A Clockwork Childhood

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Examensarbete i fördjupningsämnet

Barndom och lärande

15 högskolepoäng, grundnivå

An ethnographic study of a preschool in

São Paulo

Max da Rocha

Jakob Hülphers

Förskollärarexamen, 210 högskolepoäng 2015-08-27

Examinator: John Dahlbeck Handledare: Sara Berglund Fakulteten för lärande och samhälle

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Preface

The study before you is the result of a journey. Together Jakob and Max have worked closely together complementing each other’s strengths and developing each other’s ideas. Max has been a driving force behind the study hatching the original idea and making contacts in Brazil. Jakob has in turn provided a sounding board, developing ideas, organising tasks and keeping the study on course. During our field research we have taken notes simultaneously, complementing each other’s observations with different perspectives and rewritten these notes into a collaborative whole. In this sense the structure, analysis and theoretical frame of our essay is also the result of our collaborative efforts. However, since Max has greater fluency in English, he has to a greater extent provided the written finishing touch, rewriting some sections originally written in Swedish.

We would also like to highlight the contribution of our contact and friend in Brazil, Izabel Cristina, whose invaluable support made this study possible. By opening the door to the preschool, as well as providing us with transport, housing and plenty of information during our stay, Izabel Cristina’s contribution has been outstanding. There are obviously many others who also deserve mention in supporting and helping to develop this study, not least our excellent supervisor Sara Berglund who’s feedback and commitment helped us untangle our thoughts. There are obviously many others we would like to thank for their support, but suffice to say thank you all. We will thank you personally when given the chance.

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Abstract

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur förskolans dagliga verksamhet formas och möjliggörs av tidsliga och rumsliga förutsättningar. Vi har närmat oss detta ämne genom att observera två klasser, en med fyra- och en med femåringar, på en stor förskola i São Paulo, Brasilien. Genom att fokusera på hur rum, scheman, rutiner, regler, material och normer samverkar till att forma denna förskola som en institution, vill vi undersöka barns och vuxnas möjligheter att skapa och omförhandla tid och rum inom förskolan.

Vi har valt att undersöka detta genom en etnografisk ansats, där vi främst samlat in fältanteckningar som vi tolkat och diskuterat i förhållande till ett institutions- och aktörsperspektiv. Med stöd i Foucaults teorier om disciplinär makt, där den tidsliga och rumsliga organiseringen av institutioner diskuteras i relation till människors tankar, handlingar och kroppens rörelser, har vi analyserat våra fältanteckningar som uttryck och förhandlingar av normer och makt. För att tydligare få syn på dessa processer har vi speglat våra observationer mot ett urval av skandinavisk förskoleforskning som diskuterar makt och normer. Genom att återknyta till denna forskning och betona vår bakgrund inom en svensk förskoletradition, har vi försökt lyfta vår analys till att diskutera hur den tidsliga och rumsliga organiseringen i förskolor alltid genomsyras av särskilda maktrelationer och normer.

Resultatet av vår analys visar på en tydlig kollektiv norm i de brasilianska förskolegrupperna. Organiseringen av tid och rum vilar på klassen som kollektiv enhet, där barns individuella behov ofta får stå åt sidan för planerade gruppaktiviteter. Studien visar också hur olika rum i förskolan – i synnerhet korridoren, klassrummet och lekplatsen – härbärgerar olika förväntningar och normer på barn och vuxna som ofta tar sig i uttryck i kroppsligstyrning. Samtidigt visar våra observationer hur barn och vuxna identifierar mellanrum i förskolans tidsliga och rumsliga struktur och utvecklar strategier för att kringgå styrning och istället omförhandla förskolans verksamhet och skapa egna aktiviteter inom institutionens ramar.

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Introduction

It is twenty past three in the afternoon. In the corridor of a large preschool a group of 27 children, all five years old, are busy forming a line. Their teacher, a woman in her forties, stands in front of the line, arms crossed, silently inspecting. Soon most of the children stand waiting in the line, some tussling with each other while others study a collage of drawings hanging in the corridor. Two girls break away from the group and wander up to us to ask if they can carry the notepads we are writing in. We say no, that we need to take notes. Meanwhile four boys who are still lingering in the classroom get reminded by their teacher to get in line. She warns them that otherwise they will miss their time in the playground.

Finally the teacher decides that the line is assembled and ready to start moving. She leads the children through the corridor and to the metal gates leading to the stairways. There she stops and inspects the line, crossing her arms once more while silently waiting. In the back, some of the children are occupied testing the sound the metal railings make as they run their hands across them. Two boys are also busy hopping around in the corridor saying “we are rabbits”. The teacher raises her voice and says “Look, we’re not going to move until everyone is back in line.” Meanwhile the children waiting in line grow more and more impatient and start urging their classmates to line up. At long last the children stand in a straight line and the teacher opens the gate. The class descend the stairs and cross the patio with some children once more breaking away from the pack. When reaching the next metal gate the teacher repeats the same procedure; waiting, arms crossed and opening the gate once all the children are assembled.

At long last the children reach the playground. A two minute walk has taken over twenty minutes. But to the children’s disappointment they are not allowed to play. “No, time is up!” the teacher callously states as several of the children rush towards the swings and slides. The teacher rearranges the children in two straight lines – one for boys and one for girls - and explains to them that their time in the playground has run out. “It is time to go back” she concludes, ignoring the children’s protests as she leads them out through the metal gates they just entered.

(Field notes 23.04.2015)

We have chosen the events above to introduce the content of this essay. The events were witnessed by us during our field work in a preschool in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. They revealed an unsettling side to the expectations, requirements and ideals underpinning the teacher’s interactions with these children. Through her gaze, body language and warnings the teacher seemed committed to pass on the message that time was not to be wasted. But

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what did these events say about the preschool’s organisation? And why was this message so important?

This study is on an institution in which many children spend a large part of their everyday life and therefore their childhoods. A preschool is a public institution through which children encounter an educational programme founded on ambitions, values and fears.1 The desire to educate is therefore an endeavour - both explicit and implicit – that aims to shape, enable, direct and organise people's thoughts, behaviours and feelings in certain ways. By directing our attention to the organisation of a preschool we are therefore also committing ourselves to analysing the relations of power and control that lie embedded in this institution.

