Cultural containment in day care: a multi-site study of children’s encounter with culture

Drawing on infant observation methodology, this paper introduces the concept of cultural containment to examine how young children in day care settings encounter and are held by different cultural activities. Based on a multi-site study conducted across Danish day care centres, the paper analyses observational material from four types of cultural experience: arts and crafts, fairy tale telling, singing, and mytho-poetic ritual. Each is shown to evoke and simultaneously contain distinct emotional reactions in children aged one to six. Arts and crafts sessions elicited sensuous, aesthetic arousal supported by the facilitating presence of an attuned artist. Fairy tale enactment gave rise to a wide emotional range, from aggression and battle-lust to a sense of beauty, elegance, and enchantment. Singing activities revealed how certain fantasy images were highly animating for particular children. The Saint Michael's Day ritual afforded a shared mythic frame for both valour and trepidation, though not all aroused feelings found containment in the ritual. The paper argues that different cultural forms offer different modes of containment, and that attending to these processes deepens our understanding of children's unconscious as well as conscious engagement with culture in early childhood settings. Methodological limitations, including the study's focus on groups rather than individual focus, are also discussed.