At the fringes of transitions: socio-spatial constitution of transitions within early childhood education and care institutions in Finland

Abstract

This study focuses on transitions that emerge between the child’s first transition from home to early childhood education and care (ECEC) and the transition to pre-primary education in Finnish centre-based ECEC. Group-based organisation of Finnish ECEC produces transitions between groups within settings but children transition between centres also. The aim is to reach the fringes of transition focusing on other change processes children encounter during their years in ECEC. Thus, transition is defined as a relationally constituted change process framed by educational institutions and their practices. We examine how children’s lived spaces of transition are socio-spatially constituted. Two analytical narratives from a longitudinal, multimethods multi-case study dataset are presented as examples of relational socio-spatial constitution of transitions. Henri Lefebvre’s theory about production of social space is applied. We discuss how educational transitions within ECEC as relational processes concerns children who are not designated to move from one group or centre to another. For them, the relationality of transitions rearranges groups and centres as networks of socio-spatial relations in various, context-specific ways, constituting lived spaces of transitions.