Social relationships in early childhood education: look at the body and feelings

Abstract

This article presents results of a survey in which the analysis of social relations among young children in the context of early childhood education highlight the centrality of body dimension in their actions and relationships. In the analysis, the way children are placed spatially in relation to others, makes clear the centrality of the body, touch, feel, affection and proximity in the relations hips they establish with each other and with adults. Children show a particular way of relating body and physically with their peers and with the world, playing and approaching their peers and also adults, indicating that corporal dimension, as a mediator of the relationship also involves sensory and emotion al elements. Children, in their actions, set out a parallel with the body as experience that is bound to the social and material world. This suggests that, for children, from their perspectives, their worlds and themselves are not separate, they are not seen by the parties and not separated from their experiences, processes, events and spaces, which are involved.