEP) was initially developed to meet challenges according bullying and other violations in Norwegian schools. However, research indicates that bullying and other violations often start in the ECEC. Therefore, the Norwegian government decided to include ECEC in LEP in 2017. Through a two-year project period, the ECEC staff develop competence to promote and prevent, identify and manage emerging bullying behavior, and on the importance of high-quality learning environments for small children, emphasizing friendship, play, and inclusion. There are four main phases within the project, each lasting one semester: 1) Promote and develop a safe and sound ECEC and school environment, 2) Prevent, uncover, and deal with dissatisfaction and violations, 3) Organizational development and development of leadership, 4) Continuation of inclusion and building a positive culture. The project attends a “whole-school approach” involving all parts of the ECEC, as well as parents and children. A local project group, established at each ECEC setting, facilitates and leads the implementation of the project. Two supervisors from the Learning Environment Centre supervise the project group and are responsible for facilitating professional development through lectures, training, supervision, and discussions.
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“Co-creating a community for a good psychosocial environment in ECEC”.
Anne Kristin Hansen Andresen, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger, Norway,
Mette Johannessen, ECEC manager Sogndal municipality.
Wibeke Michaelsen, ECEC manager, Lindesnes municipality.
Two ECEC settings in the Southeast and west of Norway participated in “The Learning Environment Project”, from April 2022 – June 2024. This project is connected to the Kindergarten Act chapter VIII, § 41-42, and How ECEC in Norway can prevent bullying in ECEC settings.
To facilitate an environment for young children’s well-being, the headmasters in ECEC focused on creating play and learning environments that ensured all children’s participation. Further, they used the term co-creating community, in the sense that the children and the ECEC teachers and ECEC assistants, together created a child community in the settings. The management and pedagogies were concerned with the collective perspective that also attended to the individual child. The ECEC teachers observed and participated in children's play, and then used information about children's interests for further work on forming inclusive communities. For example, in one ECEC setting, in the department where the youngest children were located, they quickly saw that animals were such a common denominator. They therefore decided to take this as a starting point and let it permeate play and activities, the physical environment both inside the ECEC setting, but also outside in the ECEC settings area or when they explored and went on trips in nature. The community built on itself, and constantly influenced and built on children's experiences, exploration, play, and relationships. This presentation will go into depth on how the ECEC settings made this co-creating community, and what we can learn from this in in an inclusion and community perspective. This practical example leans on Dewey's theory of democracy and communication in education as well as the basic principles of The Learning Environment project. -
Experiences with “The Learning Environment Project” from a Sami ECEC.
Hanne Mette K. Vindvik, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger, Norway
Tina Øwre, manager in ECEC in Karasjok, Norway
The ECEC setting has participated in “The Learning Environment Project” from April 2020- June 2024. The ECEC is located in the Sami village of Karasjok in the northern part of Norway. This contribution will highlight some challenges, questions, and experiences from a Sami childhood in Norway in 2024. The ECEC setting focuses on independence as a value in Sami child-rearing and supports children’s development of independence. By defining the concepts and looking for best practices to support children’s independence, the aim is to facilitate an environment for children’s well-being. The children are supported in coping with adversity and dealing with daily challenges. Furthermore, work is done to encourage and support the children in mastering various tasks as well as to facilitate that the children become confident and independent in the face of adversity, as well as their own and others' feelings. This is important in Sami child-rearing and has been given a lot of places in the job of having a safe and secure children's environment. The purpose of the presentation is to shed light on Sami children’s needs to master and to be able to be resilient to face the future, and in the work with the prevention of bullying and other violations in a Sami context.
The experiences from the ECEC setting lean on Mead’s theory of symbolic interactionism which entails that children live out both their positive and negative experiences from various interactions with 'significant others', in their friend groups in ECEC.
- The staff’s involvement and potential support in peer relations in ECEC toddler groups - an exploratory observational study
Ellen Elvethon, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger, Norway,
Thomas Moser, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger, Norway,
Helene Berntsen Svensson, Institutt for pedagogikk og livslang læring, Norges Teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Norway
Ingrid Midteide Løkken, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research, University of Stavanger/ BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Peer relationships in toddler groups are important for children's well-being, learning, and development. In Norway, children have a statutory right to a safe and secure psychosocial environment, and violations such as exclusion and bullying should not be accepted. It is therefore essential to work preventively to strengthen relationships between the youngest children in ECEC. Relationships between the youngest children have received less attention in the literature than relationships between staff and children. The study investigates how staff engage in and potentially support relationships between the youngest children (1-3 years) in ECEC. The data is based on observations in eight toddler groups. The data was transcribed and categorized, and a thematic analysis was conducted. The results show the extent to which staff involve themselves and support peer relationships on an axis from indirect to more direct measures. Indirect measures refer to passive facilitation of the physical environment, to more direct involvement by the staff. Direct involvement refers to the staff as an active participant and contributors to promote language and social skills. Between indirect and direct measures there are also how the staff organizes activities and content, their sensitivity to individual children and groups of children, their active presence, and joint attention. This study can help to focus on how to promote good relationships between children in ECEC, and how staff can promote a safe and secure environment in ECEC without violations such as exclusion and bullying. - Discussant
Ingrid Midteide Løkken
The discussion will start with a summary of the four contributions. We will reflect and discuss the impact of systematic work on different levels; policymakers, universities, municipalities, and ECEC settings to create a safe and secure learning environment in ECEC, and to prevent violations such as bullying, harassment, and exclusion.
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Not applicable |
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| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Mixed |