To discuss this we have drawn on a selection of studies that discuss how institutions structure and enable social interactions and relations of power. Inspired by Foucault’s writings on disciplinary powers we have sought to discuss how different techniques frame the organisation of time and space in preschools and enable specific relations of power and control. As students coming from a Swedish preschool context our intention has not been to discuss the social and cultural context of the preschool in our study, nor to draw broad conclusions about early childhood education in Brazil. Rather, our intention has been to gain a perspective on how the organisation of time and space shapes norms and creates frames of action within preschools. By examining an institution with sharply different characteristics, both material and organisational, to those which we are accustomed to from Swedish preschools, we have been able to outline and contrast norms and disciplinary techniques at work in the preschool’s daily life. To develop this discussion we have turned to a number of studies from Scandinavian preschool’s which discussed norms, power relations and the organisation of time and space in preschools. Through looking at these studies, set in entirely different contexts, we have aimed to discuss how the organisation of time and space in preschools frames and enables pedagogical practices and forms of resisting these.

1_{For further reading on this see Styrningskonst på utbildnings arenan – upphöjda begrepp i svensk}

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The preschool we have studied is located in the city of São Paulo, Brazil and forms part of a larger school compound also including a day-care centre and an elementary school. The preschool consists of approximately six hundred children, split in twenty two separate classes, as well as fifty members of staff. This not only makes it one of the city’s larger preschools but also provides a research site with characteristics different to those analysed in contemporary studies on how the organisation of time and space frames childhoods.

Based on the belief that institutions can best be studied through manifest behaviour we have conducted a mini-ethnographic study spending two weeks following two classes in this preschool. During this time we have collected field notes, used participant observations and documented the spatial and material organisation of the preschool. Throughout this process we have written and elaborated “thick descriptions” (Geertz 1973), meaning descriptive accounts, not only composed of facts, but also containing commentary and interpretations aimed at understanding social actions in the preschool context.

The situation described in the beginning of this chapter of a teacher attempting to get a class of children to stand in line is one of many such descriptions. In returning to these events we can hint at several of the themes and tensions that run through this study. While the teacher’s authority and rules are at the centre of these events, the children’s actions are also significant, some breaking away from the group to engage in their own activities, while others standing obediently and urging their classmates to get back in line. At the same time, underpinning this sequence of events in the preschool, lies a specific organisation of time and space. As the children and teacher’s are scheduled to pass through the preschool’s spaces – in this situation from the classroom through corridor and to playground – we can consider how each of these spaces is not only separated by gates and doors, but also by rules, hierarchies, norms and pedagogical practices.

Aim and research questions

The aim of our study is therefore to examine the spatial and temporal organisation of a preschool and how this structure is used and interpreted through daily interactions. We have

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approached this topic by observing two preschool classes in a large school unit in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. To develop this analysis we have focused on how schedules, materials, routines and rules relate to norms and expectations in the institutional context.

Therefore, the research questions that have guided this study are:

 How does the organisation of time and space frame and enable the preschool’s daily activities?

 Which norms and ideals are embedded in the organisation of the preschool’s spaces?

 How do the children and adults use and interpret the preschool’s spatial and temporal organisation?

Structure of the study

This study is structured in five chapters. In the first chapter we have offered an introduction and background to our field of study. Here we have introduced our aim and our research questions. In our second chapter we outline the concepts and theoretical perspectives that have guided our analysis. Here we discuss the concept of the institution and move on to present Foucault’s ideas on the disciplinary power of institutions. We conclude this chapter by presenting a selection of ideas developed in contemporary Scandinavian studies on preschools that in different ways have shaped our analysis. In the third chapter we present and motivate our choice of methodology. We do this by showing why we chose to conduct an ethnographic study and detail how we have collected and analysed our data. We conclude by discussing the ethical considerations made. In the fourth chapter we arrive at our results and analysis. This chapter is in fact divided in three main sections that each emphasise one of our research questions. In the first section titled; The social and material organisation of

the preschool, we introduce the preschool studied and move to detail the particular

organisation of time and space structuring the preschools daily routine. In the second section titled; Functional and Normative spaces, we move on to analyse three distinct spaces in the preschool which we see as representing different norms and ideals embedded into the preschool’s organisational culture. These three spaces include the corridor, the classroom and the playground. In the final section of this chapter, titled Making time and space, we turn

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our focus to how children and adults use and relate to the preschool’s material and social organisation. Here we show how time and space, to some degree, can be created and reworked within the institutions frame, thus highlighting people’s agency within institutions. We conclude our study with a fifth chapter in which we summarise the main ideas presented and discuss the broader implications and conclusions we have drawn from this analysis.

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Theoretical perspectives and literature

To analyse the spatial and temporal organisation of a preschool we have built this essay on a selection of theoretical concepts and perspectives presented in this chapter. We begin this chapter by presenting our perspective on the concept of the institution. To enrich and add to this understanding we then turn to the writings of Michel Foucault on the disciplinary powers of institutions (1991). Here we discuss the techniques through which the spatial and temporal organisation of modern institutions came to express and enable a new form of disciplinary power. In the final part of this chapter we introduce a selection of discussions and concepts developed in contemporary studies on preschools building on similar theoretical foundations.

The ideas and the concepts introduced in this chapter are all instrumental in shaping the form and analytical design of this study. The aim of this chapter is therefore to provide the theoretical and critical toolkit with which our research questions have been approached and our analysis assembled.

Institutions

We have so far used the word institution to describe the preschool in our study. Though the term institution can seem common in everyday language, it can conjure up many different images of buildings, marriage or university departments. It is therefore important to clarify what we mean by institutions in this analysis. An institution can broadly be defined as “systems of established and prevalent social rules that structure social interactions” (Hodgson 2006, p. 2). In this sense an institution is not a building or formal structure, but primarily what goes on inside. In part, the durability of institutions depends on the ways in which they create stable expectations of the behaviour of others. Through both material arrangements, such as architecture or design, and social arrangements such as traditions and rules, institutions enable thought, expectation and action by imposing form and consistency on human activities (Hodgson 2006).

