2.1 Setting

The empirical data were generated in November and December 2022 in two kindergartens situated in a small Danish town. The age of the children was 3–6 years, and the composition was diverse in terms of cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Both kindergartens were participating in a community-based health promotion intervention in which seven principles had been defined as guidelines for the health-promoting pedagogical practice, including principles for promoting physical activity (see Table 1). The kindergartens were recruited through municipal project workers.

2.2 Theoretical Framework: A ‘Child Perspective’

The study is theoretically rooted in the new sociology of childhood (Wyness 2012), in which children are perceived as ‘beings’ (James, Jenks, and Prout 1998) and as competent agents and creators of their everyday lives and culture. Accordingly, children are engaged in research as informants possessing central information about their own lives (Rasmussen et al. 2019). More specifically, the study is inspired by the Danish tradition of ethnographical research focusing on the institutionalised everyday life of children (Gulløv and Højlund 2010; Østergaard Andersen and Kampmann 2002; Warming 2011). In this line of thinking, the ambition is to get as close as possible to children's lived lives and trying to understand how children ‘do’ and experience physical activity in the kindergarten everyday life as well as the context and conditions for this. Hence, the child perspective is not to be understood as an authentic image of children's lives but an analytically constructed representation of their lives as well as the social, cultural, and physical conditions hereof (Gulløv and Højlund 2010; Juhl 2021). In practice, the study used ethnographic fieldwork which is suitable for capturing children's actions and insights and for engaging children in accordance with ethical considerations and practicalities (Freeman and Mathison 2009; Warming 2005).

2.3 Ethnographic Fieldwork

The ethnographic field notes comprise 37 days of participatory observations, with 18 days spent in one kindergarten and 19 days in another. ‘Capturing’ the children's voices, so to speak, was methodically approached by being there, observing and taking part in the everyday social world and life of the kindergarten, trying to familiarise oneself with the environment and understand what it might feel like to be a child in particular situations. Also, maintaining a low level of abstraction, being as concrete as possible and asking questions and writing down bodily as well as verbal actions as precisely and accurately as possible (Rasmussen 2004).

An observation guide was used as a common tool to direct and maintain our attention towards the field of interest (Kaijser 2011). Our focus was broad, but specific attention was given to the micro-social interactions of the children and the context hereof (Gulløv and Højlund 2010), including aspects such as the physical environment, pedagogical activities and situations, children's use of their bodies and movement, body language and expressions and meaning-making within the social community of the children (Poulsen 2019). In addition, interactions with pedagogical staff, kindergarten rules and routines were given attention.

The observations usually started at 9 AM, when most children had arrived, and continued until 1 PM when the planned activities were over, and the children had some time for ‘free play’. Our participation varied from passively observing to fully participating, depending on the activity and situation. Field notes were handwritten on-site and digitally transcribed in detail at the end of the day.

The researcher's position in the field influences the child's perspective and one's access to the social world of the children. To accommodate the unequal power relation and to get the closest available position to the children, we took on the role of ‘atypical’ grown-ups (Gulløv and Højlund 2010; Warming 2005, 2011). In practice, this involved sitting on the floor with the children during assembly, on child chairs during lunch, and participating in children's play when invited. In addition, when ethically sound, we avoided certain actions such as comforting, reprimanding, mediating conflicts, solving problems and answering questions normally directed towards pedagogues. After a while, we sensed that the children did not perceive us as typical adults, for instance, when they openly violated rules, used ‘forbidden’ language and invited us to play dates, thus making us feel welcome both as observants and as participants. The role of atypical adult required a careful balance necessitating awareness of the pedagogues' feelings about our presence, as well as of how our presence influenced the children's mutual relations (Kampmann 2010).

