”Nyutdannede pedagogiske lederes mestring og appropriering av barnehagens kulturelle redskaper. En kvalitativ studie av nyutdannede førskolelæreres kompetansebygging det første året i yrket”.

The purpose of this dissertation is to shed light on how newly qualified pedagogical managers master and acquire the cultural tools of the daycare centre. Many newly qualified child carers are employed as pedagogical managers, and the author therefore focuses on their skills development in their first year as managers. Focus is both on the areas mastered by the newly qualified managers and on the areas described as difficult. Cultural tools refer to the specific arrangement of furniture, objects etc. at the daycare centre and the different ways of thinking and acting.

The author concluded that the pedagogical managers’ mastery and acquisition depend on the accessibility of the cultural tools of the daycare facilities for the child carers. The child carers acquire the cultural tools in different ways, depending on the individual cultural tools they bring into the daycare centre and to what extent they are able to use them. The newly qualified child carers are given management tasks in a field characterised by contradictory and unclear management discourses.

Five newly qualified child carers who worked as pedagogical managers at daycare facilities were followed by the author for one year. During this year, they wrote participant reports, the author observed their work at the daycare centres and at meetings, they were interviewed individually and in focus groups, and their managers and the supervisors assigned to help them in the beginning were interviewed. This material was analysed with inspiration from, for example, grounded theory, in which the author emphasised systematic descriptions which were divided into categories.

Ødegård, E. (2011). ”Nyutdannede pedagogiske lederes mestring og appropriering av barnehagens kulturelle redskaper. En kvalitativ studie av nyutdannede førskolelæreres kompetansebygging det første året i yrket”. Oslo: Unipub.