“Demokratiske samtaler i barnehagen?” & ”Førskolelærernes handlinger og barns språklige deltakelse i prosjektsamtaler”.

The two studies deal with democratic practices at daycare facilities, and how these can be promoted. The purpose is to examine how child carers can create conditions for conversations characterised by democratic practices, and how child carers can contribute to children’s participation in these conversations.

The authors conclude that project conversations, i.e. conversations organised and managed by child carers in connection with work on projects at the daycare facility, have potential to be influenced by democratic practices that promote the community, as the conversations can enable children to meet others that are different from themselves. However, this requires child carers to master different types of professional knowledge (knowledge about conversation genres, communicative competences as well as knowledge about different professional areas) as well as to improvise in the often unpredictable conversations. Therefore, the authors put forward a pedagogical implication of the study: that the child carer education programme has to work with pedagogical interdisciplinarity, and that there should be debate on what routines and improvisation skills the child carers have to learn in their preparation for the professional challenges they will face in their meeting with the children.

Data material consists of video footage of eight project conversations, which are conversations organised and managed by child carers in connection with project work at the daycare facility. On the basis of an understanding of democracy as a way of life rather than a form of government, the material is analysed with a view to finding the strategies and actions the child carers use when they seek to create conditions for children’s participation in democratic conversations.

Tholin, K.R. & Jansen, T.T. (2011). “Demokratiske samtaler i barnehagen?” Nordisk Barnehageforskning, 4(2), 103-114. Jansen, T.T. & Tholin, K.R. (2011). ”Førskolelærernes handlinger og barns språklige deltakelse i prosjektsamtaler”. I Gjems, L. & Løkken, G. (red.): ”Barns læring om språk og gjennom språk. Samtaler i barnehagen”. Oslo: Cappelen Damm. 148-175.

Tholin, K. R. & Jansen, T. T. (2012) Something to Talk about: Does the Language Use of Pre-School Teachers Invite Children to Participate in Democratic Conversation? I: European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 20(1), 35-46.