Workshop schedule

Oral abstract presentation in a workshop/symposium/online session: 

• Each oral abstract presentation has total time of 20 min, which includes 15 min presentation + 5 min discussion
• Oral abtsracts are presented with powerpoint -slides 
• There are laptop computers in each workshop room so presenters may bring their slides with their own flash drive/stick or you can attach your own laptop via HDMI. If you use apple device - please bring your own adapter if possible.  
• It is recommended that presenters find their way to workshop venues 10 min prior, to check, and make sure all the technical issues run smoothly during workshops.

Poster presentation

• Poster size: 100 x 150 cm 
• Posters are on display during the whole conference
• There are two separate scheduled sessions when the poster presenters should be present:
  • Thursday 16.5. at 11-11:30 a.m.
  • Thursays 16.5. at 4-4:30 p.m.

Online workshops

• There will be one online workshop available to attend in each workshop session. 
• The links to participate in each session will be sent to online presenters and participants on Monday 13th of May. 
  
   

Here's a conference abstract book for download. No changes have been made to the original book, as after revision all the information was in the book. The abstracts are primarily divided according to presentation type (oral, online, poster) and the theme of registration. The best way to find your own abstract is to use the search function.

Workshops

Session A (Minerva plaza k227)
Chair: Noora Heiskanen
 

Session B (Minerva plaza k228)
Chair: Elina Stenvall
 

Session C (Minerva plaza k229)
Chair: Jaana Juutinen
 

Session D (Minerva plaza k232)
Chair: Virve Toivonen
 

Session E (Minerva room k112)
Chair: Marleena Mustola
 

Session F (Minerva room k114)
Chair: Elina Wecsktröm and Venla Eirola 
 

Symposiums

Session A (Minerva plaza k114)

Chair: Ph. d. Benedicte Bernstorff, UC SYD, Institut for pædagogik


Disentangling documentation and assessment practices in early childhood education related to the child’s well-being 

The lives of Nordic children are documented in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Documentation is often described as a prerequisite for the functioning of educational institutions and seen as an institutional actor. The outset of documentation practices is aimed to increase the well-being and learning of an individual child as well as planning the high-quality education and effective support. At the more general level, documentation is said to increase the quality of ECEC. As documentation has also other function in ECEC, it develops for example “a local normal” through the pedagogical interpretations. This means that documentation is understood as having consequences. As Nordic ECEC emphasizes holistic assessment, documentation practices focusing on individual children creates contradictions and dilemmas. Even though documentation is sometimes approached as a neutral recording of facts, the critical approaches to documentation have arisen, pointing out the consequential nature of documentation and the potential power it possesses in educational institutions. In this symposium, we will critically examine the predominant understandings of documentation in Nordic ECEC from the perspectives of current research (Poikola et al.), pedagogues’ practices guided by the assessment tools (Bernstorff et al.), and the child’s right to be heard (Franck). After these three presentations from Finland, Denmark, and Norway, we will invite the participants to join a concluding discussion on how children are represented through these contemporary documentation practices and what are the potential consequences for the child’s well-being.

Session B (Minerva plaza k112)

Chairs: Zsuzsa Millei, Tampere University and Spyros Spyrou, European University Cyprus

Child bodies in a bacterial world: A new imperative for childhood studies

All bodies – child, animal, plant - are symbiotic partners in a microbial world as well as bodies-as-ecosystems (McFall-Ngai, 2017). The child body-as-ecosystem consists of human cells which are tenfold outnumbered by a vast number of microbial organisms (such as bacteria, fungi or protozoa) (Margulis and Sagan, 2002). Instead of thinking microbes as disease-causing, what if we take seriously the body’s microbial constitution in a bacterial world? The concept, body-as-ecosystem, highlights entanglements with other organisms, toxicities and the artificial world and how they create environments for one another. This concept challenges simplistic notions of the child as a unitary (mostly social) subject characterized by boundedness and finitude, exemplified in childhood studies through the image of the agentic child. 

In this panel, 5 scholars address the following questions by grounding their responses in their respective fields and research interests: How does the concept of body-as-ecosystem contribute to research in your research or field? How does such a concept open up our senses to the surprising processes around us that would not be possible otherwise? The scholars are: Tuure Tammi (multispecies communities); Nick Lee (childhood as re-indigenisation); Sarah Alminde and Hanne Warming (children in vulnerable position) and Asta Breinholt (social stratification).