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However, although institutions are created and reproduced by the thoughts and activities of individuals, they are not reducible to them (Hodgson 2006). The distribution of economic and symbolic resources and the existence of different forms of oppression in a society also shape institutional processes (De los Reyes & Mulinari 2005).

The institution in this study, a public preschool in the city of São Paulo, is one that has both a material form but at the same time is upheld by social conventions, laws and traditions. Institutions such as this one that take the form of organisations can additionally be characterised as establishing boundaries, distinguishing members from non-members and organising an internal chain of command, delineating responsibilities within them (Hodgson 2006). Furthermore, these types of institutions are commonly directed towards promoting specific social causes or programmes founded on culturally and historically situated societal interests (Markström 2007).

Total institutions

In his book Asylums (1968) Erving Goffman developed an important contribution to the understanding of social institutions. His writings introduced the term total institution as a particular institutional form, described as “a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life” (p.11-12). Total institutions were thus characterised as organising individual’s activities through collective timetables and producing a rationalisation of life through tight scheduling and strict rules.

What was significant about Goffman’s contribution was that he directed his focus to human interactions within institutions. Goffman argued that the structure of total institutions stripped individuals of agency and self-determination. Through routines, rules and surveillance members of staff would enforce deep-rooted institutional norms producing conformed behaviours but also generating an under-life of resistance among institutionalised individuals. When individuals were denied their previous socially constructed identities, they developed strategies to maintain degrees of agency and recovery of self by finding forms to

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work within the institution to obtain permitted or forbidden pleasures. Goffman called these strategies secondary adjustments, and defined them as “practices that do not directly challenge staff but allow inmates to obtain forbidden satisfactions or obtain permitted ones by forbidden means.” (1968, p. 54).

Goffman exemplified this by discussing how inmates in a mental asylum had spaces divided up into three parts. Firstly there were spaces that were off-limits, where access was simply prohibited. Secondly, there were spaces of surveillance, where inmates were expected to spend their time and where they were subjected to the staffs’ authority and rules. Finally there were “free spaces”, characterised by lesser degrees of staff control. Goffman discussed how inmates repeatedly attempted to gain access to free spaces often for no apparent reason other than to spend time away from the staff and other inmates and he theorised this as an act of self-determination, trying to move beyond the institutional reach.

Preschools can hardly be considered total institutions, but through using Goffman’s concept we wish to highlight traits that may otherwise be difficult to see in this institution. Our premise in this essay is that institutions frame and enable the ways we think and act. In the following section we will look more precisely at how this process is enabled through the perspective of time and space.

The disciplinary power of institutions

In his book Discipline and Punish – the Birth of the Prison (1991) Michel Foucault theorises how changes to the western penal system during the seventeenth and eighteenth century came to express the rise of a new technique of power he calls discipline. It emerged as a strategy of power to replace punishment, the brute use of force and violence, as a means to coerce people. In contrast, discipline seemed benevolent as a series of subtle mechanism for regulating, observing and organising people’s actions. However, Foucault theorised discipline as a strategy that came to extend the reach of power and establish more penetrating forms of coercion and control. For Foucault discipline is a series of mechanisms for controlling the movement and operations of the body. It is a type of power that coerces bodies

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by regulating and dividing their movements, as well as arranging in precise ways the space and time in which these bodies move.

The organisation of space and time is essential to disciplinary power precisely because it is the most basic element of human life. By regulating time and space, people’s actions, thoughts and movements are affected. Foucault argued that central to this were the new administrative systems and institutions that emerged during the eighteenth century, such as prisons, schools or military units. Each setting in motion a series of techniques for reorganising the distributions of individuals in time and space. To analyse the preschool in our study we have therefore paid particular attention to Foucault’s writings on time and space and the techniques he identifies as central in organising disciplinary spaces.

The distribution of time and space

Discipline thus required a particular form of institution that could perform this “art of distributions”. Foucault therefore set about identifying a series of techniques that characterised the arrangement of these disciplinary spaces.

Firstly, discipline often required enclosure meaning the separation of a confined space, different to others spaces, for a particular group of individuals. Though enclosure was neither constant, nor indispensable to discipline, it provided an arena through which it became possible to monitor, control and establish rules without interference and distraction from the outside world. Secondly, discipline operated on the principle of partitioning space. The arrangement of disciplinary space came to be divided into as many sections as there are bodies to be distributed. Each individual had its place and each place it’s individual. Through the partitioning of institutional spaces the effects of imprecise distributions, the disappearance of individuals and their uncontrolled circulation were eliminated. This spatial organisation permitted the control of presences and absences, to know where to locate individuals and set up means of supervising and assessing them. In this sense the discipline came to organise a new form of “analytical space” (Foucault, 1991, p. 143). A third technique that characterised the arrangement of disciplinary space was the rule of functional sites. By

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this Foucault meant that rooms and spaces that architecturally could serve several different purposes, gradually came to be coded and used for specific functions and activities. These functions included not only the need to control and supervise, but also to create useful spaces. Discipline through the organisation of time and space thus created complex spaces that are at once architectural, functional and hierarchical. Real in the sense that they governed the disposition of buildings, rooms and furniture, but also ideal, as they projected over this arrangement characterisations, norms and hierarchies.

Docile bodies

Foucault argued that through discipline the human body entered a logic that controlled and rearranged it, giving birth to a new anatomy of power he called the docile body. The partition of individuals in time and space served as an effective way of controlling the operations of the body and imposing a relation of docility. Foucault’s point is not that the body in these institutions is constrained and immobile, but rather that the body is actively organised and trained in how to appear and how to behave rather than being left in a “rough” form, only to be punished when defying power. The production of the docile bodies through institutions, organised to sit, stand and move in specific ways, is therefore central to the functioning of modern institutions and brought the emergence of new forms of subjectivity that identified and maintained disciplinary powers. In a sense power runs through the body. However, to construct docile bodies disciplinary institutions had to be able to constantly observe and record the bodies they controlled, but also ensure the internalization of the disciplinary individuality within the bodies being controlled.

