Interpreting Values in the Daily Practices of Nordic Preschools: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

The purpose of this study is to explore how practitioners in Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish preschools interpret educational practices from perspectives of values in Nordic preschools.

Overall, the results show that teachers and trained nurses agree on a number of core pedagogical ideas and values across Nordic countries. Values about caring, discipline, competence and democracy were most common in the focus-group interviews. According to the authors, teachers and trained nurses employed indirect means to communicate their values, for example by distinguishing themselves from the teacher in the transcribed episode or by suggesting alternative ways of acting in the specific situation.

The authors find that differences were more apparent between individual practitioners or preschool rather than between the Nordic countries. Among other things, the study shows that different themes and values were discussed in various degrees in the individual preschools. For example, themes related to caring values were much discussed by a group of practitioners in Finland, whereas democratic values were much discussed by Danish teachers and trained nurses.

The results indicate that teachers and trained nurses find it difficult to identify values in preschool and to put them into words. They are more accustomed to discussing educational practices on the basis of educational terminology rather than on perspectives of values in preschool. For example, they rarely use the concept "value", nor do they explicitly address the values of the preschool.

The study is part of the Nordic research project "Values education in Nordic preschools: Basis of education for tomorrow”, which includes national action research projects in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The data collection builds on ten group interviews, two in each of the Nordic countries, where teachers and trained nurses were asked to read, interpret and discuss a transcribed episode from a Swedish preschool context. A total of 45 practitioners took part in groups of two to seven practitioners and one to three researchers. The data material consists of sound recordings and transcriptions of the group discussions, all of which were analysed nationally and across the Nordic countries.

Puroila, A.-M., Johansson, E., Estola, E., Emilson, A., Einarsdóttir, J., & Broström, S. (2016). Interpreting Values in the Daily Practices of Nordic Preschools: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. International Journal of Early Childhood 48, 141-159.