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Asta Cekaite

Deputy Dean, Professor

Asta Cekaite's research focuses on children's interactions and cultural socialisation in the family, school, and preschool. Her work covers bilingualism, peer group dynamics, emotions, everyday morality, and touch in social interactions.

Children's social interactions, bilingualism, socialization and institutional interactions

Asta Cekaite's research concerns children's interactions, cultural and communicative socialisation processes in families, educational settings and children’s peer groups.

Her research is characterised by ethnographic methods, video analysis, interviews, and action-based research. Central research questions concern the role of emotions in children’s socialisation across time; embodiment and sensoriality, specifically, touch in children’ development and between adult and children.

An important area of research concerns children's multilingualism and how it is promoted both within peer groups and within preschool, school and family.

Her research has also drawn attention to the importance of the peer group for socialisation and how children learn from each other in various cultural activities. In international collaborations about families in Sweden and the USA, and preschools in Sweden, Japan, and Finland, she studies different forms of socialisation that take place in the interaction between children and adults. The combination of longitudinal ethnographic approaches and detailed interaction analyses reveals the relation between societal processes and children's everyday actions and experiences.

Research areas

  • Children's bilingualism
  • Children’s peer groups, play and learning
  • Family socialisation
  • Children’s emotion and moral socialisation
  • Touch and sensoriality in social interaction

Research projects

Colorful stones

Learning to Communicate and Collaborate through Bodily Expression and Art

In this project artists and pedagogues engage in developing an innovative methodology that will empower young people who may be facing fewer opportunities and social exclusion, particularly those with minority or migrant background.
Preschool children sitting in a row on a bench out in the sun.

Touch cultures, bodily integrity and embodied socialization in preschools

The project aims to further understanding of touch cultures, bodily integrity and bodily socialization in Swedish preschools by examining children’s and educators’ embodied practices and experiences of physical contact in everyday interactions.
Fingers.

The Assessment of Prospective Adoptive Parents

Becoming a parent involves a highly private decision. However, adults who want to adopt a child must open their private lives to institutional scrutiny. In this project we study the assessment process preceding an adoption.

Publications

2025

Virve Keranen, Minna Uitto, Sonja Lutovac, Asta Cekaite (2025) "I hope that it comes across to the children that I am there as a human being": teachers' embodiment in the digital era European Journal of Teacher Education (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Julia Katila, Enhua Guo, Asta Cekaite (2025) Shepherding the emotion: Embodied socialization of emotion in pediatric dental interactions Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, Vol. 52, Article 100895 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2024

Asta Cekaite, Anna Ekström, Anja Rydén Gramner (2024) Touch as a resource when initiating joint activities in children's peer interactions Research on Children and Social Interaction, Vol. 8, p. 91-115 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Maria Simonsson, Asta Čekaitė (2024) Förskolepedagogers reflektioner kring att delta i ett aktionforsningsprojekt om flerspråkighet och lek Venue: Populärvetenskaplig tidskrift för forskning om skola och förskola, Vol. 26 (Article in journal)
Michael Tholander, Asta Čekaitė Thunqvist (2024) Konversationsanalys Handbok i kvalitativ analys, p. 228-247 (Chapter in book)
Sally Wiggins Young, Ali Reza Majlesi, Anna Ekström, Lars-Christer Hydén, Asta Cekaite (2024) How assisted eating becomes a caring practice in institutional settings: Embodied gestures and stages of assisted eating Appetite, Vol. 200, Article 107552 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Asta Cekaite, Vivien Heller (2024) Uses of interpersonal touch in educational settings: Organizing social relations, participation, and learning Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, Vol. 46, Article 100816 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Asta Čekaitė, Madeleine Wirzén (2024) Social and Emotional Functions of Institutional Touch in the Relational Care of Young Children Child & Family Social Work (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

Books

Bokomslag för

"Embodied Family Choreography"

Goodwin, M. H. & Cekaite, A. (2018): Embodied Family Choreography: Practices of Control, Care and Mundane Creativity. London: Routledge.

The book explores in depth how embodied interaction and touch play a central role in creating and maintaining close relationships within the family in today's Western middle-class society. Using extensive video ethnography from the US and Sweden, it describes how our senses, including the visual, auditory and tactile, work together to enrich and strengthen family bonds

Link to the book

Bokomslag för

"Touch in Social Interaction"

Cekaite, A. & Mondada, L. (Eds.) (2021). Touch in Social Interaction: Touch, Language and Body. London: Routledge.

The book presents a novel perspective on the role of touch in social life. It shows how different forms of social touch feature in everyday, institutional and professional contexts, describes its social functions, and ways touch conduct becomes meaningful in coordination with multiple senses. The book provides rich examples of social interactions where touch plays a central role.

Link to the book

Bokomslag för Bokomslag för

"Children’s Peer Talk"

Cekaite, A., Blum-Kulka, S., Gröver, V. & Teubal, E. (Eds.)(2014). Children’s Peer Talk: Learning from each other. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Both in and out of the classroom, children of all ages spend time interacting with their peers. This collection brings together an international team of researchers to document how children's conversations with their peers can influence their socialization. It emphasizes that to understand how children learn in everyday situations, we need to consider the culture, communication and activities of peer groups.

Link to the book.

CV

CV in short

  • 2018-2023
    Member of Board, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Linköping University
  • 2017
    Head of Child Studies unit, Linköping University
  • 2014-2016
    Deputee Head of Child Studies unit, Linköping University
  • 2013
    Professor, Child Studies, Linköping University
  • 2010
    docent
  • 2006
    PhD, Tema Barn, Linköpings University


     

Assignments

  • 2024-2026
    Pro-dean, Research and Phd Studies. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Linköping University.
  • 2024-2026
    Deputy Chairman, Faculty board, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Linköping University.
  • Co-editor, journal Research on Children and Social Interaction.

Seminar series

A hand is holding a pen

The conversation and interaction seminar

The Conversation and Interaction Seminar (SIS) is a working forum for conversation researchers and concentrates its activities on data sessions and presentations of ongoing analytical work.
Two children sitting on stairs and reading

Child Interaction Group Seminar

Child Interaction Group Seminar brings together child interaction researchers who are conducting ethnographic and interactional research in various educational, institutional and family contexts

Organisation

Silhouettes of several children in the sunset

Child Studies (TEMAB)

Education and research at Child Studies is about childhood and family with a focus on interaction and language, children's culture and consumption, and childhood over time and space, all to better see the perspectives of children and young people.
Drone image of the Tema building at Campus Valla

Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA)

In an increasingly complicated world, there is a need for researchers that can handle both breadth and depth, and can collaborate across disciplinary borders. Major societal questions are studied from an interdisciplinary perspective at TEMA.
Studenthuset on Campus Valla in Linköping

About LiU

Linköping University, LiU, offers innovative education and boundary-crossing research. The students are among the most desirable in the labour market and international rankings consistently place LiU as a leading global university.

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