Panoptic surveillance

To exemplify the characteristics of these institutions Foucault turned to the example of the

panopticon, an architectural model for a prison developed by British philosopher Jeremy

Bentham during the 18th century. The central idea of the panopticon was that the prison should organise its spaces to create the constant possibility of surveillance. With a high watchtower placed in the middle of a circular prison, the architectural design implied that

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prisoners could never be sure whether they were being observed by the prison guards at any particular moment. This “unequal gaze”, Bentham argued, caused the internalisation of disciplinary practices and would create obedient inmates. Although the panopticon was never adopted by architects according to its original blueprint, Foucault argued that the model became an important conceptualisation of the power relations developed in modern institutions. Foucault argued that;

Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up. (1991, p. 202).

In this sense power is not the power of some group dominating another group. It is not a position to hold and that can be conquered. Power is a process that organises relations and that creates a certain way for people to look upon society and themselves. Under the strategy of assuring the welfare of the population and identifying and attending to their needs, modern institutions came to subordinate people to particular ideas about their own good. These institutions therefore formed part of a strategy that created subjects that both could control their own freedom and take care of themselves for the “good of society”. The development of institutions in the modern age was therefore characterised by this shift towards what Foucault called disciplinary societies, a social order where a particular organisation of time and space shaped new subjectivities and dis-individualised and internalised the workings of power.

Studies on institutional orders and norms in preschools

Over the past few decades a sizable body of academic work has turned to Foucault’s conceptual framework to discuss the ways in which institutions order and enable people’s thoughts and actions. So too have many contemporary studies on schools and preschools built on these ideas to examine the workings of power, norms and forms of resistance.

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For us, coming from a Swedish educational setting, our analytic resources and research interest have inescapably been formed by our context. In this section we will therefore present a selection of contemporary studies – most of which are from Swedish preschools – that in different ways have offered conceptual tools and ideas that have helped develop our study.

The pedagogy of time and space in preschools

A theme that has been discussed in much contemporary Scandinavian research on preschools is the regulation of children’s time and space (f.ex. Halldén 2007; Markström 2009; Nordin-Hultman 2004; Palla 2011: Rossholt 2009, et al.). To a significant extent these studies have shown that children’s access to time and space in preschools is predefined and organised. Schedules, activities and materials are designed for the collective and therefore, being a member of a group and taking part in scheduled activities is the dominating discourse in preschools (Halldén 2007, Markström 2005, Nordin-Hultman 2004, Palla 2011).

Ann-Marie Markström has introduced the term “pedagogy of time and space” as referring to the particular institutional operating within preschools, organising particular forms of social control, power and resistance. Inspired by Foucault's concepts Elisabeth Nordin-Hultman (2004) has in a similar sense discussed the organisation of activities, daily routines, and environments in Swedish preschools, as supported by particular ideas on children's needs and development. Her study draws attention to how every activity in the daily routine and every aspect of the environment rests on a culturally and historically specific knowledge of children's needs, natural development and learning. Nordin-Hultman argues that teachers are also captured in, and subjected to this order that they themselves reproduce. A consequence is that if each aspect of the preschool’s organisation of time and space is assumed to rest on the knowledge of children's needs, it becomes imperative that all children participate for their own good. Even when children resist this institutional order, they are regulated in different ways to adapt to it, in the name of their own best interest and their developmental needs.

From an institutional perspective the importance of environments has also been discussed in the regulation and surveillance of children. Several studies have highlighted the placement

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of doors and windows in preschools as providing adults with the opportunity to create disciplinary spaces through monitoring children's activities (De Jong 1994; 2008; Markström 2005; 2009, Nordin-Hultman 2004 et al.).

Institutional children and the collective norm

One aspect highlighted by several studies on the institutional character of the preschool, is an imminent conflict between individual and collective interests embedded in the preschool’s organisational structure (f.ex. Halldén 2007; Markström 2005; Nordin-Hultman; 2004, Tullgren 2004; et al.).

In her research Markström (2005) discusses how parents and teachers in Swedish preschools reflect a desire to create institutional children, steering children to become part of the community and learning collective norms. Largely this is seen as being for the children’s own good. However, the rules that these children are expected to follow, are not only those of the institution and the adults, but also those which children are expected to learn and develop themselves. In other words, there is an expectation that children in the institutional context come to internalise the preschool’s norms and adapt to the collective (Markström 2005, 2010).

Scheduled and adult-led activities in preschools are those most clearly directed to the collective of children (Markström 2007, Nordin-Hultman 2004). Circle time, also called group time, referring to any time that a group of children are seated together with adults for an activity involving everyone is a clear example of this. Circle time often has the character of being an adult led educational activity whose content is planned in advance and where the children are expected to learn different things, including routines and rules. In the preschool context the activities organised for older children are often characterised by placing more focus on the children’s behaviour and capacity to adapt to the collective. Markström (2007) has discussed how circle time serves to create order and how the staff describe it as an opportunity for children to learn to sit still, be silent, do things together, and speak in front of others.

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However, within and among preschools there is an ambiguity concerning this notion. In some preschools the collective norm is strong and children routinely raise their hands when wanting to say something, follow the adult’s instructions and speak when given permission to. In other preschools the collective norm is weaker, less adult-led activities are organised and children are given more space for individual activities. Building on Foucault’s perspectives both these practices have been discussed as expressing the need of society to create a certain child in a certain time (Nordin-Hultman 2004; Markström 2007, Tullgren 2004).

However, tensions between the preschool routines and adult-led activities and the children’s own social projects are pervasive in preschool environments (Halldén 2007; Markström 2005; Nordin-Hultman; 2004, Tullgren 2004; et al.). Children’s initiatives to talk to each other, leave the group or focus on other activities during circle time are an example of a resistance to institutional norms. In this sense children can be seen as creating time and space for themselves by using alternative spaces, materials or rules to suit their own interests in the preschool. By using materials “incorrectly” or accessing “forbidden” spaces children separate themselves from collective time, space and activities and therefore separate themselves from the preschool’s institutional norms (Markström & Halldén 2009).

