Parents’ ideal type approaches to early education pathways: life stories from Sweden

The aim of the study is to shed light on how parents, whose children attend Swedish kindergartens or pre-school classes, describe their children, how they experience the collaboration that takes place with kindergarten/pre-school, and what they think about the children’s transition from kindergarten to pre-school class. The three research questions are: 1) What do parents describe as their own children’s characteristics and abilities? 2) What is the parents’ perception of the children’s learning environment, the collaboration between home and kindergarten/pre-school class, and the transition from kindergarten to pre-school class? 3) Is it possible to identify various archetypal parental approaches to children’s early learning? And if so, what are they?

More than half of the children were described by their parents as having average development, while some of the parents described their children as being gifted and talented. Approximately a third of the parents believed their children had special educational needs. Several parents claimed that the quality found in kindergartens was higher than the quality found in pre-school classes, and a majority also believed that the collaboration between kindergarten and home was better than the collaboration between pre-school class and home. The following three archetypal parental approaches were identified: 1) involved and concerned parents, 2) involved, but unconcerned parents, 3) uninvolved and unconcerned parents. The number of involved and concerned parents increased during the transition from kindergarten to pre-school class.

The empirical source data consists of interviews with 27 parents (22 mothers and 5 fathers) whose children attend kindergarten or a pre-school class. The parents came from seven different Swedish municipalities and had a similar socioeconomic background. The researchers contacted several Swedish kindergartens and asked for parents who were interested in joining the study. The parents’ perspectives were collected using life story interviews that were audio recorded and transcribed.   

Sandström, M., Lundqvist, J. & Axelsson, A. (2019). “Parents’ ideal type approaches to early education pathways: life stories from Sweden”. International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education, 11(1):64-79.