Throughout the world, children's contributions to the preschool education are key for respecting children's rights and establishing the environment of democratic relationships between teachers and children. However, it is unclear how, internationally, given the various cultural contexts and steering documents, teachers conceptualize a child and therefore engage children in their everyday practices at preschools. The aim of this study was to examine early career in-service Polish preschool teachers’ reflections on the Swedish curriculum’s view of the child and children's contributions to their own education, as well as to identify obstacles for incorporating these contributions in the Polish preschool teachers’ practices. Furthermore, the study aimed to document Polish preschool teachers’ conceptualizations of potential implementations in their own practices of the Swedish curriculum's principles and guidelines representing pre-schoolers as competent contributors. Four focus groups interviews were conducted with 11 early career in-service Polish preschool teachers. Results indicate that Polish preschool teachers do not generally support children's contributions and conceive of a child as incompetent and in the need of control. Nevertheless, when discussing Pedagogical Documentation as a tool to develop their work practices, the preschool teachers presented an altered view of a child and could identify possible implementations of the Swedish practices based on children's contributions. It might suggest that the way in which teachers conceptualize children vary according to the context and hence, Pedagogical Documentation could be a promising tool for promoting genuine contributions by children in Poland. Given the complexity of the phenomenon and the potential for changes in the Polish preschool provision, future large-scale research on how exactly the pedagogical tools, steering documents and the work environment can influence on the teachers’ practices, is recommended.

The text describes an important dilemma that we as educators need to manage in our daily work. Every day we are faced with situations in which we encounter children that challenge us in various ways. This text considers how we need to approach these children. The way we assess and approach them will often determine their actions and behaviour. Children form their self-image as a reflection of our behaviors. This can also affect other children in the group to view the particular child in a negative way. It´s of paramount importance to help all children to succeed. This text gives examples and reflections about challenging situations that we meet with everyday. In this essay, aspects are presented and discussed from varying theoretical standpoints regarding issues related to what makes a child act and react the way that they do. In addition, the essay discusses adaptations that can be made in keeping with the curriclum while at the same time giving all children the best conditions in which to play, learn and achieve personal growth.

Denna studie undersöker de pedagogiska tankar och uppfattningar som förskolepedagoger har gällande utevistelsen i förskolan. Studien omfattar tre parintervjuer och en gruppintervju med förskolepedagoger från fyra olika förskolor. Resultatet har visat att utevistelsen i förskolan inte planeras i samma utsträckning som inomhusvistelsen. Läroplanen i förskolan är tolkningsbar och när det gäller utevistelsen lämnas väldigt mycket till förskolepedagogernas egna tolkningar om hur de vill och ska arbeta med läroplanen när de befinner sig ute på förskolegården. Resultatet visar även att fri lek dominerar under utevistelsen och att pedagogerna gärna vill vara ”närvarande på avstånd”. Det har även framkommit att pedagogerna ser en del begränsningar som kan utgöra hinder för utevistelen. Dessa är bland annat stora barngrupper och att barnen inte ordentliga ytterkläder. Resultatet är analyserat utifrån ett socialkonstruktionistiskt perspektiv där det framkommit att utevistelsen genom vanemässigt handlande blivit en tradition som går på rutin. / This study investigates the pedagocial thoughts and opinions of nine preschool pedagogues from four different preschools, concerning the outdoor time. The result has shown, using interviews for gathering information, that the outdoor time in preschool is not to the same extent planned, as compared to the time spent indoors. According to the pedagogues, the curriculum for the Swedish preschool can be interpreted in many ways, therefore, it is up to the pedagogues to define what the curriculum means to them and decide how they want to work during the outdoor time. The result has also shown that free play is the dominating activity outdoors and that the pedagogues want to be “present from a distance”. It has also appeared that the outdoor time is limited because of difficulties such as large groups of children and a lack of proper clothes. The study is analysed from a social constructionism point of view and with this theory we have concluded that the outdoor time has, through habitualised actions, become a tradition in preschools.

This essay is a study of the core values of the Swedish preschool curriculum. The national preschool curriculum begins by outlining the foundation of core values which the preschool education rests on. In the new national preschool curriculum Lpfö18, which takes effect in the summer of 2019, the core values have been changed to some extent. This raises the questions: where do these core values come from and how different are they from previous core values? Therefore, the main research questions of this study are: what core values discourse is created in Lpfö18 and how does it compare to core values discourses from previous preschool curricula? The empirical data used for this study consists of extracts from different national preschool curricula and similar pedagogical texts in which core values are presented. To process the empirical data, the study used discourse analysis. In particular, the study used the terms “nodal points” and “floating signifiers” from theorists Laclau & Mouffe (2008) and was also inspired by the practices of text analysis outlined by Fairclough (2013). Through the use of discourse analysis, it has been possible to study continuity and change in the core value discourses as expressed in preschool curricular texts. The results show that the values most central to the core value discourse in the new national curriculum, such as democracy and human rights, can be traced back to the core value discourses in previous curricula and also to an international children’s rights discourse. The study also found that some core values from earlier curricula were still left as traces in the new text. Core values related to human rights in particular were found to be important in every version of core values discourse studied. However, there were also values which had been included in the discourse more recently or which had been excluded, which shows that there is both continuity and change in the preschool core values discourse.

