Taking its point of departure from sociocultural perspectives, the present study examines 2–3-year-old children's responses to peers' crying in a regular Swedish preschool. By analyzing video recordings of the children's everyday activities and frequent situations of crying in peer play conflicts, the study identifies the broad range of children's responses to peer distress. Children's orientation towards a crying peer is discussed in relation to their social concerns, relationships, and the institutional characteristics of preschool play activities. The children's most common orientation to peer's crying was to stay away from the child in distress by simply observing him (looking at him), or by continuing play. Children actively engaged with the crying child by continuing the conflict or, on rare occasions, showing compassion (trying to verbally and nonverbally alleviate the crying child's distress). Children's responses to peer's crying are discussed in terms of collective socialization practices, related to children's peer group play concerns, and institutional concerns of educators. We argue that responses to children's crying constitute sites for emotion and moral socialization and (re)-produce specific cultural values about compassionate conduct, the normative appropriateness of crying, and caregiver–child responsibilities for alleviating another's distress.

Föreliggande avhandling undersöker små barns (1-4 år) gråt i en svensk förskola. Studien har en videoetnografisk ansats där data består av 68 timmar videoinspelningar. Avhandlingen tar sin utgångspunkt i ett sociokulturellt teoretisk perspektiv på hur socialt samspel utgör grunden för barns moraliska och emotionella socialisation. Genom att studera barns deltagande i dagliga aktiviteter på förskolan undersöks i) hur barn använder gråt som kommunikativ resurs i sina lekkonflikter, ii) hur vuxna responderar och hanterar barns gråt i olika situationer (t ex när barn på olika sätt skadar sig eller i samband med en konflikt) och iii) hur barn responderar på kamraters gråt i samband med att en konflikt uppstått i leken. Genom att tillämpa detaljerade analyser av socialt samspel har studien undersökt hur barns gråt som social och situerad praktik kan förstås i relation till förskolans institutionella uppdrag och barns dagliga deltagande i förskolans praktiker. Sammanfattningsvis demonstrerar studien att barns gråt och omgivningens olika respons på gråt utgör socialiserande praktiker för barns moraliska och känslomässiga socialisation i förskolan.

The present thesis explores young (1-4 years old) children’s crying in an early childhood educational setting. The data consists of 68 hours of video-recordings from a Swedish preschool. By taking a point of departure in a sociocultural and social interactional perspectives on children’s emotional and moral socialization, the study explores i) how children used crying as a communicative resource in their play conflicts, ii) how educators responded to and treated children’s crying in various situations (e.g., when children accidentally hurt themselves or in conflict interventions), and iii) how peers responded to the child’s crying in play conflicts. By deploying a detailed interaction analysis, the present study explores how the social characteristics of children’s crying relate to educators’ institutional responsibilities and children’s everyday social and emotional concerns. In all, the thesis demonstrates that children’s crying and responses to distress constitute sites for children’s moral and emotional socialization.

The study examines young children's play and adults' responses to children's peer play conflicts (in preschools in Sweden) that result in crying. It shows how educators' participation in the resolution of children's play conflicts constitutes socialization practices that focus on moral and emotional aspects of children's conduct. Children's crying has previously been investigated primarily from psychological perspectives. Interactional studies have highlighted that children use different communicative resources in their play interactions and conflicts. Crying, however, has not been investigated in an educational context and not in its own right. The present study adopts social interactional and sociocultural perspectives on children's development and learning. The study is based on video ethnography from a Swedish preschool for children aged 1-4 years. The findings demonstrate that young children use crying as a communicative act that invites educators' active response to a moral transgression committed by a peer. The children use crying to position themselves as victims or perpetrators in a conflict that educators are called upon to resolve, while at the same time mediating between children. The analysis shows that children configure their crying as an embodied and publicly visible act to be noticed by educators, whose responses then accomplish the moral framing of play conflict.