Dreaming a dream: Slow sleep in the future of Early Childhood Education and Care

Based on cultural-historical theory (Engeström 1987/2015, Dafermos 2018, Levant 2018), in this presentation we will provide a speculative theoretical investigation of what alternative sleep practices in early childhood and care settings could possibly look like. Specifically, we will contrast our speculation with Clark’s (2023) notion of slow pedagogies in early childhood education and with Tronto’s (2017) democratic theory of caring-with, which acknowledges young and old as ‘equally needy’ citizens. We will enrich our investigation with our own empirical work regarding Danish and Finnish kindergartens and their sleeping practices (e.g. Chimirri 2024, Hilppö 2023). By this, our goal is to challenge and further develop current discussions about utopias which thus far have not touched on what the future of sleep could look like. In particular, sleep is discussed as a relational and material practice, which has the potential to question the artificial ideal of a societally well-functioning and productive individual contra a seemingly unproductive and ‘needy’ Other.