Abstract
This article investigates children's interactional practices for mobilizing joint attention in an early childhood education setting, extending existing research on participation frameworks. Drawing on ethnomethodological conversation analytic methods, the research proposes the concept of “self-presentations” as a distinctive interactional tool for young children to initiate and negotiate participation opportunities. The analysis explains how the self-presentation practice (1) is a type of showing of the self rather than an object or place, (2) can be achieved without talk, and (3) enlarges the ongoing participation framework. The research reveals how children strategically deploy self-presentations to exercise agency, claim epistemic rights, and form attachments within complex social environments. The findings illuminate the sophisticated interactional competencies of young children, demonstrating their active role in constructing participation frameworks through nuanced communication practices that extend beyond verbal exchange. The article makes methodological contributions to understanding how embodied actions like gaze and gesture progress interactions, as well as demonstrating how upgrades are used in self-presentations to strengthen directives and provide insights into the shape of one-upmanship. The article draws on data from an investigation into children's participation rights in an early childhood education setting in Australia. Selected extracts of educator–child interactions were taken from 75 hours of video recordings. The findings have implications for educators recognizing how self-presentation practices function beyond mere attention-seeking, operating as a “connection-seeking” device that enables children to secure and maintain interactions and establish social connections.