Barns skapande av egna platser

Sammanfattning: The study intends to examine how children identifies affordance at the preschool’s yard, and how they interpret this environment so they can adapt this to their peer cultures. The aim of this study is to gain an understanding of how children create place and culture by playing in an outdoor environment at the preschool.The study is conducted over a two-week period and shows observations where the children are staying at the yard and what they are doing at these locations. These observations were written down in a notepad; where each child was staying, what they did, how they moved and what they said. The collected material was analyzed using Gibson's theory affordance, Corsaro's concept of peer cultures and interpretive reproduction, as well as Halldén's concept of place. The concepts were used to understand and answer the two questions:” What places seem to be important for children's play?” and” Which affordance do children identify in these places?”The result showed that children negotiates about the places that are on the preschool's yard and then create their own places. Their own places that they create offers them fellowship, where they can try different roles, values and norms. Children transform materials and space to adapt to their children's culture, and they create physical as well as symbolic rooms in the yard. Children see opportunities in environments and materials, instead of restrictions. The result showed that the children imitated the adult culture, where the children then produced their own interpretations to adapt to their children´s culture.