Else Cathrine Melhuus

Affiliated with UiA Department of Education

Email: else.c.melhuus@uia.no
Phone: +47 37 23 30 53
Mobile phone: +47 90 62 04 98
Office: C4111 (Jon Lilletuns vei 9, 4879 Grimstad, Norway)

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Areas of responsibility

I am now dosent emerita at the department of Education at the University of Agder as docent.

I have earlier worked in different kindergardens, which led med to take a degree in kindergarden pedagogics, and get employed at the University of Agder. My fields of interest are tuition and tuition projects in cooperation with the field of pracise which our students are connected to. My research interests have been sosialisation, peer relations, and the connections between aesthetics and pedagogy. In my resent research I have focused on children and places, where a meeting between phenomenology and post- human theories been in focus.I have also been a leader of a research nettwork called Democracy in Kindergartens, with members from different Scandinavian and Norwegian universities. My latest research project is with refugee children, named Refugee childrens meetings with kindergardens and local communities on Agder (Norway).

Teaching

I teach in the kindergartenteacher training program and mastercourses in kindergarten knowledge. My topics are mainly peer relations, play, body, children and place, materiality and the multicultural society.

Research

Refugee childrens meeting with kindergartens and local communities on Agder (Norway).

This research project is finansed by the Agder Municipality and the University of Agder, and we are a group of 6 researchers, and I am the leader. It focuses on the meeting between refugee children, their families and kindergartens in Agder, Norway. Kindergartens will for many families be one of the first experience with Norwegian govermental and local society. Our intention is to follow some refugee children in 4 different kindergartens in Agder, as part of their participatory processes. We will especially fokus on how the children and parents experienced their first meeting and being part of the everyday kindergarten life. The project will also investigate how the kindergarten employees and other relvant professionals organize and experience the children's integrationprocesses and cooperation with the parents.

Questions worth probing into can be: Is the kindergarten a cultural meeting point or does unintended segregation processes take place? Do the children have possibilites to participate in society , and which social and cultural norms and barriers can be set at stake? Do the professionals feel they have enough competance to meet these challenges? How do the environements interplay with all the participants, and which discursive practices take place?

In what way do kindergarten places participate in refugee families lives? How do kindergarten spaces and all the things present influence refugee childrens understanding of the kindergarten and them selves?

Selected publications

In english i haved had following publications:

Outdoor day-care centres – a culturalization of nature: how do children relate to nature as educational practice? European Early Childhood Education Research Journal Vol. 20, No.3, September 2012, s. 455-467.

Larsen, I.B. and C. Melhuus 2012. The presence of things: a study of the Lego brick and the medication box.
Social Space 1\2016(11)

