AbstractCaldemo, Marie (2019). Meetings between teachers and children. The interaction between teachers and children during a day at preschool. Master thesis, Institution of School development and Leadership, Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University.PurposeThis study investigates what happens in the meetings between teachers and children and how different circumstances affect the meetings between them.MethodThe analysis is based on sound recordings, captured from three teachers’ meetings during three days in three different preschools in a larger Swedish town. The recording were captured using a dictation machine. To augment the material, the teachers also supplied their daily schedules. The analysis of the recordings follows a hermeneutic method, where the whole can be understood from the parts and the parts can be understood from the whole. The study contains a categorization of different kinds of meetings based on the material. My purpose was to discuss the meeting from different perspectives; such as, identity forming, gender consolidating, teaching and directing. The concept “meeting” represents the processes that preschool teachers and other teachers participate in with children. I intended to study what actually happens in the interaction in these meetings.TheoryI study the interaction between teacher and child, using existing theories about meetings to describe what actually happens. Juul and Jensen (2003) argue that the best way to meet the objectives in a preschool in a constructive manner is to base all activities on care and relations. This includes realizing that children learn in different ways; e.g., through observation, conversation and reflection (Öhman 2016). How children actually observe, converse and reflect is affected by how it is received by the teachers they meet. Children need to be listened to, and they need support to express themselves and reflect in together with others. Adults’ interaction with children is the basis for the childrens’ ability to express themselves, converse and think independently. Säljö (2013) view humans as reflecting beings, who socialize to become part of a cultural context. People interact with each other as well as social environments and institutions, and as a result they understand how to behave in that particular environment. The human being becomes both and individual and a member of society, learns established behavior in order to coexist in different contexts. ResultsThe analysis shows that the most influential meetings are those where children are given directives. At the other end of the spectrum were meetings where teachers and children conversed about some topic over longer periods of time. Other research (Rantala 2016) shows that teachers often guide children directly or indirectly through questions. These situations can be characterized as teacher monologues. Guidance through long sentences is at times difficult for children to interpret and comprehend. Many meetings resulted from questions about how to accomplish something, affirming meetings and direct meetings caused by children’s questions. Questions which aimed for making contact or get an answer were common. The conclusion is that the teachers work towards bringing order and structure through directives and questions which aim to gain control. It is primarily routine situations that create those types of meetings. In a study about children’s participation in preschools, Johannesen and Sandvik (2009) concluded that adults control and regulate children’s movement and focus. In their description, adults are in the way of children but they have difficulties putting their finger on what is really going on. They believe their work warrants reflection. The recorded meetings show that the teachers want to be there for the children, work towards better contact and create relations. One of the teachers was less restricted by other activities, and had more freedom to develop relations with the children under a longer period of time. The conclusion is that this opened the opportunity for other types of meetings.

In different municipalities, some children may attend pre-school five hours a day, three days a week while other children are there full time, from seven o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon. This means for the children different conditions of learning if the pre-school does not work in a way where learning permeates throughout the school day. This is why we wanted to do a study on how pre-school teachers encourage learning in pre-school routine activities. Our aim of the study is to generate knowledge about routine activities that can contribute to create an equivalent pre-school for all children. This will be done by highlighting and analysing how educators have worked and planned for the routine situations in pre-school and problematizing the pre-school teachers´ perspectives on learning in different routine situations.The study is based on a socio-cultural perspective on learning with a method of interviewing three pre-school teachers at various pre-schools and conducting participant observations. The result of the study has shown us examples of how pre-school teachers work in different routine situations and we have seen different perspectives on learning. The concept of communication is something highly valuable for the learning process. We have also come to an understanding that routine situations can be adapted to the children in order to increase their feeling of safety.

Studien undersöker utrymmet som barns demokratiska röst har i rutinsituationer i förskolan med syfte att kartlägga utrymmet. Studien genomfördes med metodtriangulering där det kvantitativa består av observationer med ett schema och det kvalitativa av fältanteckningar. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är Harry Shier, John Dewey och begreppet barns demokratiska röst. Det kvantitativa resultatet visar att utrymmet för barns demokratiska röst i förskola (A) totalt uppnår en procentandel på 58% och 1,3 antal handlingar/minut. Resultatet i förskola (B) uppnår en procentandel på 100% och 0,6 antal handlingar/minut. Sammanställningen uppnår en procentandel på 66% och 0,9 antal handlingar/minut. Det kvalitativa resultatet visar att formerna för barns demokratiska röst i rutinsituationer sker genom växelverkande dialoger med engagerade och intresserade pedagoger, barnen gör motstånd som delvis bemöts och leder till en demokratisk röst delvis stannar vid en demokratisk handling samt att det verbala och kroppsliga samverkar för att förstärka kommunikationen. Slutsatser är att alla rutinsituationer mer eller mindre överstiger 50% och att demokrati finns närvarande i dessa situationer. En annan slutsats är att TAKK (tecken som alternativ och kompletterande kommunikation) betraktas som en förutsättning för barns demokratiska röst. Den sista slutsatsen är att motstånd som bemöts ökar utrymmet och skapar förutsättningar för att utveckla demokratiska förmågor. / This study examines the space that children´s democratic voice has in routine situations in preschool with the aim of mapping the space. The study is carried out with method triangulation where the quantitative consist of observations with a schedule and the qualitative part consists of field notes. The theoretical starting point is Harry Shier, John Dewey and the concept children´s democratic voice. The quantitative results shows that the space for children’s democratic voice in preschool (A) in total achieves a percentage of 58% and 1,3 number of actions/minutes. Results in preschool (B) achieves a percentage of 100% and 0,6 number of actions/minutes. The compilation shows a percentage of 66% and 0,9 number of actions/minutes. The qualitative results show that the forms of children’s democratic voice in routine situations takes place through interactive dialogues with committed and interested educators, children’s oppositions which is partially met and led to a democratic voice partially stops at a democratic act, and that the verbal and physical collaborates to strengthen the communication. Conclusions are that all routine situations exceeds 50% and that democracy is present in these situations. Another conclusion is that TAKK is considered a prerequisite for children’s democratic voice. The last conclusion is that resistance that is met increases the space and creates conditions for developing democratic capabilities.