Infants Initiating Encounters with Peers in Group Care Environments

Abstract

Early childhood environments are spaces of human encounters. Designed to enhance learning and teaching, ideally, they are spaces that support engagement with both social and physical environments and the development of positive relationships that acknowledge culture, heritage and personal circumstances. Infants’ encounters in these spaces are inevitably complex and reflect what Nelson (Young minds in social worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 17) describes as the “active drama” of experience and learning. In this chapter, I draw on examples from video data of a 14-month-old infant/toddler to illuminate the sophistication of preverbal infants’ strategic approaches to peer encounters within an early childhood environment. In particular, I focus on the strategies Charlie (see also Sumsion, Stratigos, and Bradley, Chap. 4, this volume; McLeod, Elwick, and Stratigos, Chap. 13, this volume) used to initiate contact with similar aged peers and consider factors that contribute to such initiations within the “relational spaces” (Nelson, Young minds in social worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 93). Finally, I reflect on the educator’s role in scaffolding infant peer interaction. Before presenting the case study examples, I first address understandings about human encounter and the nature of experience.