Discussant: Riikka Hohti, University of Helsinki / University of Tampere, Finland

Workshops

Session A (Minerva plaza k113)
Chair: Anne-Elina Salo

Session B (Minerva plaza k115)
Chair: Laura Ortju

Session C (Minerva plaza k 227)
Chair: Antti Malinen

Session D (Minerva plaza k228)
Chair: Susanne Ylönen

Session E (Minerva plaza k229)
Chairs: Kati Honkanen and Venla Eirola

Session F (Minerva plaza k222c)
Chair: Liisa Karlsson

Session G (Minerva plaza k232)
Chair: Beth Ferholt 

Adults and children as co-designers of communities, including scientific communities

This symposium includes four papers that are united both by their focus on the role of communities in creating children’s habitats and well-being; and in their efforts to support and study the adult-child joint creation of communities, including scientific communities. Each of these papers is looking for new ways to center "the other" through methods that allow us to see understudied phenomena and people: Black caregivers, sustainability work in India, young children’s math expertise, the wisdom of teachers in training, etc. Each of these papers is also working to change systems that have been taken for granted in terms of how we teach, learn, and understand teachers and learners. It is particularly generative to present these multiple studies in dialogue because they were all developed through a collaborative effort to bridge theory and practice to imagine other worlds.  The four papers are written by doctoral students at The Graduate Center who attended one of a series of sister courses that have been taking place at the University of Helsinki and The Graduate Center since 2019. The next course in the series is titled “The Role of Theory and Concepts in Ethnographic and Arts-Based Research”. These courses have been designed with the explicit goal of fostering the inclusion in scientific processes of young children, as well as their teachers, artists, and the imaginary characters with whom young children and their teachers live and work; and of supporting the creation of communities that include these participants as designers of habitats and activities.

Symposiums

Session A (Minerva room k114)
Chairs: 
Professor Anne-Li Lindgren, Stockholm University and professor Tünde Puskás, Linkoping University

Early childhood education and care and integration: Multiple understandings of ECEC childhoods

Good quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is often regarded as a crucial aspect of children’s educational opportunities, yet the societal role of preschool as regards integration of migrant children has long been below the radar of academic debates both in Nordic countries and internationally. This session aims to bring together varying theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations to generate new knowledge about the integration of the youngest citizens via ECEC and how it effects ECEC childhoods. In the session researchers from Germany, Sweden and Finland will come together to present investigations about how ECEC and integration play out on national and local policy levels, as well as in children’s everyday lives in varying ECEC practices. In addition, the role of pedagogues will be included. The five presentations will address aspects of integration and ECEC childhoods in relation to: language, culture, agency, othering, nature, everyday nationalism, national policy strategies, local policy strategies, access barriers, inequality, free play, shadowing, peripheral participation, and affordances.

Session B (Minerva room k112)

Considering children’s wellbeing and development in Danish and Finnish early childhood education and care policies

Chairs: 
Associate Professor Eija Sevón, University Of Jyväskylä
Associate Professor, Dr. Pernille Juhl and Dr. Allan Westerling, Roskilede University and 
Professor Maarit Alasuutari, University of Jyväskylä

Children’s wellbeing in early childhood is a multifaceted phenomenon defined and researched from various perspectives. In the Nordic countries, early childhood education and care (ECEC) forms a significant growth environment for most children besides their home. Since ECEC professionals and parents only have partial insight into the contexts children move across (Kousholt, 2011), collaboration between these two environments is crucial from the perspective of children and their wellbeing.

In Finland, the Act on ECEC (540/2018) and the core curriculum guidelines (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2022) emphasize parental participation and collaboration between parents and professionals. Parents are, for example, entitled to participate in and influence the planning, implementation and evaluation of their child’s ECEC. An important means in this is the child’s ECEC plan document that is drafted for each child in ECEC. The child's views must also be taken into account when drafting the plan.

In Denmark, the compound nature of children’s everyday lives in ECEC and at home has historically been pivotal in collaboration between parents and professionals (Dencik, 2005; Højholt, 2001). However, a recent reform of the Danish ECEC Act stipulates that professionals must now cooperate with parents about their children’s learning environment and that parents must support learning programs introduced by local authorities. Consequently, children’s learning and skills are politically defined as a mandatory focus for home-ECEC collaboration. The symposium explores/discusses what meanings parent-ECEC collaboration and the child as its focus receive in the policy contexts of Finland and Denmark by applying different data sets.

