Children's collaborative learning placemaking: How can Bourdieusian habitus,capital and field help us make sense of their voices?

Abstract

Early childhood education and research have shifted toward a more refined understanding of children's voices as evidence of their rights, participatory experiences and feelings. However, little is known of the processes and rationales of children's voices in educational placemaking. The interplay of habitus and capital in cultural fields shape children's contextualised experiential and narrative voices, through perceptions, attitudes, and language use, constituting a valuable resource for understanding bodily experiences in collaborative learning placemaking. Accordingly, research in the understanding and use of children's voices is needed for recommendations that can improve the quality of early childhood education more widely. Through qualitative interviews with 20 children ages 4–8, this study examines how children describe their learning places and interactive experiences with teachers. Findings identified experiences that activated belonging and wellness, experiences that were discomforting to children, and the desire for future-making in eco-friendly and humane learning places. This study contributes significantly to early childhood education by 1) offering insights into how analysing children's voices of learning placemaking through Bourdieu's triad of habitus, capital, and field provides transformative potential for improving the quality of children's learning and development, 2) the framework facilitates critical understandings of how and why some children's voices are valued while others are subjugated in learning placemaking, and 3) through this lens, findings challenge inequalities by informing how voices can contribute to children's habitus and capital development in ECE field.