Melhuus, Else Cathrine & Skreland, Lisbeth Ljosdal (2025). Doing woollen clothing: perspectives on materiality in preschool teachers’ work with immigrant parents in Norwegian kindergartens. Ethnography and Education. ISSN 1745-7823. 20(4), p. 349–361. doi: 10.1080/17457823.2025.2513913. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This article, based on fieldnotes and interviews, discusses how refugee parents experience their first meeting with Norwegian kindergartens outdooring practices. The mothers’ long trip to Norway where protection of their child was always in front, made their meetings with a kindergarten practice where the children are expected to cope with cold and harsh climate challenging. We found clothes as a significant and entangled part of this common Norwegian outdoor pedagogy. Woollen clothes are active in the material practices with the refugee parents and teachers; creating proximity and distance at the same time, in a process we have called agential bridging. Frykman claims that the meeting between the person and object shape cultural structures [Frykman 2005]. Barad [2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham] underlines how agency between humans and non-humans are involved in ongoing material practices. Both opening up for what we found as entanglements between persons, clothes and environments.
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2022). Det magiske, forflytning i hverdagen? In Aslanian, Teresa Katherine (Eds.), Det er her det skjer! Møter med religion, etikk og filosofi i barnehagen. Universitetsforlaget. ISSN 9788215037158. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2021). Å ta steder på alvor i forskningsfeltet. In Fasting, Merete Lund; Skreland, Lisbeth Ljosdal & Kampmann, Jan (Ed.), Å forske blant barn : Kvalitative metoder. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202689025. p. 116–128. Full text in Research Archive
Larsen, Inger Beate & Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2016). The presence of things: A study of the lego brick and the medication box as participants in peoples’ lives. Social Space. ISSN 2084-7696. 11(1), p. 54–73. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2015). Regulerende eller bevegelige rom. Tingene, barna og de ansatte. In Jansen, Kirsten Elisabeth; Kaurel, Jon & Pålerud, Turi (Ed.), Demokratiske praksiser i barnehagen. Fagbokforlaget. ISSN 9788245016529. p. 67–83. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2013). Utebarnehager - et sted for demokratisk praksis? Nordisk barnehageforskning (NBF). 6(14), p. 1–18. doi: 10.7577/nbf.449. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2012). Hytta i skogen, erfaringer om et "sted". In Krogstad, Atle; Hansen, Geir Karsten; Høyland, Karin & Moser, Thomas (Ed.), Rom for barnehage : flerfaglige perspektiver på barnehagens fysiske miljø. Fagbokforlaget. ISSN 9788245011265. p. 193–211. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2012). Outdoor day-care centres - a culturalization of nature: how do children relate to nature as educational practice? European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. ISSN 1350-293X. 20(3), p. 455–467. doi: 10.1080/1350293X.2012.704766. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2001). Barns kroppsutfoldelse som estetisk praksis. Nordisk Pedagogik. ISSN 0901-8050. p. 14–29. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Gjennom eksempler fra mitt feltarbeid blandt barn i barnehager og skole, vil jeg gi noen innfallsvinkler til hvordan estetikk spiller en rolle i individuelle uttrykksformer, i barns fysiske samhandling. Utgangspunktet for barns samhandling er ofte fysisk aktivitet. Fysisk aktivitet er en av de viktigste måtene barn forhandler og etablerer felles mening gjennom. Mitt spørsmål er hva er det disse aktivitetene kommuniserer? Hvordan former barn deres handlinger for å kunne bli forstått, eller for å kunne involvere andre i deres aktiviteter? Jeg fant at barns uttrykk kan være tolkninger av tema, gitt individuelle og følelsesmessige former. Estetikken blir en del av barns kommunikasjon, som er utviklet gjennom møtet mellom den enkeltes individuelle formgiving og de andres tolkning av denne formen. Måten barn gir form til sine handlinger på, avslører et komplekst kroppsspråk, som både har abstrakte og symbolske elementer. Through examples from my field work I hope to give some interesting aspects of the role aesthetics play in children’s (3-7 years)physical co-activities. The starting point for children is often physical activity - and my question is what does this activity communicate ? How do children shape their actions in order to be understood, or involve others in their activities ? I find that children do give an individual shaping to their “doings” that can be called aesthetic. The aesthetic expression, where individuality,emotions and shaping are combined, is an interpretation, often of a mutually accepted theme or activity. Children's body shaping proves to be an intricate language, revealing both abstract and symbolic meaning.

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Melhuus, Else Cathrine & Nordtømme, Solveig Irene (2022). Mellom steder,rom og materialer: Teoretiske utforskninger i barnehagen. Fagbokforlaget. ISBN 9788245021042. 214 p. Full text in Research Archive
Aasebø, Turid Skarre & Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2007). Rom för barn - rom för kunskap Kropp, kön, vänskap som pedagogiska utmaningar. Liber. ISBN 9789147084050. 181 p. Full text in Research Archive
Aasebø, Turid Skarre & Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2005). Rom for barn - rom for kunnskap. Kropp, kjønn, vennskap og medier som pedagogiske utfordringer. Fagbokforlaget. ISBN 9788245003185. Full text in Research Archive

