Abstract

This article focuses on child participation in early childhood education (ECE). The theoretical basis for this study is a relational approach that highlights the significance of spatiality and materiality. Drawing from these theoretical perspectives, child participation is understood as a space that children actively do in various combinations of social, material and cultural relationships. The study relies on a relational understanding of the child as not only being, but also becoming by doing space within one’s environment. The methodological framework draws on narrative childhood studies that emphasize the multimodality of children’s narration. The research material consists of small stories from a Finnish ECE centre. The analysis focused on children under 3 years of age doing space of participation with material items in ECE. The study shows that space of child participation is dynamic in the everyday relationships. The findings illustrate children’s doing space of participation as a tension-filled phenomenon which requires children to balance between the active agency and adapting to the expectations of the environment. The findings uncover the three-fold nature of the space—namely, the social, material and cultural dimensions—that is meaningful for child participation. The doll carriage as a material item played a crucial role in children’s doing space of participation: it provided opportunities for children to formulate the ownership of the space, to construct peer relationships, and to shape and defend the borders of one’s space. The study contributes theoretically and methodologically to ECE research by opening new perspectives on the participation of young children.