The aim of the present study is to explore how children’s participation is constructed and enacted in preschool documentation and what kinds of activities evolve between teachers, children and material objects in preschool documentation practices. The study is based on videorecorded observations of teachers and children documenting different preschool activities in two preschool groups. The video observations are analysed using theoretical perspectives on power relations, governmentality, documentality and agentic realism. The results are presented in two research articles. The results show the complexity of children’s participation in preschool documentation practice. In the first article two different documentation methods, with different theoretical underpinnings, were used in the preschool: portfolio and pedagogical documentation. The results show that, regardless of documentation method, children’s participation varied from attendance to involvement and influence, which can be seen as two ends of a power relation. Power relations between teachers and children also varied between situations as well as within individual situations. The result of the second article shows that children’s participation in preschool documentation practices, as well as the documentation itself, was affected and controlled not only by the humans present, but also by different material agents, such as photos and colour-coded labels. Taking material agents into account allows for a broader understanding of documentation practices, which in turn could open up for new forms of children’s participation in preschool documentation. / Syftet med studien som utgör grunden för uppsatsen var att undersöka hur barns delaktighet i förskolans dokumentation är konstruerad och ”görs” och vilken typ av aktivitet som utvecklas mellan lärare, barn och materiella objekt inom förskolans dokumentationspraktik. Studien är baserad på videoinspelade observationer av lärare och barn som dokumenterar olika aktiviteter i förskolan på två förskoleavdelningar. Videoobservationerna analyserades med hjälp av teoretiska perspektiv på maktrelationer, governmentality, documentality och agentic realism. Resultatet presenteras i två vetenskapliga artiklar. Resultaten visar komplexiteten i barns delaktighet i förskolans dokumentationspraktik. I den första artikeln studerades användningen av två olika dokumentationsmetoder, med olika teoretiska underbyggnad, nämligen portfolio och pedagogisk dokumentation. Resultatet visar att barns delaktighet varierade från deltagande till medverkan och inflytande oavsett vilken dokumentationsmetod som användes. Detta kan ses som två ändpunkter av en maktrelation. Maktrelationer mellan lärare och barn varierade också mellan situationer och inom en situation. Resultatet av den andra artikeln visar att barns deltagande i förskolans dokumentationspraktik samt också dokumentationen i sig, påverkades och styrdes, inte enbart av de deltagande personerna, men också av olika materiella agenter, till exempel foton och färgade etiketter. Att även beakta materiella agenter innebär att förståelsen av dokumentationspraktiken kan vidgas, vilket i sin tur skulle kunna öppna upp för nya sätt för barn att vara delaktiga i förskolans dokumentationspraktik.

Within the interdisciplinary field of new materialism Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism deconstructs our current euro-western metaphysical perception of the world and our existence within it, to then re-build an understanding based on relatively new findings within quantum physics. In this thesis I try to recreate Barad’s theory to see what ethical consequences might come from it. Together with practical examples within the discourse of today’s social world and our global connectedness I hope to create a better understanding of the impact of our actions and being on our culture and what we call the natural world. Removing the unique agency given to human culture and language to instead, with the help of post-humanistic ideas, add agency as a universal enactment rather than an attribute, we should start to see ourselves as active and real parts of the world-building that is our home. One main question that I see arise in the end is: what does responsibility entail when we all are one and the same?

The purpose of this study is to examine children's intra-active relations with sounds in an explorative work at a preschool (1-to 2-year old children) analyzed through the lens of agential realism (Barad 2007, 2008), and to examine its didactical effects. This study has a transdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary design based on preschool didactics and the natural sciences, mainly physics andbiology. Research data consist of pedagogical documen-tation in the form of a short video sequence generated in a preschool sound project. An agential realistic approach in this study means an analysis of how sound is produced intra-actively in children's play and exploration in a pre-school. Barad’s agential realism also defines specific ethical stances for both the researcher’s involvement in the production of knowledge and the ethical implications of what that new knowledge and reality reveals(Barad 2007, 2008). The results of this study demonstrate the possibility to work with young preschool children around sound and how sound can be understood as a significant partner in children's play and exploration. This work ́s transdis-ciplinary goal, which is to work across the boundaries of preschool practice and scientific theory, contributes new knowledge about how sound vibration, frequency, loudness, hearingand acoustics intra-acts with children ́sbodies, feelings and thoughtsand the educational environmentsand discourses that children face in preschool. This study's specific impact on practice is that preschool staff can gain a greater understanding on the significance and im-pact of furnishings, architecture and organization according to time and place on how children express themselves and explore sound as a material-discursive phenomenon.

The objective of the present study is to produce knowledge about how children, things, documents, computers, teachers, templates and other entities take part in and produce documentation in preschool systematic quality development work. The thesis asks questions about how and what is produced as quality in preschool documentation. Through a posthumanist agential realist approach, the study engages empirically in video recordings of preschool documentation practices from one Swedish preschool, and in documentation from four other Swedish preschools. The results, presented in four articles, show that documentation practice is complex and entangled with a variety of entities, human and non-human, and spaces and time. The study shows how children’s participation in production of documentation does not depend on which documentation method is used. In the study, objects such as computers, images and coloured labels, together with teachers’ attitudes and agendas, have an impact on the way that children are involved in producing documentation. The results also show that the products of documentation, intra-acting with a local template, with past and present preschool traditions and policies, produce rather than represent certain elements of quality such as teachers’ actions, children’s interests and thematic work. The thesis produces knowledge about how the focus of preschool documentation shifts away from individual children and towards teachers’ activities, and creates possibilities for what preschool practices and quality may become. / Syftet med föreliggande studie är att producera kunskap om hur barn, ting, dokument, datorer, lärare, mallar och andra entiteter deltar i och producerar dokumentation i förskolans systematiska kvalitetsarbete. I avhandlingen ställs frågor om hur och vad som produceras som kvalitet i dokumentation i förskolan. Utifrån det posthumanistiska perspektivet agentisk realism, skapas empiriskt material med hjälp av videoinspelningar från en svensk förskolas dokumentationspraktik och dokumentation från fyra andra svenska förskolor. Resultaten presenteras i fyra artiklar och visar att dokumentationspraktiken är komplex och sammanflätad med en mängd olika entiteter, mänskliga och icke-mänskliga, samt med plats och tid. Studien visar hur barns delaktighet i att producera dokumentation inte enbart styrs av den dokumentationsmetod som används. I studien har ting som datorer, bilder och färgade etiketter, tillsammans med lärarnas attityder och agendor, inverkan på det sätt som barn är delaktiga i att producera dokumentation. Resultaten visar också att dokumentationen, i intra-aktion med en lokal mall, med tidigare och rådande traditioner och styrdokument för förskolan, producerar snarare än representerar specifika aspekter av kvalitet, såsom förskollärares aktivitet, barns intressen och tematiskt arbete. Avhandlingen ger kunskap om hur fokus för dokumentation i förskolan förskjuts från enskilda barn mot förskollärares aktivitet, samtidigt som dokumentationen skapar nya möjligheter för vad förskolans verksamhet och kvalitet kan bli.