The aim of the study is to make a comparison between the nursery/preschool recommendations (by the state) made in 1972 and the one used today. Here I’ve focused on the posts of looking after children vis-à-vis the educational responsibility. Also the type of education recommended in 1972 and what type of education recommended today. My questions concerns what the preschool recommendations from 1972 are and how they are viewed and applied today in the 2000nds. Since my questions has to do with ideologies regarding children, family and society I choose to do a specific form of text and content analysis called Idea and ideology analysis. In my theoretical chapter I choose two aspects central for my field of examination. These are discourse and discourse analysis, I choose them as they concern how people of different professions in society uses language to categorize and discuss various phenomena surrounding us. Discourse and discourse analysis also includes a description of what the Swedish discourse regarding childcare looks like during the two years I’ve been doing this study. My findings are that the preschool in both 1972 and today both have the responsibility to look after children and the educational task. I’ve also found that in 1972 a certain type of education is recommended for preschools while as today the recommendations don’t contain only one specific type of education.

The aim of this study is to examine the language, used in parts of The day care report of 1968 (“1968 års Barnstugeutredning”). The day care report of 1968 was a public investigation appointed by the cabinet intended to prepare new policies on the part of the Swedish state.  I focus on the change, which can be assumed to have occurred, when replacing the names “day care” (“dagis/daghem”) and “kindergarten” (“lekskola”) with the name “preschool” (“förskola”). The basic questions mainly concern the language in the report, and specifically how its authors use the names “day care” and “preschool”. The study also involve the question of what intentions can be distinguished from the new use of the name “preschool” instead of the name “day nursery”. The method is based on a text analysis applied to chosen parts of The day care report of 1968. The study is focusing on what effects the authors had concerning the words and names they were using. The theory I have used is that about power and discourses, introduced by Michel Foucault. The result shows that existing discourses affected the use of language in The day care report of 1968. The conclusions show that one of the intentions was to create an identity for preschool distinct from the identity of school. It also shows that the development of the preschool was characterized by two conflicts. The first one concerning the relation between the preschool and the school, and the second one put the function of the preschool in question. Should the preschool focus on learning or care, or should it bring together those functions in order to find its basis of work? Finally, it seems like that question is still alive today.