Fagsamtaler i barnehagen.

The purpose of the study is to examine how early childhood educators encourage children to participate actively in conversations about academic subjects.

The results from this study do not provide an unambiguous explanation of how educators encourage children to actively participate in conversations about academic subjects. However, the study does reveal a number of shared characteristics in both planned and spontaneous conversations between educators and children. In both types of conversation, the authors found that the educator was the central person and that most questions and answers were directed between a child and the educator. The children directed their attention toward the educator and they also sought her attention to get a response and recognition. This meant that the children were less attentive toward one another. The authors assess that this may lead to the children losing interest in developing knowledge in a shared children’s community, or that children experience that their impact on knowledge constructions and mutual decisions is not important. Furthermore the authors found a so-called IRE structure (initiative - response - evaluation) in many of the conversations. The authors assess that this kind of structure may have contributed to shaping some of the interactions between the children and the educator, and that the educator’s assessment of the children’s answers prevented further exploration of the children’s input. The author’s also found several examples of children building up to address one another. In these situations the educator stepped back after having introduced the subject, and the children followed up on each other’s input. However, despite these attempts, the study shows that the educators only had limited success in linking the children’s input, thoughts, knowledge and opinions to one another. The study showed that it was important that the educators were well-prepared when they planned to introduce or carry on teaching a specific subject. Also the contextual conditions, e.g. the physical setting in which the conversation takes place and the educator’s choice of pedagogical material that serve as a framework for the conversation, were seen to be significant with regard to how successful the educator was at maintaining the focus of the conversation. Finally, the study indicates that the educators are faced with a dilemma when they are forced to choose between sticking to a specific academic subject in the group or allowing the children’s input to lead the conversation in other directions.

The data material is based on video footage of conversations between children and early childhood educators in four divisions in two daycare facilities. Both spontaneous and planned conversations were recorded. However, the study only includes conversations in which the educators had invited the children to converse about an academic subject; it does not include the conversations that the children initiated themselves. A hand-held camera was used and data was collected over a two-year period. The children who participated in the study were aged between three and six years old. The data material consists of 18 conversations of varying length. Eight of the conversations took place in connection with planned project activities, where the educator had an intention with the conversation. The remaining ten conversations were spontaneous and were recording during a meal and during free play.

Gjems, L., Jansen, T.T. & Tholin, K.R. (2012). Fagsamtaler i barnehagen. Nordisk Barnehageforskning 5(22), 1-12.