Sociala konstruktioner i förskolans planeringssamtal: i en landsgränsnära förskola

The purpose of this study is to describe the social constructions that are created in the preschool teachers' (förskollärares och barnskötares) planning conversations about preschool activities. The preschool examined is located in Sweden only a few kilometres from the Norwegian border, and therefore the study has special focus on the border context and cultural context in which the preschool is located. The research questions are: (1) What perceptions of the preschool (verksamheten), the children and the preschool management are constructed in the staff's planning conversations? (2) In what ways are the preschool's geographic location as well as the cultural and national affiliation of the children and the staff rendered visible in the staff's planning conversations?

The study shows that the staff at the researched preschool construct themselves as a unified "us" as opposed to "the others". The results show that the staff construct a common understanding of the preschool on the basis of their interpretations of the goals of the national curriculum. The author suggests that the staff view the curriculum as a manual with instructions on how to run their particular preschool, and as a specific result that negatively governs their planning and actions in the preschool. The curriculum is considered something that limits the staff's planning of activities as well as their work with the children. The results show that the staff have a common understanding of having done what is required of them. However, they also stress that their work must be made clearer on paper in order to become visible to "the others" as some sort of acknowledgement that they have done what is required of them. In this case, "the others" can be those who have written the curriculum as well as the preschool leader.

The author finds that, to start with, the staff construct the border between Sweden and Norway as invisible. Children and staff originating from Norway are not considered as "the others" but as part of the same culture as children and adults originating from Sweden. However, children and adults with a background in a non-Scandinavian country are considered as "the others". Thus the staff connect the cultural concept with the non-Scandinavian aspect, as only children and adults from a non-Scandinavian country are viewed as carriers of the cultural concept. After long discussions about the cultural concept, the staff realise that culture can have a broader meaning. The staff consider it an important goal to show the children in the preschool that other cultures exist, and that Swedish and Norwegian cultures are included in the broader cultural concept.

The empirical foundation consists of ethnographic field work in one preschool. The field work stretched over four months and took place in the preschool's two departments with children aged 4-6 years and 1-3 years (a total of 33 children). The data material consists of video observations and field notes from staff meetings, workplace meetings (arbetsplatsträffar) and full-day meetings in the preschool. A total of six members of the preschool staff (three förskollärare (preschool teachers) and three barnskötare (child and youth workers) took part in the study. The data analysis was carried out as a qualitative content analysis, in which both social constructivist and borderland theoretical perspectives were applied.

Nilsson, E. (2016). Sociala konstruktioner i förskolans planeringssamtal: i en landsgränsnära förskola. Licentiatuppsats. Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, Institutionen för pedagogiska studier, Karlstads universitet.