Distans, disciplin och dogmer – om ett villkorat lyssnande i förskolan: En studie av lyssnandet i en Reggio Emiliainspirerad pedagogik

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how different aspects of listening (lyssnande) are reflected in a Reggio Emilia-inspired pedagogy. The research questions are: How does the act of listening itself develop – i.e. what constitutes a listening approach, and how do the children describe their experience of listening and being listened to in the context of a preschool? How does the child's voice manifest itself – which of the children's interests meet with a response and which do not? How can preschool practices be considered in a Reggio Emilia-inspired pedagogy, and how do discussion and disagreement unfold?

According to the authors, the results indicate that listening in Reggio Emilia-inspired preschools is inserted into specific techniques of listening that point the preschool teachers' attention in certain directions and pull them away from the immediate and the spontaneous. The techniques of listening also direct the children's knowledge building into given frameworks and steer them in a certain direction. The organisation of the preschool and the pedagogical environment also sends messages to the children about what is considered desirable and valuable in the preschool's pedagogical practice. Finally, according to the author, the results suggest that Reggio Emilia-inspired pedagogy in the preschools studied is the bearer of a culture in which the preschool teachers avoid questioning what they think is problematic in the pedagogical practice. Instead, the preschool teachers arrange themselves within the framework of Reggio Emilia pedagogy

The empirical material consists of 19 interviews with preschool teachers and 18 interviews with children aged 3-5 years. The aim of the interviews with preschool teachers from Reggio Emilia-inspired preschools was to gain insight into the preschool teachers' reflections on listening in their own practice. The children's interviews were based on 13 questions about their experience of listening and being listened to in the preschool. The interview responses were interpreted by means of development psychology theory according to Daniel Stern and discourse-analytical perspectives according to Michel Foucault.

Folkman, S. (2017). Distans, disciplin och dogmer – om ett villkorat lyssnande i förskolan: En studie av lyssnandet i en Reggio Emiliainspirerad pedagogik. Licentiatavhandling. Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen, Stockholms universitet.