The central problem investigated in this field study was whether the working conditions of rural preschool teachers were different from those encountered by urban preschool teachers. And, if so, whether the problems encountered by rural preschool teachers were similar to those experienced by rural primary and secondary teachers. For the purposes of this study, small rural towns were those towns with populations of less than eight thousand and were geographically remote from large rural and urban centres of populations of more than twenty thousand. The data were collected by means of a mail questionnaire. The questions were devised around the issues raised in the literature about rural primary and secondary teachers. The material reviewed was converted into question format and placed in the context of preschool education. Eighteen teachers from rural schools and seventeen teachers from city schools participated in the survey. The statistical package for the Social Sciences was used to analyse the survey data. In all, nineteen hypotheses were tested. Further data, more directly pertinent to preschool education, were derived from four open ended questions. The results of the tested hypotheses revealed the following outcomes which were similar to those reported in the research on rural primary and secondary education: Rural Teachers were younger and less experienced than city teachers lacked resources and back up staff lacked adequate inservice opportunities were isolated from colleagues and advisers had some difficulty coping with the values portrayed by some members of the aboriginal community. Unlike rural primary and secondary teachers, the rural preschool teachers did not appear to have the same problems of adjusting to the rural community and did not lack parental support. The open ended questions suggested that rural and city preschool teachers did not differ greatly in their perceptions of school readiness, the role of parents, and the functions of preschool. However, rural preschool teachers did nominate isolation and lack of resources as their greatest problem. Both groups identified the complex and time consuming administrative tasks as a major problem. Since this is only a pilot study, this particular piece of research should be developed much further. This study has implications for further research in that it has identified a large number of areas to be explored, especially in regard to the working environments of rural preschool teachers, their relationship with their communities and the problems they face.

Preschool is seen as an important integration arena for newly arrived families with young children. The reception of newly arrived families has for a long time been unevenly distributed in the country with a strong concentration on metropolitan areas and larger cities. Consequently, previous research on integration of newly arrived families in Swedish preschools has been conducted in multicultural urban areas. However, since 2015, the number of newly arrived children in rural municipalities has increased. For that reason, it is relevant to also pay attention to how integration is achieved (or challenged) in a rural context. In this study, I examine how preschool practitioners at three rural preschools experienced receiving newly arrived families in 2015/2016. For many of these practitioners, working with linguistic and cultural diversity was at the time a new experience. Therefore, I have been able to study practitioners' narratives about the first steps towards integration and inclusion. Data was generated through focus-group interviews. With integration (Penninx 2019) and inclusion (Petriwskyj 2014) as theoretical starting points, the narratives were analyzed through Bakhtin's theory of dialogism. The findings are presented in two research papers: one that explores integration processes in relation to the migrant parents, and one that focus on the children's inclusion in preschool. The results show that the practitioners describe a change in terms of moving from a monologic to a dialogic stance in relation to the parents and the children. As regards the parents, the dialogic stance meant that the practitioners acknowledged the importance of meeting and discussing differences in experiences and perspectives with the parents. The dialogic encounters, in turn, led to enhanced confidence among the practitioners in facing "otherness", at the same time as they resulted in cultural reflexivity regarding the practitioner’s own practices and values. As regards the children, the dialogic stance resulted in a critical examination of existing practices, and led the practitioners to reformulate their sense of preschool "normality". This, in turn, enhanced their flexibility in adjusting preschool’s daily routines and practices in accordance with the needs of the children. In sum, the study demonstrates that a dialogical approach is a prerequisite for integration. / Förskolan ses som en viktig integrationsarena för nyanlända familjer med små barn. Mottagandet av nyanlända familjer har under lång tid varit ojämnt fördelat i landet med en starkt koncentration till storstadsområden och större städer. Följaktligen har tidigare forskning om integration av nyanlända familjer i den svenska förskolan genomförts i urbana områden som präglats av språklig och kulturell mångfald sedan länge. Sedan 2015 har dock antalet nyanlända barn i landsbygdskommuner ökat. Därför är det relevant att även uppmärksamma hur integration åstadkoms (eller utmanas) i en landsbygdskontext. Det gör jag i denna studie genom att undersöka hur pedagoger på tre landsbygdsförskolor har erfarit att ta emot nyanlända familjer under 2015/2016 och därefter. För många av pedagogerna var det en ny erfarenhet att under denna period ta emot och arbeta med barn och föräldrar som migrerat till Sverige. Jag har därför kunnat studera pedagogernas berättelser över de första stegen mot integration och inkludering. Berättelserna samlades in genom fokusgruppsintervjuer. I studien kombineras olika teoretiska ingångar. Studien utgår från Penninx (2019) teori om integration men knyts även till teorier om inkludering i utbildningssammanhang (Petriwskyj 2014). Därutöver används Bakhtins (1981) dialogism-teori för att synliggöra integrations- och inkluderingsprocesser som kommer till uttryck i pedagogernas berättelser. Resultaten presenteras i två forskningsartiklar: en som utforskar integrationsprocesser i relation till de nyanlända föräldrarna och en som fokuserar på barnens inkludering i förskolan. Resultatet visar att pedagogerna beskriver en process som kan tolkas som en rörelse från ett monologiskt till ett dialogiskt förhållningssätt i relation till föräldrarna och barnen. När det gäller föräldrarna, innebar det dialogiska förhållningssättet att pedagogerna insåg vikten av att mötas och diskutera skillnader i erfarenheter och perspektiv med föräldrarna. De dialogiska möten som utvecklades ledde i sin tur till en ökad säkerhet hos pedagogerna att möta det "okända" som föräldrarna representerade, samtidigt som det resulterade i ökad kulturell reflexivitet avseende pedagogernas egna praktiker och värderingar. När det gäller barnen, resulterade det dialogiska förhållningssättet i att pedagogerna började kritiskt granska befintliga praktiker och omformulera sin känsla för förskolans "normalitet", vilket i sin tur ökade deras flexibilitet att anpassa förskolans rutiner och praktik i enlighet med barnens behov. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultatet att ett dialogiskt förhållningssätt är en förutsättning för integration.