Controlled freedom

Parallel to adult-led and scheduled activities in preschool, activities which are child-led and spontaneous, are frequent in most preschools’ daily routine. In examining play situations among 4 and 6 year olds in Swedish preschools Charlotte Tullgren (2004) discusses the workings of discipline and regulation within “free” activities.

Inspired by Foucault's writings Tullgren argues that Swedish preschools do not oppress children but create free subjects that perform a regulated freedom and take care of themselves. By examining the content of children’s play, Tullgren shows how games are frequently steered away from things that are considered unpleasant or illegal and towards

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things that are considered good or useful. Chaos is unwelcome under the teacher’s supervision and noisy and physical games are toned-down. Play and games that are perceived as violent or in other ways inappropriate are regulated by adults, while family games or those dealing with food and eating are given time and space. In this sense play is used as a tool to teach children the norms that exist in the preschool. The teacher’s engagement in play therefore provides the possibility to regulate these activities in a manner that is impossible from the outside.

At the same time, there are ways to avoid disciplinary supervision (Markström & Halldén 2009, Tullgren 2004). Both children and also the teacher create "free spaces" where supervision is difficult. Children can close doors or move to places where they will not be observed by adults. Teachers also create free spaces where the children are allowed to “have some fun” with lesser or no adult supervision. The act of adults creating free spaces for preschool children Tullgren describes in terms of a preschool discourse on the active child that needs to express its "natural" need for movement. These games are therefore to some extent allowed, but are placed at the margins, far from the routines and central activities of the preschool.

Summary

The aim of this chapter has been to present the theoretical perspectives and concepts that structure our analysis and shape the results of our study.

Considering an institution as a system that enables thoughts, expectations and actions by imposing form and consistency on human activities, we can better understand our choice to examine a particular institution - a large preschool in the city of São Paulo. What we are in actual fact interested in examining is therefore how this institution is sustained and what frames of action are made possible within it. To discuss this we have turned to the concept of total institutions (Goffman 1968) which identifies routines, rules, schedules and materials as important elements that shape the social life of institutions.

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Furthermore, our interest in examining the norms and ideals that underpin the social life of the preschool, has been shaped by Foucault’s conceptualisation of disciplinary power (1991). Foucault argued that modern institutions have come to be organised through a series of mechanisms that extend the reach of power by creating self-regulating subjects that internalise disciplinary practises. Central to this perspective is the idea that the spatial and temporal organisation of institutions is embedded with forms of control and analysis. This perspective has shaped our own interest in studying time and space in a preschool as it serves as a pretext to understand the norms and power relations that organise the social life of children and adults.

Inspired by these conceptual tools, a series of contemporary studies have in a similar vein come to examine preschool through a Foucauldian lens of discipline. Building on these studies we conclude this chapter by presenting the concepts and tensions that have been identified within preschools – primarily Scandinavian ones – and will use these ideas as a sounding board to develop our own analysis of a preschool set in a different context.

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Methodology

The material presented in this essay was collected through an ethnographic study following the daily life of two preschool classes in a large school unit in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. In this chapter we will motivate our choice of methodology, detailing our procedure, data collection, analysis and discuss the validity of our study. In the final section of this chapter we discuss some of the ethical considerations made during the course of this study.

An ethnographic study

We decided to conduct an ethnographic study because it allowed us to see how children and teachers used and interpreted the preschool’s organisation. Moreover, by talking to members of staff, spending time with classes and documenting rooms and materials, we also developed an understanding of the preschool’s structure and organisational culture.

Though ethnography is an eclectic field, it can loosely be defined as “a set of qualitative methods to collect material from daily life in different environments and to describe these in concrete and in intimate ways” (Ehn och Löfgren 2012, s.7). A premise to this approach is therefore that actions and thoughts are understood in relation to the social contexts they are situated in. Through being in a specific social setting for an appreciable period of time, studying the environment and trying to understand and interpret people’s actions and relationships within this context, an ethnographic study attempts not only to explain people’s behaviours, but also to approach the context so that these behaviours become meaningful to an outsider.

Doing ethnography, rather than a set of methods, such as establishing rapport, selecting informants or keeping a diary, can be characterised as a kind of intellectual effort in developing “thick descriptions” (Geertz 1973). Such thick descriptions involve not only describing social actions but more importantly interpreting them within the appropriate context in which they take place. Moreover, through thick descriptions we aim to capture the thoughts, emotions, and social interaction in observations as well as assigning motivations

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and intentions to these social actions (Ponterotto 2006). Since our own constructions inevitably shape this process, the context under which these interpretations are made must be richly and thickly described.

Procedure

The ethnographic material presented and analysed in this essay was collected at a preschool in the city of São Paulo during the course of two weeks in April of 2015. In total we spent more than two months in Brazil preparing, collecting and analysing this material with several visits to the preschool both before and after our two week period of data collection.

The initial contact with the preschool administration was established during the autumn of 2014 through Max da Rocha. Having previously lived in the country and speaking fluent Portuguese, Max had already visited this preschool, as well as other preschools, during a trip to Brazil and had thereafter started discussing the idea of applying for a Minor Field Study with Jakob Hülphers. Through his relationship with the pedagogical coordinator at the preschool, contact with the preschool was established and interest in our study expressed from the teaching staff.

With this early contact established we soon set about designing a study that seemed adapted to our own interests as well as what we already knew about the site. Knowing that Jakob did not speak Portuguese we also developed a methodology where verbal communication with our informants was not a necessity placing an emphasis on analysing materials and organisation of rooms. During the following months our aim and research questions took form and our application for a Minor Field Study scholarship was granted.

Before arriving in Brazil all the teachers at the school were informed of our study by their pedagogical coordinator and offered the opportunity to decline our presence if they did not feel comfortable with us observing them. No teachers expressed any such wish. On our first visits to the preschool we were given a tour of the school premises and introduced to different members of staff. We were also invited to observe some classes to get a general impression

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of what their activities looked like. During this visit we collected notes, asked questions and later that day sat down to discuss our first impressions. A few days later we returned to the school and met all the teachers at their weekly staff meeting. On this occasion we presented our study and answered questions, again asking if anyone objected to having us observe them. No one did.

