{"title":"Fun and laughter promote well-being in early childhood education and care: Pedagogy of fun and big humour","authors":"Anette Boye Koch","doi":"10.2478/jped-2023-0003","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC), fun is often emphasised as a key pedagogical tool but is used rather unreflexively. While well-being and happiness have been studied in various ways, the potential of fun is not included in theoretical discussions regarding happiness and well-being, although most people identify having fun as a fundamental reason for being happy. A researcher and three student assistants spent six months in three ECEC settings with a focus on episodes characterised by fun and laughter. Participant observation and interviews were conducted. Empirical data illustrate how fun appears in ECEC as laughter, smiles, attentiveness, intensity and ecstasy. Fun arises momentarily in a sense of lightness and freedom, as a means of communication, in physical play, when rules and expectations are broken, in frivolous references to lower body functions and in experiences of excitement. Pedagogues use fun based on child sensitivity, improvisation, courage to let go of control, informality, energy and a sense of humour. Danish humour philosophy distinguishes between small humour and big humour. Pedagogues with the ability to practice big humour are preferred in order to establish an ECEC culture characterised by fun, laughter and episodes of small humour that promote well-being in children.","PeriodicalId":38002,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Pedagogy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Pedagogy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jped-2023-0003","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract In Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC), fun is often emphasised as a key pedagogical tool but is used rather unreflexively. While well-being and happiness have been studied in various ways, the potential of fun is not included in theoretical discussions regarding happiness and well-being, although most people identify having fun as a fundamental reason for being happy. A researcher and three student assistants spent six months in three ECEC settings with a focus on episodes characterised by fun and laughter. Participant observation and interviews were conducted. Empirical data illustrate how fun appears in ECEC as laughter, smiles, attentiveness, intensity and ecstasy. Fun arises momentarily in a sense of lightness and freedom, as a means of communication, in physical play, when rules and expectations are broken, in frivolous references to lower body functions and in experiences of excitement. Pedagogues use fun based on child sensitivity, improvisation, courage to let go of control, informality, energy and a sense of humour. Danish humour philosophy distinguishes between small humour and big humour. Pedagogues with the ability to practice big humour are preferred in order to establish an ECEC culture characterised by fun, laughter and episodes of small humour that promote well-being in children.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Pedagogy (JoP) publishes outstanding educational research from a wide range of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical traditions. Diverse perspectives, critiques, and theories related to pedagogy – broadly conceptualized as intentional and political teaching and learning across many spaces, disciplines, and discourses – are welcome, from authors seeking a critical, international audience for their work. All manuscripts of sufficient complexity and rigor will be given full review. In particular, JoP seeks to publish scholarship that is critical of oppressive systems and the ways in which traditional and/or “commonsensical” pedagogical practices function to reproduce oppressive conditions and outcomes. Scholarship focused on macro, micro and meso level educational phenomena are welcome. JoP encourages authors to analyse and create alternative spaces within which such phenomena impact on and influence pedagogical practice in many different ways, from classrooms to forms of public pedagogy, and the myriad spaces in between. Manuscripts should be written for a broad, diverse, international audience of either researchers and/or practitioners. Accepted manuscripts will be available free to the public through JoP’s open-access policies, as well as featured in Elsevier''s Scopus indexing service, ERIC, and others.