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Children today are growing up amid a “polycrisis”—a convergence of environmental, social, and economic challenges with unpredictable and far-reaching impacts on early development (Lawrence et al., 2024; Homer-Dixon, 2023). In this context, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions are uniquely positioned to create good conditions for meaningful lives, foster resilience, adaptability, and transformative agency. We argue that ECEC can act as a critical site for cultural formation, drawing on and reinterpreting the tradition of Bildung to support sustainable becoming (Ødegaard and White in Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. Springer, Singapore, 2017). This chapter develops a theoretical framework for investigating kindergartens as arenas for cultural formation—places where children make meaning at the same time as meaning is afforded to them through how the educational institution structures time, space and relations. Through interdisciplinary and philosophical perspectives that share a relational ontology and include complexity (Haraway, 2016; Kagan, 2011; Latour, 2005) we conceptualize ECEC as both a reflective and formative space for children and adults to grow, care, and act in response to unsustainability. Against this background we propose that the child must be seen as Relational Becomings within an arena of cultural formation. We position ECEC not merely as preparation for school, but as a transformative living environment—an arena where critical thinking, ethical engagement, and collective responsibility can be cultivated. Within this setting, cultural formation involves co-creating futures grounded in sustainability, care, and joy. The chapter concludes with ten design principles for empirical research aimed at studying ECEC institutions as cultural formation arenas. These principles support value-driven, action-oriented inquiry to guide educators, families, and communities through the demands of the polycrisis—attentive to both present experiences and long-term generational responsibilities.

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Kindergarten as an Arena for Cultural Formation: A Theoretical Framework for Designing Research as a Response to Polycrises

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  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Elin Eriksen Ødegaard,
  • Zacharias Andreadakis

摘要

Children today are growing up amid a “polycrisis”—a convergence of environmental, social, and economic challenges with unpredictable and far-reaching impacts on early development (Lawrence et al., 2024; Homer-Dixon, 2023). In this context, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions are uniquely positioned to create good conditions for meaningful lives, foster resilience, adaptability, and transformative agency. We argue that ECEC can act as a critical site for cultural formation, drawing on and reinterpreting the tradition of Bildung to support sustainable becoming (Ødegaard and White in Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. Springer, Singapore, 2017). This chapter develops a theoretical framework for investigating kindergartens as arenas for cultural formation—places where children make meaning at the same time as meaning is afforded to them through how the educational institution structures time, space and relations. Through interdisciplinary and philosophical perspectives that share a relational ontology and include complexity (Haraway, 2016; Kagan, 2011; Latour, 2005) we conceptualize ECEC as both a reflective and formative space for children and adults to grow, care, and act in response to unsustainability. Against this background we propose that the child must be seen as Relational Becomings within an arena of cultural formation. We position ECEC not merely as preparation for school, but as a transformative living environment—an arena where critical thinking, ethical engagement, and collective responsibility can be cultivated. Within this setting, cultural formation involves co-creating futures grounded in sustainability, care, and joy. The chapter concludes with ten design principles for empirical research aimed at studying ECEC institutions as cultural formation arenas. These principles support value-driven, action-oriented inquiry to guide educators, families, and communities through the demands of the polycrisis—attentive to both present experiences and long-term generational responsibilities.