“Child Perspectives and Children’s Perspectives – a Concern for Teachers in Preschool”.

The purpose of this study is to examine the importance of preschool teachers’ communication with children in a preschool, and to explore this communication. To what extent do the preschool teachers adopt a child’s perspective and to what extent do they include the child’s perspective when they communicate with the children? What significance does the choice of perspective have for children’s learning?

The results indicate two qualitatively different communicative approaches to how the preschool teachers enter into, and make use of, the activities the children are involved in. The two different approaches are called ‘meet and respond’ and ‘respond and consider’. The teachers dominate the communication in the meet-and-respond approach and take charge of the communication based on their own agenda. In contrast, the respond-and-consider approach is characterised by dialogue and the fact that the children’s perspective is included in the dialogue.

The ‘meet and respond’ approach has two subcategories:

1. Talks to everyone at the same time. The teacher addresses all the children present, thereby adding to the complexity of the dialogue.
2. Takes charge of the communication. This subcategory describes situations where the teacher takes charge of the communication to meet their own agenda.

The ‘respond and consider’ approach also have two subcategories:

1. The ‘expand and investigate’ subcategory describes the situations where the teacher relates to the children’s knowledge and experiences, expands on the topic and combines the verbal communication with other kinds of communication.
2. The ‘directing attention’ subcategory describes the situations where the teacher verifies and includes the children’s knowledge and experiences and directs the children’s attention, and thus the conversation, towards a relevant topic for the children’s learning.

The analysis shows that the inclusion of the children’s perspective in the communication as demonstrated in the respond-and-consider approach is the best didactic point of departure in regard to learning. In this approach, teachers not only encourage, and engage in, the children’s perspective, but also incorporate their perspective in the children’s further learning. The analysis also shows that regardless of the communication approach taken by the teachers, they express a responsiveness and involvement towards the children’s perspectives in general; and in general, this perspective enhances the child’s opportunity to learn.

The study is based on empirical material from two observation studies of the preschool teachers’ communication with children aged 1-6 in two preschools. Data consists of video footage of activities where children and preschool teachers are talking about a specific topic. The video footage from one of the preschools includes children aged 1-3 and one preschool teacher, whereas the observations from the other preschool include children aged 3-6 and three preschool teachers. The recorded observations have been transcribed focusing on verbal conversation between children and preschool teachers.

Thulin, S. & Jonsson, A. (2014). “Child Perspectives and Children’s Perspectives – a Concern for Teachers in Preschool”. I: Bergman, L. m.fl. (red.): Childhood, learning and didactics. Educare-vetenskapliga skrifter, 2014:2. Malmö: Malmö Högskola. 13-37.