Læringskulturer i spenningsfeltet mellom ”vi og de andre”.

The purpose of this study is to understand the opportunities for learning offered and created through different practices at the daycare facility and in interplay between children and adults. More specifically the study aims to identify values, meaning-making, traditions and actions that can be used for learning and that are expressed in a selected group of children at a Swedish daycare centre.

With this study, the researcher points at the complexity and the challenges faced by daycare-centre staff, as today daycare centres exist in a multicultural society and in a time of change. Results show an ambiguous picture which suggests that several different learning cultures act in parallel within the group of children studied. On the one hand, the study shows a more or less unreflective attitude to the dominance of the majority culture. In conversations about multicultural issues and in the physical surroundings of the daycare centre, there is an implicit attitude, in which the children’s different ethnic backgrounds and traditions are largely considered as mere random elements rather than as equal to the majority culture or as possible advantages for pedagogical work. On the other hand, the early childhood educators place great emphasis on respect, and the study shows that they strive to fashion values for respect and equality in their pedagogical work. However, the study also shows that the Swedish language has a natural place as the official language in the group of children, and that the communication of the early childhood educators dominates the conversation, despite the fact that the early childhood educators point to language as an important part of children’s learning.In contrast to this, there is a learning culture in which emotional learning, humour, spontaneity and intimacy are important elements. The reciprocity in this learning seems to be great, and the early childhood educators (often) meet the children on the children’s own premises. The early childhood educators also try to create an inclusive “we” in the group of children, and working with inclusive values seems to be a conscious approach by the early childhood educators. However, the study suggests that this learning culture does not seem to allow the staff space to explicitly discuss the dominant factors in society that implicitly influence the pedagogical activity.

The data material is based on field work at a Swedish daycare centre, in which the interplay between children and adults in a selected group of children was observed. The material consists of three-day observations of 13 children aged one to three years, one early childhood educator and two childcare assistants (untrained staff). These observations were registered by video footage or as field notes. The observations were combined with interviews of the pedagogical staff, who also answered two questionnaires.

Johansson, E. (2012). Læringskulturer i spenningsfeltet mellom ”vi og de andre”. I: Vist, T. & Alvestad, M. (red). Læringskulturer i barnehagen: flerfaglige forskningsperspektiver. Cappelen Damm Akademisk.