2.4 Ethics

Approval by the Danish Research Ethics Committee System was not required for this type of study, as per the National Committee on Health Research Ethics (Ref: 20182000-83). The study complies with the current Danish rules on ethics and the legislature of the Danish Data Protection Agency (Ref: 17/12006). The research was conducted according to the ethical principles and standards outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki, and considerations have continuously been made regarding the involvement of children and pedagogical staff. Using the kindergarten leader as a gatekeeper, the study was presented to the staff and parents via the digital information and communication system used by Danish municipalities in schools and daycare. A letter was formulated in Danish and English, and a short film, in which the researchers presented themselves and the study, was uploaded. This included an explanation of the study's purpose and clarified that the data would be used exclusively for research purposes, treated with confidence and pseudonymised in publications. Furthermore, the children were informed of their right to withdraw from participation at any point during or after the research process until publication; contact information for the researchers was provided as well as other relevant information. Information letters, in physical form, were distributed to all families by placing them in the children's personal cupboards and by attaching the letter to a noticeboard near the entrance of the kindergarten. If children asked about our presence, we formulated the purpose of our presence and the study in terms that were understandable for children of that age. In addition, we were careful not to observe children or staff who seemed uneasy with our presence (Alderson and Morrow 2011; Wyness 2012). Data were securely stored and handled according to the guidelines provided by applicable data protection laws (The Danish Ministry of Justice 2018) and pseudonymised for publication.

In this study, we included situations in which children were having difficulties, cried, were involved in conflicts and were reprimanded. In each situation, we considered whether it was ethically sound to not only observe but also include the situation in the field notes and the final publication. We have chosen to present children in vulnerable positions because having difficulties is a significant part of children's everyday lives and experiences when interacting with their surroundings (Rasmussen 2019).

2.5 Analytical Strategy

The paper applies symbolic interactionism (Dubois 2019; Goffman 1961), which offers a micro-sociological approach to analysing kindergartens as institutions and social systems (Dubois 2019; Goffman 2004; Gulløv 2004). In institutions such as kindergartens, the social order is produced through interactions between and among children and pedagogues (and to some degree parents). Through their actions, children produce, reproduce and react to this order (Rasmussen et al. 2019). In these social processes, individual children have ascribed identities and social statuses that contribute to regulating their behaviour (Dubois 2019) and which have social and individual consequences for their room for action. Hence, symbolic interactionism illuminates the social processes of institutional life, including those that promote inclusion or exclusion in health promotion practices, which are not always obvious at first glance. The interactionist perspective has been applied in the fieldwork (Järvinen and Mik-Meyer 2005) and during analysis to shed light on children's agency and everyday (inter)actions and room for manoeuvre in terms of physical activity.

Analysing the field notes, we initiated an open coding process (Timmermans and Tavory 2022), which included an analysis workshop with experienced researchers within childhood and kindergarten research. For this purpose, The Interpretation Group method inspired by the Dubrovnik tradition (Hollway and Volmerg 2010) was used. In short, the process implies taking a point of departure in a field note extract representing, that is, a reoccurring type of seemingly interesting situation, which is read aloud to the whole group. Afterwards, members of the group take turns expressing their immediate reactions or feelings about what they have heard. Next, the group engages in detailed analysis phrase by phrase and finally, different ‘findings’ are drawn into a conclusion (Hollway and Volmerg 2010). In this way, various conceptions are considered, and codes are generated based on knowledge from multiple researchers.

After the initial open coding process, the field notes were coded using the qualitative data software NVivo to organise them into empirical themes such as levels of PA, child-initiated activities, pedagogue-led activities and conflicts and negotiations around PA. This helped create an overview and find patterns in the data (Kristiansen 2015). Afterwards, we created a mind map connecting different themes to each other while paying attention to unexpected events in the field notes, for instance, how children were allowed to move around differently depending on the time of the day. From the coding process and mind mapping, themes such as kindergarten rules, use of spaces, daily structure and social dynamics emerged as influential for children's participation in health-promoting activities. Based on readings of Gulløv (2004) and Ehn and Löfgren (2006), the themes were theorised into categories of space and time, institutional logics and classifications, reproduction and adaptations and positioning and power, which were the basis for the analysis (Kristiansen 2015). In addition, the analysis draws on studies of Goffman (1961, 2004), Corsaro (1990), Palludan (2004, 2010), Chimirri (2019) and others. In combination, they contribute to illuminate how sociocultural interactions in kindergartens are practised and shaped in relation to institutional positions and logics. By examining routines, architecture, structure and corrections in the everyday life of the kindergarten, underlying rationales that influence children's actions and room for manoeuvre are exposed. Furthermore, the studies contribute to illuminate how children negotiate this room for manoeuvre as they engage in the kindergarten social life.

The analysis explores, firstly, how the social order of the kindergarten, constituted by temporal and spatial structures, influences children's opportunities to engage in physical activities, and secondly, elaborates how children negotiate this institutional structuring through their own agency.