Session C (Minerva room k113)
Chair: Eva Bubla 

Microbial Futures Lab: Future Medicine workshop.
What do a handful of soil, the forest, or some invisible creatures have to do with the health of our and our children’s bodies and minds? 

Microbial Futures Lab is a traveling laboratory, a constantly expanding collection of future medicines, treatments, rites and narratives reflecting on the well-being of human and more-than-human lifeforms. The human / child body consists of human cells which are tenfold outnumbered by a vast number of microbial organisms (such as bacteria, fungi or protozoa) (Margulis and Sagan, 2002). Instead of thinking of microbes as disease-causing, what if we take seriously the body’s microbial constitution in a bacterial world? Thinking of the human / child body in this way challenges simplistic notions of the child as a unitary (mostly social) subject characterized by boundedness and finitude, exemplified in childhood studies through the image of the agentic child. All bodies are interconnected microbial ecosystems, living and breathing habitats of tiny organisms: bodies of cities, bodies of waters, air, soil, and our own human bodies are inseparable.
How can we imagine the medicines of the future in a world where our and our children’s present relationship with the environment is typically defined by rituals of disinfection, fighting bacteria and viruses? What speculative visions of the future, of humanmicrobes or microbialhumans, old-new rites, treatments and medicines can we imagine if we look at the concept of health in a holistic way, if we understand it as the mutual well-being of symbiotically living human and more-than-human lifeforms?
During the workshop, you will get introduced to some key elements of the Lab’s collection, as well as the stories related to them. You will travel through time and space, encapsulated landscapes and extraterrestrial drops, and will investigate the present and future of your own environment to come up with new rites and medicines for a healthy ecosystem of human / child and more-than-human lifeforms.
The project is rooted in the collaboration with the researchers of the Microbial Childhood Collaboratory (MCC) at Tampere University, Finland. 

***
Eva Bubla is an artist and activist. Her work has been centered around current ecological and social concerns. At the boundaries of art and science, her projects aim to map, perceive, interpret, and as such (re)connect audiences to the local ecosystem. She is keen on working together with local communities and other sectors; these forms of interactions define if an object, an installation, a performance, a workshop, or a festival is born. Her solo and collaborative projects have addressed issues such as the role of urban green areas, the challenges of farming, air, water or plastic pollution, the ecological needs and risks of freshwaters, and relevant human activities by offering relevant social discourse, new perspectives or future imaginations.

The Microbial Childhood Collaboratory (MCC) is a multidisciplinary research group composed of researchers working on the fields of environmental ecology and health, international relations, sociology, anthropology, childhood studies, social work, early childhood education, and community art.

Workshops

Session A (Minerva room k115)
Chairs: Kati Honkanen and Venla Eirola

Session B (Minerva plaza k227)
Chair: Jaana Juutinen

Session C (Minerva plaza k228)
Chair: Marjatta Kekkonen

Symposiums

Session A (Hybrid session @ Athena 302)

Chairs: Anna Rainio and Francine Kliemann

Playworlds, Immersive Learning Adventures, The Necessary Spaces:  Children’s agency and active participation in communities 

In the context of meaningful learning experiences with positive implications for life trajectories, the teaching and learning approach known as "immersive learning adventures" integrates immersive theatre, new technologies, and gamification with social and environmental themes. We will discuss The School of the (Im)Possible as a study case of an educational experience which fosters children’s agency in their communities and immerses them in artistic-pedagogical narratives, positioning them as protagonists in a journey that spans the curriculum and is embedded within formal education. As students progress, they recognize their potential as transformative agents of society, exercising age-appropriate competencies and skills. We will explore the multifaceted dimensions of agency in immersive learning adventures, focusing on empowering children to contribute positively to their communities. Motivations are cultivated to develop learning and participation, instilling values, attitudes, and behaviours essential for personal and societal growth. Through a lens of life skills, such as teamwork, problem-solving, resilience, and community engagement, students extend their learning beyond the classroom, developing Inner Development Goals (IDGs) and exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We propose reflections on how participants apply insights to real-world situations, inspiring behavioural change within their communities or schools. A key focus is bridging the digital and real worlds, emphasising student agency in enacting change. Exploring the role of technology in immersive learning adventures is pivotal, facilitating dialogue between imaginative and real-world experiences. Digital technologies offer expanded narrative possibilities, enriching the learning environment with layers of reality and new possibilities for learning through imagination and play.
 

