This study examines the outdoor space of early childhood education institutions from the relational point of view, where space is defined as ‘a fluid state’ emerging throughout a continual interaction between the human and non human actor. For thi...
This study examines the outdoor space of early childhood education institutions from the relational point of view, where space is defined as ‘a fluid state’ emerging throughout a continual interaction between the human and non human actor. For this purpose, relevant studies recently published in Korea, Japan, and Europe were searched and reviewed. The results are as follows. First, there are two different aspects of the young children interacting with outdoor space: giving meaning to the outdoor space and experiencing it with their body(corps parlant). Second, the outdoor space affects young children’s behavior and play in two ways: outdoor space plays a role in promoting the child-child-teacher relationship and leading children’s creative play. Third, the teacher has two conflicting perceptions of outdoor space: some recognized the outdoor space as an ‘open space’ where the young children are subjectively involved, whereas others saw it as a ‘contained place’ where the children's behavior is forced by the given space. Lastly, based on the results of this study, directions for the composition of the outdoor space of the early childhood educational institution and implications for future research were proposed.