3.1 The Social Order: Time, Space and Rules in the Kindergarten

Everyday life in kindergarten is organised so that children follow numerous set routines. In each kindergarten, the days are structured around the same timetable and specific places, but the scheduled activities vary. This temporal and spatial structure plays a significant role in shaping children's opportunities for engaging in physical activities.

3.2 Temporal Boundaries of Physical Activity

A child's day in kindergarten starts between 7 AM and 9 AM and ends between 3 PM and 5 PM. A typical day includes time for free play, pedagogue-led activities, assemblies and three meals in the morning, at noon and in the afternoon. This structure allows time for physical activities either during the pedagogue-led activities or during free play. Although pedagogue-led activities vary from day to day, the children's participation in them is usually mandatory. This implies a possibility to engage them all in physical activities, as in the excerpt below where they participate in an obstacle course created by pedagogues:

A few of them cheat when they crawl over a foam arch when they are supposed to belly under it. The children seem engaged in the game. Many have red cheeks, are talking, making noises and showing off to each other. Liam does a backwards somersault on the foam floor, smiling. Mia mostly walks quietly along the track (Field note, kindergarten 1).

In the excerpt, the children are engaged in the activity in different ways and interpret the obstacles differently depending on their prerequisites for doing so. Due to the mandatory nature of the activity, everyone is in motion, although the intensity and difficulty of their movements vary. Scheduled activities in the kindergarten, thus, have the potential to encourage and even enforce physical activity among the children. However, this is not always the case, as pedagogue-led activities that require children to be seated tend to limit physical activities despite individual interests and desires to move. This includes creative activities, relaxation exercises, assemblies and during all meals. Thus, children's levels of physical activity are shaped by the content of the pedagogue-led activities, which are often mandatory and scheduled to take place at specific times of the day (Palludan 2010).

Ordinary days in kindergartens also include time for free play, where children decide for themselves with whom and with what they want to play. This provides an opportunity but not a demand to be physically active. However, free play does not mean that children are free to move as they like. Different institutional rules define and limit their opportunities for physical activity also during these times of the day. There are both fixed regulations regarding movement in the kindergartens, such as no running inside, and rules that change depending on the specific situation and pedagogue. In the field notes, there are multiple examples of children breaking the rules. The following example takes place during a pedagogue-led activity in which children are making Christmas decorations. Some children have finished their decorations and have been given time for free play:

Emily is still swinging and using the three toys [at the activity space] behind the table. The other children are drawing from templates and cutting. The two pedagogues ask Emily to stop swinging so high because they think it disturbs those who are making Christmas decorations. Emily leaves. Ava, Oliver and Victor get up and dance to the music. SUSAN (pedagogue) tells them to be calm, and if they want to be wild, they must go into the motor skills room (Field note, kindergarten 1).

In the excerpt, the children are not permitted to be physically active in places that at other times allow for and are even designed to support these activities. Often, context-specific and flexible restrictions are enforced when physical activities interfere with already planned sedentary activities in the kindergarten. Institutional logics that prioritise shared and scheduled activities, thus, influence children's opportunities to engage in physical activities despite individual interests and needs (Goffman 2006). Consequently, rules for movement can change over time, and timing is crucial.

3.3 Spatial Boundaries of Physical Activity

In the same manner, as time and daily rhythms shape children's opportunities to engage in physical activities, kindergartens are designed with rooms and areas that, in different ways, encourage or restrict physical activities. Rules, norms and cultural meanings are ascribed to different places that define which ones are available or suitable for physical activities (often according to grown-up logic). In this respect, the rooms in a kindergarten are often named after the activities they accommodate, such as the lunchroom, the doll room, the reading room, the drawing room and the motor skills room, colloquially known as ‘moto’ or ‘the monkey room’. Some of these rooms are intended for children to sit quietly and immerse themselves in calm activities, whereas other rooms invite energetic play.

In the moto rooms and activity spaces, various pieces of equipment are available, such as tumbling furniture, mattresses, foam flooring, ladders, trapeze bars and climbing walls. These surroundings provide children with multiple possibilities to be physically active. In our field notes, the places are used for building dens, throwing things, fighting for fun, running around and doing tricks with different equipment. Consequently, the spaces set the scene for many physical activities and challenges, and are often characterised by a fast pace, lots of movement and noise among the children, as the excerpt illustrates:

Inside the moto room, there is more shouting and loud noise. [⋯] I notice that the types of play are more energetic, and the physical activity level is higher. Through the open door, I can see children climbing up and down various foam modules. [⋯] At some point, a pedagogue chooses to close the door to shield [the other children] from the noise (Field note, kindergarten 2).