The following two weeks we spent full eight-hour days in the preschool. During this time we both collected, transcribed and discussed our material, often seated in the adjoining public library. For the first week of our study we visited several classes, always presenting ourselves to the children and asking if they did not mind if we sat in on their activities. The children did not object. Having seen a variety of classes we eventually selected two classes which we decided to follow for the duration of our field study. We felt that visiting more classes would bring less depth to our analysis and that by spending more time with two classes we could “thicken” our understanding of the norms and relations at work in these classes. The criteria for selecting these two classes was in part that we already had visited them, but we also aimed to capture some variations within the preschool context, selecting one class of four year olds that attend the morning shifts and another class of five year olds that attended the afternoon shift. Having selected these classes we informed the children’s families of our presence through a note sent home in the children’s notebooks (the standard means of communication between the preschool and the children’s families). In this note we explained what we were doing, the aim of our study and that we would not be filming or taking pictures of any children. We invited the families to contact us or the preschool’s pedagogical coordinator if they had any questions or objections to their children participating in our study. Again, no one expressed any objections to our study nor were we contacted by anyone.

Most of the time we sat near the children taking field notes that we later transcribed. Sometimes, we were invited to participate in conversations or activities with the children and teachers, but tried to quickly takes notes and reconstruct these events from memory when given a chance. Some activities, especially those in the playground, had such intensity it was sometimes difficult to look away to take notes. However, since we were two taking notes, these could often complement each other, filling in gaps where the other had missed some

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detail. Since Jakob did not speak Portuguese we decided that his notes would ignore what was being said, and focus exclusively on movements, gestures and voices without the interpretive lens of language. Additionally, he was tasked with providing detailed descriptions of the environment and materials in each space. At times, when observing social interactions, this method resulted in some minor misunderstandings of what was taking place as instructions or explanatory comments could pass unobserved. However, when comparing our notes, these misconceptions would be amended and the nonverbal observations made often highlight aspects to these interactions that could otherwise have been overshadowed by what was being said.

Through our observations we have attempted to follow and document as many different activities as possible within the preschool (avoiding documenting visits to the toilets since we felt this could be intrusive). Each day we sought to write a series of thick descriptions of new planned and unplanned events, generally lasting between 5 and 30 minutes. Following the classes through their daily routines we would signal each other when we saw something of interest and follow to take detailed notes. Being two people taking notes on the same events provided a wealth of detail, most often with overlapping observations but sometimes with very different results. At the end of our field study we had filled two notebooks with over a 100 pages of handwritten observations, including precise descriptions, transcribed dialogues and personal feelings and reflections on the situations we had observed. Following our field study, we moved to transcribe and merged these notes into a series of thick descriptions, resulting in a total of 27 A4 pages of transcribed observations.

During our time in the preschool we were mainly met with curiosity from the children. After a while many children started greeting us on arrival and the children we followed the longest would frequently ask to carry our notebooks, hold our hands or have us sit near them. Most of the times we decided not to engage too much with these children and declined their initiatives explaining that “we had to work”. The main reason for this was that we felt that our engagement with the children could interfere with the flow of events at the preschool and stir up emotions and competition between them. However, we did on some occasions engage with the children and the adults and participate in their activities (singing songs, playing with

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play materials, helping the teacher organise some activity, etc.) we did this to establish trust and create a more relaxed atmosphere, since we were concerned that our presence as observes, taking notes and talking to each other, could cause distrust or unease among the children and teachers.

Analysis and interpretation

Our analysis has inevitably taken place simultaneously with the collection of our material and continued while writing this study. The theoretical positions that have shaped this analysis have guided every aspect of the research process, from the design of the study to the organisation and analysis of the data. However, this does not mean that our analysis has followed a deductive model, using predefined categories and ideas. Rather, the process of analysis has involved a constant movement between the theoretical tools and concepts presented and the empirical data collected.

Early on, we identified Foucault’s writings on time and space as a theoretical perspective we were interested in integrating in our analysis. We also drew from Nordin-Hultman’s (2004) and Markström’s (2007) writings on the organisation of time and space in Swedish preschools as an important sounding board in developing our own analysis. However, before we had collected our field notes we did not anticipate what kind of themes we were to identify or which concepts would be central to our analysis.

To develop this analysis we kept a detailed log of our field notes and returned to these notes on a regular basis while still in the process of collecting our data. Discussing these notes we set about organising and identifying different categories and themes we saw as prominent within them. This process helped to sharpen the focus and limit the scope of our observations. Through discussing and arranging different ideas we eventually elaborated a rough thematic structure to our essay. To further develop this structure we conducted a literature review that introduced new analytical categories and led us to rework the essay’s structure as we moved back and forth between our theoretical framework and the empirical data collected.

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Validity and Reliability

In a qualitative study – and in particular when doing ethnography - questions of validity and reliability are tricky. The central idea behind reliability is that results must be to some degree repeatable. Validity on the other hand refers to how well a study measures what it is claimed to measure. A central premise to this study is that its methodology is inseparable from our own personal subjectivities. Not only are methodological choices linked to our theoretical underpinnings, these are also inseparable from our lives and personal backgrounds, reflected in the ways we have gained access to our research site, the relationships we have established, the observations we have made and our many interpretations.

However, through several triangulations we have attempted to increase the reliability and in particular the validity of our study. Triangulation is a technique that facilitates validation of data through cross verification from two or more sources. In particular, it refers to the application and combination of several research methods in the study of the same phenomenon (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006). Triangulation can however take different and complementary forms. Denzin (1970) has extended the idea of triangulation to include four forms of triangulation; data triangulation, consists of data collected from different sources and situations; investigator triangulation, refers to the use of more than one researcher in the field to gather and interpret data; theoretical triangulation, refers to the use of more than one theoretical position in interpreting this data; and methodological triangulation, refers to the use of more than one method for gathering data. In our study we have to varying degrees used all four techniques of triangulation. During the course of our study our observations have been complimented with informal interviews. Additionally we have taken pictures of the research sites’ architecture (though no pictures of children were taken due to issues of confidentiality). Following the completion of our field work we also held several group discussions with the teachers and other members of staff working in the preschool. In these we presented some of our findings and let our informants respond and offer their own interpretations to these issues. Through a combinations of techniques we have therefore attempted to develop a deeper understanding of our research site.

