”Samtal om barn och pedagogisk dokumentation som bedömningspraktik i förskolan”.

The purpose of this study is to examine how, on the basis of their pedagogical documentation, child carers talk about and assess children at daycare centres during planning meetings. The study also examines how child carers perceive pedagogical documentation.

The study shows that child carers’ conversations about children at daycare centres are multi-faceted. Different discourses co-exist in the child carers’ statements about the children. The child carers talk on the basis of an understanding of children as having an identity of their own on the one hand, and adopting the subject positions provided for them by their surroundings on the other. Even though the child carers alternate between the two understandings, it is common for the child carers to talk about the children as competent. In the child carers’ conversations about children, they primarily discuss the children’s competences. The study also shows that child carers see a problem in spending time on documentation, as there is a risk that this disturbs the processes of the children. Overall the child carers state that the use of pedagogical documentation at daycare centres involves several advantages and disadvantages.

The author was present at all 26 planning meetings of 1-1½ hours. The meetings took place at daycare centres inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach, and the child carers were all experienced in pedagogical documentation. The meetings were recorded, transcribed and analysed on the basis of tools from Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis.

Bjervås, L. (2011). ”Samtal om barn och pedagogisk dokumentation som bedömningspraktik i förskolan”. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet.