(dis)orientating commonplace transitions In early childhood and beyond: non-linear encounters WITH babies

Abstract

The transition from home to early childhood caring and learning environments and the process of moving between these places and spaces can be considered one of the most important aspects in Early Childhood (EC). For young children entering caring and learning environments for the first time, they must continue to feel loved, cared for, safe and confident. As such, these environments should be viewed as an extension of the world that they already inhabit. Therefore, being open to how practitioners, families and young children navigate such transitions is not only essential in supporting thoughtful, attentive and responsive EC caring and learning spaces but further develops the understanding of what transitions may look like within EC. The paper reflects upon a study which is situated in an Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) setting and a Higher Education (HE) Childhood Studies classroom in the United Kingdom (UK). As a way to explore the multiplicities and ambiguities of transition, research journal entries, images, things and objects themselves not only become works of theory but produce data threads. Working within a (post)qualitative paradigm shifts the focus of observation and analysis in the paper to the impersonal flows of affect through an ethics of care. The paper argues for EC practitioners to acknowledge the importance of a child's belonging, in the form of objects and things, to allow babies and young children to move between different caring environments with love and care, rather than, something that needs to be managed and controlled.