Qualitative classroom study reveals embodied and relational movement during play in young children, suggesting broader posthuman definitions of early literacy education.
Key Points
To examine how children's embodied, relational movements and interactions with classroom materials expand posthuman understandings of early childhood literacy beyond conventional reading and writing.
Conducted qualitative classroom observations of young children playing and interacting with objects, including a notebook, bench, and cork floor, at a state-funded primary school in Seville, Spain.
Applied Mazzei's analytical methodology alongside Erin Manning's concepts to track the contours of movement across human bodies, physical objects, space, and time.
Demonstrated that emergent play acts as an entangled, more-than-linguistic event where literacy operates through physical bodies and material environments simultaneously.
Identified movement as an inherently potential, relational, and transformative force rather than an action restricted to an individual child's body.
Highlighted how conventional early education settings restrict non-normative corporeality, emphasizing the need for pedagogy that accommodates spontaneous material relations.
Cite This Study
Caetano-Silva et al. (2026) studied this question.