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To further increase the validity of our findings we could have spent more time in the field of research and in this way been able to collect more observations and see patterns recurring over a longer period of time. However a common disadvantage with doing ethnography is that the volume of data quickly grows to unmanageable proportions. The data collected during these two weeks thus also came to result in far more material than we have managed to incorporate into the scope of this study. Our early awareness of this aspect of ethnographic studies therefore informed our choice to limit our field observations to a two week period.

Ethical considerations

During our research process we have tried to respect the many individuals who have participated in our study by following the guidelines set by the Swedish Research Council. These include: the requirement of information, the requirement of consent; the requirement of confidentiality and the requirement use (Swedish Research Council 2010).

Therefore, with respect for individual privacy all names of people in the preschool are fictitious in our study. Also, before carrying out our field work we firstt visited each class we observed and introduced ourselves to children and the member of staff. On these occasions we explained why we were there and what the purposes and use of our study was. We emphasised that participation in our study was voluntary and that if anyone did not want to participate they could tell either us or the preschool’s pedagogical coordinator. We also informed the families of the classes we followed and inviting them to contact us if they had any further questions or did not want their children to participate.

Research ethics is about considering, stimulating and keeping alive an awareness and debate about how one should act. We have through our research stepped in to the daily arena of children’s and teacher to observe them. We have therefore, with respect for each individual in our study, attempted to do this in a cautious, humble and transparent way.

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Results and Analysis

In the following chapter we analyse and discuss the results of our field research through the theoretical framework and concepts already presented. We have divided this chapter in three main sections each of which respond to one of our three research questions. However, in actual fact, the discussions presented in each of these section overlap and contribute to each other.

In the first section of this chapter we introduce the preschool we have studied and outline the spatial and temporal organisation that characterises this institution. In the second section we discuss the norms and ideals that lie embedded in the preschool’s spatial order. To do this we describe and analyse three different spaces - the corridor, the classroom and the playground – each of which are central to the preschool’s daily routine and reflect different sides to the institutionalisation of childhood. In the third and final section of this chapter we discuss how children and adults use and interpret the preschool’s spatial and temporal order. Through a series of descriptions of daily events in the preschool, we discuss some of the strategies used by children and adults to make time and space. In other words, we aim to show how actions and thoughts within this institution are framed but at the same time enabled.

The spatial and temporal organisation of the institution

Early childhood education in Brazil is a public right that is free and non-compulsory. Through the expansion of day-care centres (attending children from the ages of 0-3) and preschools (attending children between the ages of 4-5) children in Brazil have over the past few decades, to an increasing extent, come to spend their early childhoods in public institutions. In this section we aim to describe and analyse the way in which time and space is organised in a public preschool in the city of São Paulo as a means to discuss the specific “pedagogy of time and space” characterising this institution.

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The school compound

The two preschool classes we have followed through our study form part of a larger school compound. In hosting both a day-care centre (ages 0-3), a preschool (ages 4-5) and an elementary school (ages 6-14), the compound is one the city’s largest, totalling over two thousand children and three hundred employees.

Located in one of the cities several slums the neighbouring community surrounding the school compound is characterised by high levels of illiteracy, unemployment and substandard infrastructure, with several families living in informal housing without access to running water or electricity.2 In sharp contrast to this, the school compound offers an extensive infrastructure including a sports hall, a theatre hall, several swimming pools, a computer centre and a public library. These facilities are however not used exclusively by the preschool, day-care centre or elementary school, but are instead shared between these institutions and with the neighbouring community.3

When recalling our visit to the school compound our first impression was of the defensible space that the site communicated as gates, buffer zones and armed guards controlled access to the buildings. In other words, the most notable feature characterising this structure was its enclosure “the specification of a place heterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself” (Foucault, 1991, p.141). Once entering the compound an open patio lead to a main building as well as to other adjoining facilities. This large three floor building hosted on each floor and in different wings the separate classrooms, dining rooms, play areas and staff rooms of the elementary school, the preschool and the day-care centre. It is here – behind the enclosed metal gates of the preschool – the children in our study spent most their time in the preschool.

2_{These claims are based on discussions with teachers and staff at the school, as well as our experience of}

being shown around in the community by local residents.

3_{This was an integral part of the school compounds mission statement, as the neighbouring community was}

encouraged to use facilities for extracurricular activities which included karate classes, football training, capoeira and swimming.

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The preschool

The preschool is composed of approximately six hundred children and fifty members of staff. As is the case with most public preschools in São Paulo, the children’s time in the preschool is divided in two shifts. Meaning that half of the children attend a morning shift (with activities from 07-13) and a second half of the children attend the afternoon shift (with activities from 13-19). In practical terms this meant that no more than three hundred children attended the preschool at one time, but also that each classroom as well as the materials and facilities of the preschool are constantly being shared between morning and afternoon classes.

The children are therefore divided into 22 classes (11 classes in the morning and 11 classes in the afternoon) and separated in age specific classes of either four olds or five year-olds. Each class had a limit of 32 children per class, with attendances being controlled on a daily basis. During our observations attendances varied from a low of 14 to a high of 28 children per class.

Significantly, classes are led by one teacher alone. Though the preschool employed other members of staff, including cleaners, auxiliary staff, kitchen personal, administrative staff, a pedagogical coordinator and a headmaster, the teachers largely spent their time in the preschool alone with their classes. However, since teachers working in the public sector in Brazil are only required to spend 4-hours teaching per day, this resulted in teachers often handing over a class to a new teacher two thirds into the preschool shift. Several times we therefore observed the procedure of one teacher taking care of a class from 07-11 and then handing them over to a new teacher from 11-13. Following this, the same teacher would receive a new class classroom from 13-15 and then hand them over to a new teacher from 17-19. Time in the preschool, both for teachers and children, could be described as fragmented. Overarching this structure, coordinated at an administrative level, lay an interlocking schedule of teachers and classes coming and going throughout the preschool.

