I am part of the project 'Communicating emotions, embodying morality' - A socio-cultural perspective on children's moral and emotional socialization in families and preschools. My part in the project relates to preschool and how children use excitement and laughter as a means of communication to engage in social interaction. By studying how teachers and children respond to communicative practices, we can understand how these practices can be used as a socializing acts. My dissertation focuses on study how talk, gaze, gestures and posture are coordinated in situations where laughter and excitement occur, and what relationship moral and emotional socializing components have in everyday practice in Swedish preschool.
The study includes a video ethnography in preschool with a multimodal interaction analysis and CA (conversation analysis) to study how bodily practices are used in socializing emotional behaviors. The study is in sociocultural theories and social constructivism where coordination of linguistic and bodily practices (such as gestures, gaze, intonation and touch) are used to socialize emotional and moral actions within the preschool.