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Melhuus, Else Cathrine & Nordtømme, Solveig Irene (2022). Vennskap mellom steder, rom og materialer. Full text in Research Archive
Nordtømme, Solveig Irene & Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2022). Perspectives on Materiality: Phenomenology meets post-humanism. Full text in Research Archive
Nordtømme, Solveig Irene & Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2018). Positioning of subject and some theoretical and ethical questions. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2015). Regulerende eller bevegelige rom- tingene, barna og de ansatte. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2015). Materiality through playthings in kindergartens, how human and non-human entities interplay in places for play in a chosen kindergarten. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2015). Methodological challenges when researching materiality and dealing with non-human agency. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, Else Cathrine (2015). Tingenes tilstedeværelse- med blikk på legoklossen og pillefordeleren. Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2009). Dokumentasjon kan brukes som et demokratifremmende redskap. Første steg. ISSN 1504-1891. jan.09, p. 4–4. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Pedagogisk dokumentasjon i barnehagene er blitt en del av den pedagogiske hverdagen- nå er tiden inne for å stille noen kritiske spørsmål om hva slags dokumentasjon fremmer eller hemmer en demokratisk praksis.Artikkelen tar spesielt sikte på hvordan dokumentasjon kan fremme personalets faglige innsikt på en demokratisk måte.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2009). Outdoor as educvational space and children's making of social order in a Norwegian outdoor kindergarten. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In this presentation I will focus on children¿s understanding and use of a given space in an outdoor kindergarten and the possible social orders children make and are given though the space they inhabit. In Norway the use of outdoor environments has become increasingly central as part of the pedagogical\educational practice (in both schools and kindergartens). The outdoor kindergartens in Norway are organized in different ways, the common feature being that the educationers and the children are outdoors the most of the day, every day, in all sorts of weather. This paper is based on a fieldwork in an outdoor kindergarten. It will discuss what kind of institutional room the outdoors represents. Room and place are crucial to people who inhabit them. Gagen(2000) says the following: Learning environments, then, are often places through which children become aware of, and begin reproducing, social identities that circulate through broader social space. Children that stay in outdoor environments as the woods, will not meet an institution already structured in rooms with different and clearly defined functions. Children will start to interact with the surroundings and start structuring spaces where social identities f.eks linked to gender and relevant knowledge are developed. In this seemingly child centred structure, how is educational practice made relevant in these surroundings?
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2008). Documentation - a tool for institutional democracy? Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Documentation is a certain type of communication. The aim is to make significant experience public for a certain group. Democracy is dependent on publicity. As such, documentation can be a tool for starting a democratic process in the institution, but not necessarily. For all documentation, Taguchi (1998) says, is a way of relating to ones surroundings, and is influenced by ones own interpretation and intentions. If documentation is to be part of an institutional democratisation, the questions of what one chooses to document, how one documents and how this information is used as a tool for reflection and professional development, must be taken seriously. This paper will discuss some conditions that should be present to make documentation in kindergartens part of a democratic process both for children, parents and staff. I will emphasize the use of documentation to develop professionalism among the staff. These following assertions will be discussed: Documentation can give the actors power over their everyday lives Documentation¿s what, how and why can support or obstruct the democratic process. How the documentation is carried out or presented is crucial to the democratic process among those involved. Does it lead to empowerment or low self-esteem? Does the documentation invite to openness or is it perceived as a praise of status quo? Documentation is part of the ongoing construction of reality, and a social constructionist perspective will be used to discuss how documentation becomes part of this construction.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2008). Outdoor kindergartens, Institutionalization of Outdoor Environments. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In Norway the use of outdoor environments has become increasingly central as part of the pedagogical\educational practice (in both schools and kindergartens). The outdoor kindergartens in Norway are organized in different ways, the common feature being that the educationers and the children are outdoors the most of the day, every day, in all sorts of weather. The outdoor kindergartens leave traces in natural environments surrounding rural and urban districts that signify educational practice that can seem as opposed to ordinary kindergartens. This paper is based on a fieldwork in an outdoor kindergarten. Room and place are crucial to people who inhabit them. Gagen(2000) says the following: Learning environments, then, are often places through which children become aware of, and begin reproducing, social identities that circulate through broader social space. This paper will discuss how a certain outdoor environment becomes institutionalized, through the activities the adults and children have. It will further discuss how these activities are made into relevant educational practices and how cultural values are realized through the educators and children¿s activities.