It is stated in the preschools curriculum that all preschool teachers should document every child's progress while at the same time respecting their physical and personal integrity while documenting. The purpose of the study is to investigate the possibilities of preschool teachers to take ethical standpoints while documenting. We have investigated what the purpose is with documentation and who the documentation is for, how preschool teachers describe their way of documenting and whether they take ethical positions while documenting and if so which ones. The method of this study is qualitative and our empirical material consist of six interviews with six preschool teachers on five different preschools. We have used the theoretical framework of the concepts child perspective and children's perspective, as well as realistic visual norms and relativistic visual norms in order to analyze our empirical material. We have concluded that the preschool teachers rarely make the children aware that they are being documented. Partly due to their unwillingness to disrupt the children's activities and thereby lose out on making children's progress visible, which is the entire purpose of documentation. Partly because they so rarely encountered children who have clearly shown that they do not want to be documented, which the preschool teachers believe is a result of the modern society and children being accustomed to be photographed and filmed. In our final conclusion our research demonstrates that it becomes difficult for preschool teachers to meet both curriculum goals simultaneously, to document each child's progress and to respect children's physical and personal integrity.

The preschool should lay the foundations for lifelong learning in a good educational activity. Preschool curriculum is designed to enhance the quality of the educational activities. To translate the curriculum in business, the importance of early childhood special education knowledge. With regard to the completion of theoretical knowledge requires the ability to translate theory into real action. Professionalism is essential to anchor the curriculum in daily operations.The study's purpose was to investigate preschool teachers' perception of professionalism and how the implementation of the preschool curriculum in their daily business functions.The study was an interview with four pre-school professionals with the spread in age and experience. The questions in the interviews have been based on state regulation of preschool, preschool teacher, preschool teaching profession professionalization and teacher parent interaction.The conclusions of the study show that preschool curriculum is the basis for pre-school teacher professionalism in the business. Professionalism in the profession was depicted by an educational work, parental interaction and anchoring of curriculum. Preschool teacher was seen as a step to professionalism and as proof of training. The study revealed similarities and differences in respondents' description of the business in which experience can be perceived as a basis for a critical approach. / Förskolan skall lägga grunden för ett livslångt lärande i en god pedagogisk verksamhet. Förskolans läroplan har till syfte att höja kvaliteten i den pedagogiska verksamheten. För att omsätta läroplanens innehåll i verksamheten betonas vikten av speciella förskolepedagogiska kunskaper. När det gäller att förverkliga teoretisk kunskap krävs förmåga att omsätta teori i verklig handling. Professionalitet blir avgörande för att förankra läroplanen i den dagliga verksamheten. Studiens syfte var att undersöka förskollärarens uppfattning om professionalitet och hur implementering av förskolans läroplan i den dagliga verksamheten fungerar. Studien var en intervjustudie med fyra yrkesverksamma förskollärare med spridning i ålder och yrkeserfarenhet. Frågeställningarna i intervjuerna har utgått ifrån statlig reglering av förskolans verksamhet, förskollärarlegitimation, förskolläraryrkets professionalisering och pedagogens föräldrasamverkan. Slutsatsen av studien visar att förskolans läroplan ligger som grund för förskollärarens professionalitet i verksamheten. Professionalitet i yrket skildrades av ett pedagogiskt arbete, föräldrasamverkan och förankring av läroplan. Förskollärarlegitimation sågs som ett led till professionalitet och som ett bevis på utbildning. I studien framkom likheter och skillnader i respondenternas skildring av verksamheten där yrkeserfarenhet kan uppfattas ligga till grund för ett kritiskt förhållningssätt.

This study aimed at investigating the challenges preschool teachers face in the curriculum implementation and whether these challenges differ in relation to teachers&rsquo / level of education, department they graduated from, the type of the school they are working in, teaching experience and level of in-service training. In addition, in this study, it was also aimed to find out the underlying reasons of most frequently stated issues of implementation from the teachers&rsquo / perspectives. In the present study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The quantitative data were gathered through a questionnaire from 223 preschool teachers teaching in public and private kindergartens in Ankara. The qualitative data were gathered through interviews with a group of participants selected from the 223 teachers. One-way repeated measure of ANOVA and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were employed to analyze the quantitative data. For the qualitative data content analysis was conducted. The results indicated that the most frequently reported issues by the participants were the problems related to evaluation and physical facilities followed by the ones related to planning science and math activities, organizing field trips, providing parent involvement and inclusion. Results showed that the problems related to physical facilities experienced by preschool teachers working in public kindergartens were significantly differed compared to teachers working in private preschools.

