(Theme leader: Maiju Paananen and Zsuzsa Millei)
Research in this group explores the politics of childhood and early childhood education, child politics. By the term ‘politics’ we refer to the the workings of power both in official and everyday realms. Politics shape in explicit and covert ways notions of childhood, care and education, and children’s everyday lives and actions. We understand children and educators as political actors. We seek answers to the question of how societal, technological, and environmental changes shape childhood(s), early childhood education, and the everyday lives of children. Thus, our research explores for example datafication, gender, ethnicity, coloniality, nationhood and multiple worldviews in the production of childhood and social, economic, and regional inequalities.