At its most basic level we can consider the preschool’s organisation of time and space as intended to “eliminate the effects of imprecise distributions, the uncontrolled disappearance

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of individuals, their diffuse circulation, their unusable and dangerous coagulation” (Foucault 1993, p.143). Children and teachers in the preschool are therefore organised in different ways, through rules, laws, and schedules, materials arrangements to control their movements, presences and absences. The control of these activities is as previously mentioned facilitated by their enclosure, both within the school compound and within the preschool, but also significantly through the process of partitioning. To be able to at each moment “supervise the conduct, of each individual, to assess it, to judge it, to calculate its qualities or merits” (Foucault, 1991, p.143) the organisation of classes enables a logic of knowing, mastering and using. The organisation of class is therefore also the basic unit for the organisational structure, as it is for the class that activities and schedules are organised and time and space distributed.

The scheduling of activities

The organisation of classes provided both fixed positions in the preschool and permitted the circulation of children within a scheduled structure. The daily life of the preschool was therefore organised as a series of interlocking scheduled activities. At an administrative level this however created a pressure to organise an efficient regime of time, as classes had to share access to facilities throughout the day. Visits to the many shared spaces in the preschool, such as the dining room, the playground or the swimming pool, were therefore tightly scheduled and following a daily or weekly cycle. Disruptions to this schedule, though uncommon, threatened to cause a chain-reaction of delayed activities and overcrowded shared spaces.

At the classroom level this specific arrangement of time and space was also upheld in different ways. One common feature we observed was that the preschool day often ceremoniously began with what the teachers called their “routine”, meaning a series of questions on what day it was, what the weather was like, who their teacher was, followed by a roll call and a presentation of the day’s schedule. In different ways, such as through drawing pictures, writing, or by sticking up pictures on a chart, the teacher would each day go through this routine and present the series of activities that would organise the children’s day. We

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have interpreted the presentation of these schedules as on the one hand as aiming to offer the children a sense of control over what to expect throughout the day, but at the same time as a means of controlling them. Through learning about the day’s schedule these children could be expected to uphold the temporal regulation imposed on them. Through knowing, children become not only objects of the preschool’s spatial and temporal organisation, but also subjects expected to regulate themselves throughout the day (Kim 2014, Nordin-Hultman 2004)

Though differing between classes and between teachers, the presentation of these daily activities also revealed the expectations and aims that oriented the preschool’s educational programme. Each daily schedule was typically presented as a series 6-8 different activities, as exemplified below: Routine Song Breakfast Hygiene Indoor Playground Reading Building-blocks

These activities structuring the children’s time in the preschool alternated between three sets: daily activities, weekly activities and those not fixed to a schedule. Daily activities were those that were the most common to the preschool’s operations. These included “the routine”, visits to the indoor playground, means and toilet breaks. Following these activities came those organised on a weekly basis. These included visits to the swimming pool, visits to the outdoor play park, the use of different play materials in the classroom and thematically led activities. The third and final set of activities were those imitated and led by teachers and not depending on a scheduled structure. These activities held in the classroom included singing songs, reading books, playing with different play materials, drawing and participating in teacher led games. While those activities scheduled on a daily and weekly basis were limited to 30 minutes intervals, activities not fixed to this cyclical schedule would be imitated and interrupted at the will of the teacher.

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Each of these activities organising the preschools daily routine can be considered as resting on particular ideas and educational assumptions of children's needs and development (Nordin-Hultman 2004). We have noted that activities organised for movement (visits to the playground, swimming pool, etc.) and those organised for the children’s health and nutrition (toilet breaks and meals) share the features that they are limited to specific intervals, prescribed to shared spaces and characterised by less teacher control. In contrast those activities not fixed to any overarching schedule and typically taking place in the classroom were led by a teacher and stimulated school preparatory skills such as literacy or mathematics. Similarly, from an adult’s perspective, age-specific and collective activities are identified as valuable pedagogical time for children in Swedish preschool’s forming a central part of these institutions “pedagogy of time and space” (Markström 2005, 2007).

However, underpinning the spatial and temporal organisation of activities in the preschool lies the class. Or in other words, “the collective norm” is central (Markström & Halldén 2008). Activities are organised for the collective and those children composing the class for the day. The absence of individual children or teachers doesn’t disturb this structure. It is therefore the class – the collective – rather that the individual child that is primarily subjected to a temporal regime of discipline. The collectivisation of children creates in this sense an anonymous child similar to the stripping of self, described in total institutions (Goffman 1968).

Summary

In this first section of our analysis we have attempted to answer our first research question: how does the organisation of time and space frame and enable the preschool’s daily activities?

We have shown that activities in the preschool are organised through collective schedules and administered under a single authority, creating the rationalisation of daily life through strict rules and the control of behaviours and movements, similar total institutions (Goffman 1968). By cutting off contact with the outside world and stripping the children of their

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freedom of movement, individual identities are eroded and subordinated to collective interests. In this sense, the organisation of time and space in the preschool forms part of a larger strategy, founded on the idea of promoting collective interests by identifying and attending to children’s specific developmental and educational needs. The organisation of the preschool can in this sense be characterised as subordinating children to particular ideas of their own collective good.

The classroom routine of presenting the daily activity schedule can be understood in this light. What seemingly brings about a control over the sequence of daily events functions to control children themselves within the day. Children become subjects to the temporal regulation imposed upon their bodies by a fixed timetable. Once taught the routine, children are then expected to monitor and manage themselves within the day.

In conclusion activities in the preschool are structured around a cyclical schedule which to a large extent determines where different groups or children are to be at different times. As a general rule, activities throughout the preschool are planned for the class as a whole, with everyone expected to do the same thing at the same time, thus limiting the amount of control and choice children and adults have over their own activities.

Functional and normative spaces

To further understand what norms and ideas are embedded in the preschool’s spatial and temporal organisation, we have turned our analysis to three specific spaces that in different ways are integral to the preschools daily operations. By analysing the material and social organisation of the corridor, the classroom and the playground, we will discuss how these spaces are at once architectural, functional and hierarchical and thus bound up with norms and ideals.

A Clockwork Childhood - an ethnographic study of a preschool in São Paulo

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