PhD defence: Ingrid Midteide Løkken

Ingrid Midteide Løkken will defend her dissertation for the degree of philosophia doctor (PhD) in the program pedagogical resources and learning processes in kindergarten and school.

Title of dissertation: Conditions of quality in toddler groups and social-emotional competence in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Summeray of dissertation:

The results show a correlation between ECEC’s organization form and interaction quality, where ECEC’s with stable group organization score higher on interaction quality than flexible organized groups.

The results also show that staff-child ratio is related to certain areas of interaction quality. Staff-child ratio is important for the more processual areas of interaction quality, which concerns how staff facilitate and support interaction with and between children, as well as using language and books. For other more structural areas of interaction quality such as how staff facilitate during activities and free play, no correlations are revealed.

The evaluation of Lamer’s Social Competence in Preschool Scale indicates a need for restructuring of the dimensions, while at the same time several of the dimensions are confirmed in the analysis, such as empathy and roletaking, and adaptation. In the relationship between interaction quality in toddler groups and development of children’s social-emotional competence the results show a positive association between interaction quality and Empathy and roletaking when children are around 3 years old. This may indicate that for the youngest children empathy and role taking is of importance to be in an environment with high interaction quality. Suggesting that children’s empathy and self-control are influenced by the quality of the relational environment in the toddler groups. Furthermore, a marginally significant association between interaction quality and Self-control when children where 5 years old). Despite being marginally significant, it may indicate that high relationship quality in toddler groups may have an impact on children’s long-term development, and that children develop self-control such as waiting for turn and dealing with conflicts by being in a high-quality environment.

No further associations between interaction quality in toddler groups and social-emotional competence were found. Possible explanations for these limited findings can be contextual and cultural differences in socio-economic status, welfare systems and ECEC settings. It could also be that the parents are more significant, or that there is a need for more systematic pedagogical work. It could also be that peers have greater impact than interaction quality i the ECEC groups. Methodological conditions must also be considered as possible explanations for missing relationships. 

This thesis contributes to the discussion of if and how the condition interaction quality in toddler groups is related to children’s social-emotional competence, and what structural conditions contribute to high interaction quality in children’s groups in Norwegian ECEC. It also contributes to the discussion of more systematic pedagogic work with social-emotional competence in ECEC. Thus, the thesis may be of relevance for both further research, practice and policy making.