Investigating morality in toddler's life-worlds

Eva Johansson

pp. 39-62

in: Eva Johansson, E. White (eds), Educational research with our youngest, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

The following interaction between toddlers took place in a Swedish preschool. This particular toddler group involved 16 children aged between 1 and 3 years. The children and their teachers were gathered in a large playroom.This excerpt raised many questions for me as a researcher, such as: How do these children experience their "wordless' interplay? What might be of importance for Olle when he takes the comforter from Anna? He uses gentle movements and he is smiling, why is it so? And what might be Anna's experiences of this kind of interaction? Is she all right with Olle using her comforter and how does she interpret Olle's intention when he stretches out the comforter after sucking it a second time? Is it possible for me as a researcher to interpret this interaction in terms of morality from the children's point of view?