Session B (Minerva room k112)
Chair: Niina Rutanen

Constituting childhoods and children’s everyday lives in early childhood education and care transitions

"Early educational transitions from home to early childhood education and care (ECEC), during the years in ECEC, and finally, in transition to school both characterize and diversify children’s educational paths. Transitions are processes experienced and constituted individually by each child. They are also constituted by diverse socio-spatial arrangements, structures, and practices within the institutions. Transitions strengthen children’s bonds through shared processes and experiences, but also challenge children’s belonging in changing educational institutions and communities. This symposium on transitions brings together three papers based on Trace in ECEC – Tracing children’s socio-spatial relations and lived experiences in early childhood education transitions -project at the University of Jyväskylä (Research Council of Finland, 2019-2024). The aim of this symposium is to both broaden the view on transitions as socio-spatial processes constituted by diverse relations and, also, reflect on what is essential for children’s communities and for the development of inclusive transition practices in ECEC.

The first paper will focus on how educators reflect on child’s first transition, constructing views on childhood and young transitioning child. The second paper will shed light on the role of the institutional structures and practices constituting children’s transitions during the years in ECEC and contemplate the main messages that can be derived to practice development. The third paper will focus on transition to pre-primary education exploring how transitions are constructed and lived through daily relations and social action between children and educators. The symposium highlights the multiplicities of discursive and socio-spatial relations in constituting children’s everyday lives.   "
 

Workshops

Session A (Minerva room k114)
Chair: Norma Rudolph

Session B (Minerva room k115)
Chair: Laura Ortju ja Reetta Kalliomeri

Session C (Minerva plaza k113)
Chair: Johanna Kiili 

Session D (Minerva plaza k227)
Chair: Emma Kurenlahti

Session E (Minerva plaza k228)
Chairs: Kati Honkanen and Venla Eirola

Session F (Minerva plaza k229)
Chair: Susanne Ylönen

Session G (Minerva plaza k232)
Chairs: Veronika Magyar-Haas, Paulina Bunio-Mroczek and Maša Avramović

POSTER PRESENTATION
(Minerva plaza)

Postersare on display during the whole conference. 
There are two separate scheduled sessions when the poster presenters should be present. 

Workshops

Session A (Minerva plaza k227)
Chair: Kaisa Harju

Session B (Minerva plaza k228)
Chairs: Laura Ortju ja Elina Weckström 

Session C (Minerva plaza k229)
Chair: Liisa Karlsson

Session D (Minerva plaza k232)
Chair: Eija Sevón

Workshops 

(Athena 302)

Wednesday 15th 4.15 - 5.15. pm
Chair: Mari Hirvonen

Thursday 16th from 9.30 - 11.00 am
Chair: Mari Hirvonen

Thursday 16th from 1.30 - 3.30 pm
Chair: Elina Stenvall

Thursday 16th from 4.00 - 5.30 pm 
(Hybrid session - possibility to attend online and on site)

Chairs: Anna Rainio and Francine Kliemann

Playworlds, Immersive Learning Adventures, The Necessary Spaces:  Children’s agency and active participation in communities 

In the context of meaningful learning experiences with positive implications for life trajectories, the teaching and learning approach known as "immersive learning adventures" integrates immersive theatre, new technologies, and gamification with social and environmental themes. We will discuss The School of the (Im)Possible as a study case of an educational experience which fosters children’s agency in their communities and immerses them in artistic-pedagogical narratives, positioning them as protagonists in a journey that spans the curriculum and is embedded within formal education. As students progress, they recognize their potential as transformative agents of society, exercising age-appropriate competencies and skills. We will explore the multifaceted dimensions of agency in immersive learning adventures, focusing on empowering children to contribute positively to their communities. Motivations are cultivated to develop learning and participation, instilling values, attitudes, and behaviours essential for personal and societal growth. Through a lens of life skills, such as teamwork, problem-solving, resilience, and community engagement, students extend their learning beyond the classroom, developing Inner Development Goals (IDGs) and exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We propose reflections on how participants apply insights to real-world situations, inspiring behavioural change within their communities or schools. A key focus is bridging the digital and real worlds, emphasising student agency in enacting change. Exploring the role of technology in immersive learning adventures is pivotal, facilitating dialogue between imaginative and real-world experiences. Digital technologies offer expanded narrative possibilities, enriching the learning environment with layers of reality and new possibilities for learning through imagination and play.
 

Friday 17th from 9.00 - 10.00 am
Chair: Mari Hirvonen