Tanker fra barnehagen: Personalets refleksjoner om egne erfaringer med kjønn og likestilling.

The study investigates whether an awareness-raising strategy with five reflection stages can help kindergarten employees become more aware of the relationship between their own upbringing and professional practice with regard to gender and equal opportunities. The study focuses on employees' statements about their own experiences, as well as experiences gained from the awareness-raising strategy.

The findings showed differences between employees' experiences from private life and the guidelines they knew they were obligated to follow professionally. However, the results also indicate that the awareness-raising method can increase awareness of gender and help reduce the distance between the private and the professional. The experiences from the kindergartens using the method, and the work on the topic, showed that sharing experiences under safe conditions and with some systematic guidelines can help raise awareness. However, this requires setting aside time for self-reflection, written documentation, group discussions and plenary discussions where all the stages of the strategy are planned in advance.

The study was conducted among staff in two Norwegian kindergartens, one municipal and one private, with a total of 25 employees. The data collection consisted of several different stages - using an awareness-raising strategy as a methodological basis and gender and equal opportunities as the theme. In stages 1 and 2, the employees were asked to reflect on their own upbringing. In stages 3 and 4, the employees first conversed in small groups, and then together with the entire group of staff based on these reflections. In the 5th and final stage, the goal was to elicit the employees' views on the process itself and whether they had learned something new and had become more aware of topics related to gender. The whole process lasted about three hours in each kindergarten.

Bakken, Y. & Lindhardt, E. M. (2021). "Tanker fra barnehagen: Personalets refleksjoner om egne erfaringer med kjønn og likestilling". I Hvordan forstå fordommer? Om kontekstens betydning – i barnehage, skole og samfunn (s. 200-221). Universitetsforlaget.