Framing Young Children’s Humour and Practitioner Responses to it Using a Bakhtinian Carnivalesque Lens

This article presents findings from a pilot study offering an alternative framing of children's humour and laughter in an early childhood education setting. It employs a Bakhtinian carnivalesque lens to explore the nature of children's humour in an urban nursery, and investigate the framing of children's humour and laughter outside the popular paradigm of developmental psychology. In addition, it addresses the challenge that children's humour can present for early childhood practitioners, turning to Bakhtin's analysis of carnival to frame children's humour as carnivalesque. This conception is then offered as a part of a potential explanation for practitioners' occasional resistance to children's humour, proposing that dominating, authoritative discourses within early childhood education play a significant role in this. The article draws on a number of theorists, including Bakhtin more widely, to address reasons why humour is not valued pedagogically within the UK early childhood field, and suggests that further research in the area is imperative, in order that we gain a better understanding of the place and significance of children's humour within early childhood practice

‘Let the wild rumpus start!’. Using carnival as a metaphor to highlight the pedagogical significance of young children’s humor

It is important that the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) continues to develop a pedagogical interest in humor and laughter. Research suggests that children have a positive approach to humor that embraces subversion and challenges authority. Differences in adults’ and children’s approaches to humor in ECEC are discussed within this chapter by complementing more traditional lenses that sit within a paradigm of developmental psychology and demonstrate how philosophical anthropologist, Mikhail Bakhtin’s, theory of carnivalesque can provide helpful insights. A short overview of Bakhtin’s carnivalesque theory is offered; then, the chapter discusses research findings that illustrate potential benefits of using Bakhtin’s idea to illuminate a more anthropological and socio-cultural context of young children’s humor and laughter in ECEC. Data from a study set in an urban early years setting are reported. Evidence of young children’s humor presenting as carnivalesque clowning; challenges to perceived authority, often in the form of ‘grotesque’ humor; carnivalesque performance not differentiating between performers and audience; and carnivality as a mode of communication, is explored. Finally, a discussion of how early childhood practitioners can draw on these ideas to facilitate an understanding of children’s intentions and motivations concludes the chapter