Children's experiencing of their transition from preschool to first grade: A visual narrative study

Despite vast research on school transitions, less attention has been paid to understanding children's own sense-making of their transition from preschool to first grade. Drawing on sociocultural and dialogic approaches, this study addresses this gap by investigating children's experiencing (perezhivanie) of their school transitioning nested in the interaction between their motives and perceived demands. The data are derived from an ethnographic research project with 19 first-graders aged six to seven years old attending a Finnish primary school. The children were invited to draw their transition experiences and narrate their drawings to their peers and the researchers. The visual narrations were videotaped, transcribed, and analysed. The findings highlight the children's dialogic sense-making processes of their educational transitioning. The study reveals that the children's motives were related to opportunities to engage in physical activities, play, make relationships, and make sense of their changing positions and identities in relation to transitioning to primary school. The results also illuminate how the children actively created subversive spaces for pushing the demands of school rules and routines to fulfil their subjective motives. Altogether, the study demonstrates the potential of visual narrative methods in contributing to a nuanced understanding of children's sense-making of their school transitioning, including the dialogic processes of what it entails to become a 'primary school child'.