Sørenstuen, Jan-Erik & Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2006). Billeddokumentasjon i pedagogisk arbeid. Åpne eller lukkede bilder - et spørsmål om hensikten med dokumentasjon i pedagogisk arbeid. Utdanning. ISSN 1502-9778. p. 6–6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Denne artikkelen vil presentere et utviklingsarbeid med barns forming i og med naturen og nytten av billeddokumentasjon knyttet til dette arbeidet. Denne artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i et samarbeidsprosjekt mellom høyskolen i Agder, fakultet for kunstfag og fakultet for pedagogikk, og Soria Moria Barnehage i Eydehavn. Utgangspunktet for prosjektet er basert på faglige ideer fra land art og miljøkunst. Estetisk dokumentasjon blir dermed et trinn videre i den skapende prosess både for barn, ansatte og studenter. En gruppe med åtte 4-5-årige barn fra Soria Moria Barnehage deltok i prosjektet. Etter et kort forprosjekt, deltok vi i et tre dagers formingsarbeid i naturen. Resultatet av dette ble lagt frem for personalet. Senere deltok 15 studenter fra Kunst og Håndverk (30 stp) i førskolelærerutdanningen ved Høgskolen i Agder (HIA), Grimstad i et nytt formingsprosjekt.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2006). Documentation: a tool for institutional democracy? Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Documentation is a certain type of communication. The aim is to make significant experience public for a certain group. Democracy is dependent on publicity. As such, documentation can be a tool for starting a democratic process in the institution, but not necessarily. For all documentation, Taguchi (1998) says, is a way of relating to ones surroundings, and is influenced by ones own interpretation and intentions. If documentation is to be part of an institutional democratisation, the questions of what one chooses to document, how one documents and how this information is used as a tool for reflection and professional development, must be taken seriously. This paper will discuss some conditions that should be present to make documentation in kindergartens part of a democratic process both for children, parents and staff. I will emphasize the use of documentation to develop professionalism among the staff. These following assertions will be discussed: Documentation can give the actors power over their everyday lives Documentation?s what, how and why can support or obstruct the democratic process.
Aasebø, Turid Skarre & Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2005). Children's construction of knowledge in children's culture: in opposition or in dialogue with educational knowledge? Full text in Research Archive
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2005). Childrens body interaction, embodiment and representation. A meeting between phenomenology and social constructionism. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
My presentation, based on fieldwork with kindergarten children and first graders, will explore children?s body interaction. The body expresses what is permissable according to cultural norms, the physical space around and the individual body abilities. In the interaction between bodies, the child has her\his own individual way of acting, at the same time this must be part of a common understanding if the act shall become part of a mutual interaction. Ian Burkitt (1999) points out that embodied persons are not simply constructs, but are productive bodies capable of activities that change nature and their lives. The way in which we sense our body in the world seems to be just as important in creating meaning as cultural meaning, as cultural meaning is itself shaping the image of our body. From this point of view, Burkitt(1999) is critical to discursive constructionism, because it has difficulties in dealing with embodiment and also therefore with the multi-dimensional way in which we experience reality. In this paper I will try to develop how two such different perspectives make sense when interpretating children?s body interaction.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2004). Barns fysiske samhandling - et undervurdert språk. Barnehagefolk. ISSN 1500-6905. 20(3), p. 67–73. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
i barns sosialiseringsprosesser vil kroppsspråket, og barns fysiske samhandlinger spille en viktig rolle. Data materialet har jeg fått gjennom videoobservasjoner og nedtegnigner av barns fysiske samhandling i barnehager og 1 klasse. Jeg ble opptatt av å studere barns kroppsuttrykk og hva som gjør noen uttrykk mer kommuniserende enn andre. Det å gi form til noe, som et kroppsuttrykk kan forstås som, er også et estetisk arbeid, og jeg brukte estetisk teori til å forstå disse prosessene. Min påstand er at barns kroppsuttrykk er rike på nyanser, og kan uttrykk abstrakte tanker og ideer. Derfor bør vi også studere barns kroppsuttrykk, når vi skal få tak i barns kommunikative kompetanse.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2003). Children's body interaction, embodiment and representation. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Body postures and actions are children’s main way of interaction. Through these they develop and establish meaningconstructions. Construction of meaning is both an individual and cultural process, and in the meaningmaking processes children do get hold of cultural symbols. The body is both concrete and abstract. The child experiences being "in the body", the body as a senter for feelings and actions, and the body as a medium to represent an idea. An idea that the others have to understand if the representation is to be included as part of the children’s communicative repertoire. So the feelings of having a body, and feeling of action, must be given an understandable form, to be part of a communication. With this perspective I interpret many of the children's actions and representations as cultural features, and can be understood as analogies of “lived” life. My presentation, based on fieldwork with kindergarten children and first graders, will explore children’s “body interaction” further. How is the body used- both as a centre of action and representation, to develop children’s cultural symbols? How does the body and space together make a communicative whole in children’s interaction withanother? Thomas Csordas(1999) raises important discussions related to body and embodiment. His point of view develops Douglas’ (1970) symbolic perspective by using a phenomenological perspective; assuming that both these perspectives presuppose the other, if one is to grasp what the body in context i about.