Any child is surrounded by standards established and negotiated by others. Some are defined by the toys and clothes available, others by adults' regulation of friendships, activity schedules etc. It is hypothesized that such standards have an important influence on the future life of the child, especially in light of the fact that all children face standards, but meet them from different perspectives and with different backgrounds and resources. The research questions of the present study are:
It is well-known that discrepancies between general standards and the lives of particular children, given their conditions and ways of living, can lead to social isolation and withdrawal, bullying, establishing of marginalized peer groups, development of mental problems etc. But we need to know more about how this occurs; and this requires a new take on developmental normativity.
Inspired by the research of Elder, the project connects to classical discussions of normal and pathological developmental paths in a life-span perspective; but it defines itself within recent theoretical attempts to get beyond ideas of uni-linearity and single causality. The project supports a recent shift to understanding development from a dynamic and complex wholeness perspective already elaborated in recent Danish traditions (e.g. Hedegaard, Bang, Hviid) and draws on theorists such as Lewin, Vygotsky, Barker & Wright, Bronfenbrenner and Valsiner.
In this approach, micro-genesis can be studied by attending closely to the everyday situations in which children negotiate standards and participate in standardization themselves. The differences and movements between such situations provide important sources to illuminating developmental variations in a way that includes a reflection of the normativity implied in child rearing, education etc., but is not limited to its perspective. Thus, the child will be studied across different contexts in his/her everyday life with an ongoing focus on situations where negotiation of standards (standardization) takes place with the target child as a core participant: What is the situation about? How does the child participate and negotiate? How do the negotiations/conflicts feed into subjectification processes?
Target children will be found in schools with a broad socio-economic variation among parents (higher educated vs. unemployed; high income vs. low income; own house vs. rental apartment, etc.). The research activities include observational studies (in school, among peers, at home, at other activities) as well as interviews with the children, following a dynamic methodology.
To highlight the role of developmental differences, the project is designed as a coordinated and parallel study of two target groups, at different ages:
There will be a close collaboration between the two studies, and data collection will in both cases run from spring 2012 to fall 2013.