With the curriculum Lpfö98, and its revised version 2010, the demands for evaluation of the quality of the preschool have been emphasized. Accordingly, the activities need to be systematically documented, followed up and assessed, to be improved. Most importantly, this includes continuous follow up, documentation and analysis of the development and learning of the children. This is usually carried out by means of pedagogical documentation, but how this working tool should be used in practice is not totally clear for all pedagogues. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate how pedagogical documentation is performed, assessed and made accessible for the children, parents and staff-members, in practical preschool work. In the study, four pedagogues (two preschool teachers and two pedagogical mentors), working in two different preschools where the Reggio Emilia concept is practiced for pedagogical documentation, were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. The informants described pedagogical documentation as a complex and time-consuming working tool, albeit necessary and helpful to fulfill the requirements of the curriculum. In one of the preschools, portfolios were used to collect and present the documentation, whereas the other preschool used a so called BUL-wall (Barn, Utveckling, Lärande, i.e., Children, Development, Learning). Both preschools carried out their systematic documentations preferentially as specific projects. The documentations were then used for dialogue and reflections with the colleagues and/or feed-back with the children; this is how the pedagogical documentation is formed, which allows the pedagogues to perceive the learning process of the children as well as their own. In this way, the pedagogical documentation forms the basis for evaluation and analysis of the preschool activities, and results in shared decisions for improvements to accomplish the children’s needs and challenges. From the findings in this study, it appears that different techniques for collecting and presenting the documentations may be feasible to attain the main objectives of the pedagogical documentation.

The purpose of this thesis was to study how preschool teachers interpret the values of the preschool curriculum that relates to culture and how the teachers describe how they work with these values in their professional practice. The study is based on social constructive and discourse analytic perspectives. I have studied how preschool teachers construct the concept of culture and the values of the preschool curriculum through a specific way to describe this. A specific way to talk about something is called a discourse. In other words I have studied preschool teachers expressed discourses about culture and their professional practice with the values of the preschool curriculum. To study this, I've done interviews with four preschool teachers. In the interviews I let the teachers interpret the words from the pre-school curriculum that relate to culture and describe how they work with these in their professional practice. In the next step I used the transcribed interviews for the discourse analysis. I did the analysis by searching for discursive patterns in what preschool teachers say. It appeared that all preschool teachers used the same words in the interpretations and descriptions, and that some of these words were described to have internal relationships between each other. The words that were described to relate to each other were: The family and The preschool, Similarity and Difference, and The individual and the Group. But the words and the relationships where described in different ways in the interpretations of the curriculum and in the descriptions of the practical work. I interpreted this to be two different discourses, one discourse about the words in curriculum and one discourse about their practical work. I call these: The discourse about the theory and The discourse about the practice. Within the discourse about the theory all children were described as culturally different from each other and that was a positive value that the pre-school should plan the work around. The work should also be planned around the children’s individual interests and cultures. The relationship between the family and the preschool where described as an important and unproblematic part of this work. In the discourse about the practice only some children was described as different. It was the children that by the teachers were interpreted as non-Swedish. Only these where described to have an individual culture, different from the Swedish culture. They were describe as different from "us", from the Swedes. In this discourse the relationship with the so called different children’s families were described as a very important part of the preschools work with culture, but the relationship with the children of the interpreted Swedish families was not described to be as important. To work with what the preschool teachers described as a Swedish culture was also very important so that the different children would be able to be a part of the group, the swedes. Finally, I looked at how these two discourses relate to other discourses within the school system that I have seen in other scientific studies. When doing so, I saw both similarities and differences from other discourses. The way to describe some children to be different from others, different from "us" was one similarity, but the aim to plan the pre-schools work around the children’s individual interests was for example different from the other discourses.

The purpose of the study is to highlight and analyse the discursive representations of culture and cultural heritage of the Swedish preschool curriculum and five local development plans where these concepts are used. The theoretical understanding is based on social constructionism. The theory regard the world as socially constructed and that the language is a creator of our reality. Our experiences help create our identity, and is seen as something mutable. The study also has a discourse analytical approach both as a theory and a method. Our empirical data consists of the preschool curriculum and five local development plans that contains culture and cultural heritage. The results present two different themes regarding how culture and cultural heritage are constructed. We named the first theme “children as bearers of culture in a national discourse”, and the other “children as creators in an aesthetic discourse.” In the discourse of the first theme, culture is portrayed as an object we can study and comprehend. These discourses have handed us the opportunity to demonstrate how children become culture bearers although they do not mention that they are creating culture – in contrast to how the second theme demonstrates how children are attributed to the position of cultural creators. The conclusions of the study show how culture and cultural heritage are presented in an unreflective way. Therefore, we highlight the need of reflection in preschool on how we – in both speech and writing – construct children with culture. It is important that children of any cultural discourses, both those identified as “children as cultural creators” and those identified as “children as bearers of culture,” as having the power to play a part in the creation of culture. The study intends to contribute to a greater awareness of how the concepts of culture and cultural heritage are constructed and reproduced in preschool.