Stora barngrupper i förskolan relaterat till läroplanens intentioner.

This study examines, on the basis of the size of the child group, which areas of the Swedish Curriculum for the Preschool preschool teachers prioritise and why. The study focuses on preschool teachers' statements about opportunities and obstacles in meeting curriculum intentions. One question is particularly central in the study: how does the size of child groups affect preschool teachers' selection (or deselection) of content areas from the preschool curriculum and working approaches in preschool?

The results of the study were divided into three themes that reflect the areas in which preschool teachers meet obstacles when working with the intentions and content of the curriculum. The three themes are: (1) organisation of child groups in relation to the number of children, (2) not succeeding in carrying out the planned content and (3) selecting specific content from the curriculum (and thereby deselecting other content).

Overall, the study shows that the number of children in preschool groups is crucial for preschool teachers' selection and deselection of content areas and working approaches. When there are too many children in a preschool group, the preschool teachers struggle to organise the groups, they fail to carry out the planned activities, and they feel compelled to leave out specific content areas or activities such as field trips, experiments, creativity and reading aloud. With fewer children in the groups, preschool teachers express that they to a greater extent can meet the intentions set in the curriculum.

The data material in the study was obtained from a larger research project and consists of an electronic questionnaire and interviews with preschool teachers. Participants in the questionnaire survey were selected on the basis of statistics on the number of children in groups in different Swedish municipalities. A total of 46 municipalities were selected for the study. The person responsible for ECEC in each municipality was informed about the project and given a link to the questionnaire which he/she was encouraged to submit to all preschools in the municipality. One preschool teacher from each preschool was asked to complete the questionnaire. Preschool teachers from 698 preschools submitted their responses.

In addition to the questionnaire, 24 interviews were conducted with preschool teachers from 12 preschools. The preschools were selected on the basis of geographic, socio-economic and demographic criteria, and included preschools with small as well as large group sizes. Thus the size of child groups varied from 12 to 45 children in different constellations (1-3 years, 3-5 years and 1-5 years). At the time of the interview, seven preschools had more than 30 children in the groups.

The questionnaire and the interviews focused on the following themes:

(1) description of their own child group, (2) questions about the group size, (3) questions about pedagogical content and organisation of children into groups, and (4) questions about preschool curriculum with regard to children's learning and participation in preschool activities.

A qualitative analysis was carried out on the basis of the open questions in the questionnaire and on the interviews with the preschool teachers.

Samuelsson, I.P., Williams, P. & Sheridan, S. (2015). Stora barngrupper i förskolan relaterat till läroplanens intentioner. Nordisk Barnehageforskning 9(7), 1-14.