Individual and Collective Rights Expressed in Educator and Child Interactions in Nordic Preschools

This study focuses on rights and gender in educator and child interactions in Nordic preschools. The research questions are as follows: What kinds of rights are communicated in the interactions and how? What kind of gender patterns can be identified? Rights refer to entitlements related to the early childhood education context, given or claimed by educators or children. The research material consists of 25 video observations of conflicts in educator and child interactions in Nordic preschools. Jürgen Habermas’ concepts of strategic and communicative actions informed the interpretation of the communication of rights, and Bronwyn Davies’s idea of duality between femininity and masculinity informed the analyses of gender. The analyses revealed two kinds of rights: individual and collective rights. The individual rights were connected to the integrity of the person and, alternatively, to the institution. Collective rights were related to shared institutional rights. The governing of the children appeared as benevolent. The study displayed how masculinity was given hegemony in interactions on rights and how adaptation was directed toward girls, which required them to compromise and sometimes waive rights.