Promoting Diversity and Belonging: Preschool Staff’s Perspective on Inclusive Factors in the Swedish Preschool.

The purpose of the study was to gain knowledge about and insight into kindergarten staff's perspectives on factors and pedagogical approaches that promote diversity and belonging. The study was part of the larger research project: Politics of belonging: Promoting children's inclusion in educational settings across borders.

The results show that the staff's working environment, values and working methods are important for an inclusive culture in kindergartens. The results also show that kindergarten children are important supporters in the work of making all children feel that they belong. In addition, the study points out that when children are shown trust and are allowed to take responsibility, the feeling of inclusion is reinforced. The study also reveals that many kindergarten employees in Sweden have little confidence in the municipal administration in this context, as kindergarten employees experience poor access to support and resources from the municipality, which makes work involving national guidelines for inclusion more difficult.

A research group composed of researchers from Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden designed a survey. The Swedish part of the survey, from which this study obtains the data, was sent by e-mail to employees at Swedish kindergartens within an area that represented geographical and socioeconomic variation. The response rate was only 11% (180 participants).

Karlsudd, P. (2021). "Promoting Diversity and Belonging: Preschool Staff’s Perspective on Inclusive Factors in the Swedish Preschool". Education Science, 11(3):104.