ABSTRACT
Increasing migration, accountability, and globalization has affected Icelandic early childhood education immensely. In the wake of substantial changes in the population of Iceland during a short period of time, the chapter reports from a study whose aim is to examine the well-being and belonging among a diverse group of preschool children. The study builds on the ideology of childhood studies, which views childhood as a social construction, contingent upon culture, time and context, and focuses on children’s competencies to actively influence their surroundings. The study also draws on the politics of belonging, within which belonging and exclusion are understood as relational rather than individual phenomena. Nine children participated in the study. Data-gathering included participant observations, individual interviews that were based on photos that the children took with computer tablets, as well as group interviews. The data were reduced into four main themes: (a) friendship; (b) participation; (c) solidarity; and (d) identity. Findings reveal that participation in the community of peers was most important for experiencing belonging in preschool. There was also a clear sign of solidarity among the children. They showed empathy toward each other and sympathized with children who were in some way or another left out. Belonging to the community of preschool was also constructed through children’s relations with the material and the environment.
