Barns frågor i lek

The article studies children’s perspectives through the questions they ask when they are playing. The purpose of the article is to provide insight into what we can learn from these questions in order to design and problematise kindergarten teachers’ play teaching. The authors believe that studying the children’s perspective through the questions they ask when playing makes it possible to say something about where they focus their attention during the course of play. They further emphasise that this knowledge can help kindergarten teachers to promote children’s learning and development.

The results show that a clear majority of the questions the children ask when playing have the function of maintaining the collective play project (94 out of 104 questions). The rest of the questions (10 out of 104) are about something that is actualised by the game, but which relates to circumstances outside of this game. Who the children turn to when they ask questions is evenly distributed among the kindergarten teacher and the other children who are playing. The authors believe this shows that the children include the adult in the play and that this in turn can provide the kindergarten teacher with insight into what the children are interested in. Thus, the children’s questions can be a starting point for their further development and learning, both on an individual and collective level. However, it is emphasised that children’s questions during play should not be the only starting point for teaching in kindergarten, due to the limited field of knowledge that is actualised in this context. In order to introduce the children to other fields of knowledge, kindergarten teachers must also organise their teaching in other ways.

The empirical data consists of 51 video observations of play situations in which both children and kindergarten teachers participate. The kindergarten teacher, or other employees, has filmed sequences in which the kindergarten teacher has initiated, participated in, or in various ways sought participation in children’s play. The children involved in the sample were between one and five years old at the time of recording. The filmed play activities were transcribed focusing on the verbal communication and then qualitatively analysed.

Jonsson, A. & Thulin, S. (2019). “Barns frågor i lek”. Forskning om undervisning och lärande, 7(1).