Stirring young children into friendships: constraints and enablers during the transition to an international school

Friendship provides space for young children (aged 5 years) to develop their emotion regulation, social skills and a sense of belonging, all foundational dimensions for learning about how social relations work. To further understand the significance of friendship for young children from global middle-class families who frequently transition countries, we use friendship as a lens and draw on the Theory of Practice Architectures to explore practices that shape and are shaped by their context. Kemmis et al. argues there is a need to focus on the interaction between cultural-discursive (sayings), material-economic (doings) and social-political (relatings) dimensions of practice. Through narratives that provide a glimpse into, two children, two parents’ and two teachers’ perspectives, we analyse practices that enable and/or constrain young children transitioning into a new country and school, with a focus on how friendship is initiated. Findings indicate that there are clear differences in the way children and adults understand friendship. Children show active engagement initiating their own friendship, whereas teachers encourage children to play with everyone and mothers’ privilege close sibling bonds and reminisce about children’s past friendships.