Personalens blick på barns tillhörighet i förskolan

The study investigates affiliation in kindergarten, from the staff’s perspective on the children’s community. The researchers highlight how affiliation is constructed and experienced in kindergarten, and which conditions for affiliation can be identified through the staff’s descriptions. The research questions are: 1) What does the children’s community look like from the staff’s perspective, and which affiliations do they believe the children are a part of? 2) What conditions for affiliation can be identified in the staff descriptions?

The results show that staff identified different types of communities among the children, mainly based on equality. The communities include friendship, common interests, adaptation, personalities, need for support, cultural traditions and gender. The staff members’ understanding of the children’s communities highlighted tensions such as power and conflict as important conditions for affiliation. The results emphasise that the staff have a complex understanding of the children’s communities and affiliation, and that the challenge for the staff is to systematically use and critically relate to this knowledge in order to support the children’s affiliation in kindergarten.

The data consist of group interviews with 17 staff members from three different kindergartens in Norway, including kindergarten teachers, child and youth workers and assistants. The interviews were conducted at the end of an observation period that lasted four semesters. The researchers based their study on questions about the staff’s experiences of affiliation in educational contexts and in the staff’s own practice. The interviews were analysed hermeneutically, focusing on the staff descriptions of the children’s communities and conditions for affiliation.

Johansson, E. M. (2022). Personalens blick på barns tillhörighet i förskolan. Nordisk barnehageforskning, Special issue: Tilhørighet: Å skape fellesskap i barnehagen, 19(2), 27–50.