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2003). Children's body interaction, an underestimated entry to children's symbolic communication. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Body postures and actions are children’s main way of interaction. Through these they develop and establish meaningconstructions. Construction of meaning is both an individual and cultural process, and in the meaningmaking processes children do get hold of cultural symbols. The body is both concrete and abstract, and using the body to represent an idea the meaning of the idea might be easier to grasp. An idea that the others have to understand if the representation is to be included as part of the children’s communicative repertoire. Many actions and representations are children’s interpretations of cultural features, and can be understood as analogies of “lived” life.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2002). From fieldnotes to research texts- making actions meaningful in a research context. ?. 6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This article discusses the relationship between field data and interpretation. The discussion is based on my latest research with kindergarten and school children. In this research I applied an aesthetic perspective on my interpretations. In doing so I am constructing my understanding of children's physical actions, which both expands my knowledge of children, but also directs my thoughts. Will applying an aesthetic perspective (or whatever perspective) give meaningfulness to a text. Using Ricoeur's hermeneutic text theory, and social constructionism, I discuss how meaning is created through interpretation and the researcher's autonomous role in this. The starting point for all field research is the people one meets. In making language the shared activity that gives meaning to the acts people do, as the above theories do, researchers texts do get an important role. The danger for overinterpretation is close at hand. In the researcher's quest for a multitude of interpretations an act may have, the text may become the researchers play with thoughts, leaving the starting point behind. Thinking through the field, developing understanding from and with the starting point, which is an aim in anthropological research, can become thinking about the field.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2001). When things become magic- the role of aesthetics in children's everyday activities. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Gjennom å studere barns estetiske virksomhet ble jeg oppmerksom på at barn ofte tilla de gjenstander de arbeidet med en ekstra- eller supermening. Tegningene\gjenstandene ble ofte tillagt magiske egenskaper, og fikk en sterk symbolsk mening. Mitt bidrag vil utforske hvordan "ekstramening", som magiske symboler, er utviklet i barns samspill der å skape\forme noe er i sentrum. Jeg har anvendt estetisk, feministisk og anthropologisk teori i mine tolkninger av barns aktiviter. "This crab has a death head"..."my crab has poisonous claws". Two boys are sitting together drawing crabs - but they are not plain crabs anymore. Through the boys repeated work with drawing crabs, the crabs came to pocess magical power. This magical meaning or supermeaning seems to develop when children connect their everyday life and thoughts with aesthetic experience. The activities that are influenced by children's aesthetic involvement get another dimension than if the activities were without the intensity and individual shaping that characterizes aesthetic practice. My paper will explore how "extra" meaning, as magical symbolism, is developed in children's interaction and shaping. I have used aesthetic, feminist and anthropological theory in my interpretations of children's co-activities.
Melhuus, E. Cathrine (2001). From fieldnotes to research texts - a process of decontruction and construction. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This paper will discuss the relationship between field data and interpretation My research is based on a fieldwork amongst kindergarden and first grade children, where children's physical activities were in focus. I found that children's interaction are highly based on activity. I was interested in finding out what children communicated through their physical actions, when participating in co-activities. I have chosen to apply an aesthetic perspective on my interpretations. In doing so I am constructing my understanding of children's physical actions, which both expands my knowledge of children, and gives aesthetic theory a new dimension. But will my interpretation be judged as valid? To cite Ricoeur: "My claim is that action itself, action as meaningful, may become an object of science, without losing its character of meaningfulness, through a kind of objectification similar to the fixation which occurs in writing"(Ricoeur 1971:538) Will applying an aesthetic perspective (or whatever other perspective) give meaningfulness to a text? And is meaningfulness a main criterion on qualitative research?
Melhuus, E.Cathrine (2000). Forholdet mellom makt og kontroll i barnehagens hverdag. ?. p. 90–96. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Artikkelen tar opp forholdet mellom makt og kontroll i barnehagens hverdag. Pedagogen må møte de nye utfordringer i samfunnet, bl. a. de endringer som påvirker barns oppvekstvilkår og erfaringer, og vurdere sin rolle som pedagog og oppdrager i forhold til disse endringene. Pedagogen må se sin identitet som noe som er i utvikling, og som konstrueres i møte med barn og andre voksne. Det er i dette møtet at begrepene makt og kontrol diskuteres.

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Published Apr. 16, 2024 11:37 AM