Med kroppen som illustration : Hur förskolebarn prat-skapar naturvetenskap med hjälp av multimodala och kroppsförankrade förklaringar

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of kindergartens, science and illustrations in kindergarten science. The purpose is to investigate (a) how modalities are combined through references to the body or how the body itself is used to explain scientific concepts and phenomena in kindergarten and (b) how the children deal with, explore, discuss and talk about science when approaching multimodal illustrated scientific material in the activities that are the subject of the study.

The results indicate that multimodal illustrations can be complicated for this target group. The researchers found that difficulties increased, rather than decrease, due to different modalities and elements often being combined in an intricate way in a single illustration, presumably with the intention of combining teaching with entertainment. 

Based on the four studies, it became clear that it is important to challenge the assumption that children can learn complicated content without support, despite the fact that the scientific kindergarten context is often presented as ‘exploratory learning’. This thesis shows the crucial role that the teacher plays in concretising abstract scientific phenomena for young children. A deliberate introduction of body-based elements in multimodal illustrations can be useful in such situations. However, even with the introduction of such seemingly transparent elements, we cannot take satisfactory opinion forming for granted.  

Four studies were carried out, based on empirically substantiated questions with cultural-historical and multimodal perspectives as a theoretical framework. The participants were older kindergarten children (4–6 years old) from three different groups, as well as their teachers and two science centre guides. The focus was specifically on activities where adults and children used their bodies or referred to their bodies to illustrate scientific concepts. The empirical material for the study consisted mainly of video recordings. The researchers use a multimodal approach to analyse this material.

Bergnell A. (2019). "Med kroppen som illustration : Hur förskolebarn prat-skapar naturvetenskap med hjälp av multimodala och kroppsförankrade förklaringar". Akademisk avhandling. Göteborgs Universitet.