Even though moto rooms provide a place where children can be active and loud, encouraging high levels of activity, they also seem to serve the function of delimiting energetic and vigorous activities from taking place in other rooms. Time in the moto rooms and activity spaces is coveted by the children; however, the spaces have limitations. Most often, only four or five children are allowed in the moto rooms at the same time, and in this study, the activity space in one of the kindergartens contained only three pieces of equipment. Furthermore, the spaces and equipment are only accessible at times when the children are not required to engage in pedagogue-led activities or spend time outdoors. The playgrounds outside the kindergartens have similar functions and are primarily used during free play but also during certain pedagogue-led activities. These places feature climbing frames, swings, hills, sandboxes, large grass areas, traffic lanes for moon cars (a type of nonmotorised go-cart with pedals), bikes and much more. The opportunities for activities are many, and again children use them in different ways. The primary restriction on outdoor activities is that adults decide when the children can be outside. In this respect, rules and fixed timetables are also tied to and restrict these physical activity spaces (Palludan 2010).

The spatial and temporal structuring of the everyday in kindergarten represents a social order that shapes children's scope of action and their possibilities for engaging in physical activities; it depends on the availability and time dedicated to it (Palludan 2010). Consequently, the social order may both promote and restrain physical activities (Wiseman, Harris, and Lee 2018).

3.4 Children's Agency in the Social Order

While the above shows how the social order in the kindergarten, in terms of the structuring of time, space and rules, creates the conditions for children's physical activity, the following demonstrates various ways in which children negotiate this order and, through their own agency, influence their opportunities to be physically active (Barmaki 2021; Goffman 2004; Gulløv 2004).

4.1 Methodological Considerations

The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork only. Other methods are also suitable for generating data in child research (Gulløv and Højlund 2010; Kampmann, Rasmussen, and Warming 2017; Rasmussen et al. 2019), and the use of more methods could have strengthened and nuanced our insights. The decision to use only ethnographic fieldwork was due to the aim of the study and the target group. Regarding the aim, the primary focus of the study was on the institutional context of health promotion activities, including the interactions, social processes and sociocultural rationales. To gain these insights, being present in the institutional context and experiencing the sociocultural environment first-hand is crucial (Hastrup 2012). Regarding the target group, ethnographic fieldwork allows the researcher to capture children's nonverbal expressions and actions. When studying small children, whose verbal language is somewhat limited (Gulløv and Højlund 2010), more can be discovered by observing and engaging in informal talks in the context of their everyday environment.

From an ethical-democratic perspective, during field observations, we tried to alternate between the children to include as many perspectives as possible (Warming 2020). In the final part of the field work, most children appeared relaxed during our presence and allowed us to observe their activities, even the children who had seemed to avoid us at first. However, as some children were more visible, quicker to show trust and seek our attention, those perspectives may be overrepresented in the field notes, particularly those written in the early stages of the field work.

Applying the interactionist framework for analysis when studying children enhances the insight into the social life of children and, more specifically, characteristics of the institutionalisation of children's everyday life and childhood. The framework, in some sense, rediverts focus from more subjective experiences that could have been captured using other methods of data generation and/or other theoretical frameworks. However, the selection and rejection of theoretical and empirical perspectives in this paper are based on an attempt to present a cogent analytical argument.

4.2 Implications for Practice

In light of increasing pressure for kindergartens to apply a more explicit health promotion strategy in the pedagogical work, our study proposes that health promotion activities are reflected upon and related to the existing institutional rationales and environments of kindergarten life. Our findings suggest that a more flexible structuring of time, space and rules in kindergarten might contribute to increasing children's level of physical activity and create more inclusive health practices where children in vulnerable positions can participate on their own terms.

What is important for the children who struggle is that their social relations and networks are strengthened so that they can take part in the child community, thus gaining improved circumstances for meaningful participation in child- and pedagogue-initiated health-promoting activities (Schulz 2015). For health promotion efforts to positively make a difference in improving health and conditions for health for all children, it is necessary to allow for the diversity of interests and prerequisites of all children (Pape et al. 2016; Pawlowski et al. 2015; Schulz 2015).