"Why Do We Celebrate …?" Filling Traditions with Meaning in an Ethnically Diverse Swedish Preschool

The purpose of this study is to examine how employees and children in an ethnically diverse preschool negotiate the meaning of cultural traditions celebrated in Swedish preschools.

Overall, the study shows that the employees try to balance between meeting the children's own initiatives and ideas and passing on "a cultural heritage" which is a goal of the curriculum. However, according to the author, the curriculum does not explicitly state whether or not religion should be seen as part of the cultural heritage. This leads to didactic dilemmas about how to pass on a cultural heritage without reproducing cultural narratives with a religious connotation.

The analysis shows that narratives about cultural traditions with a religious tonality make employees uncertain about how to communicate with the children about traditions such as Easter and Christmas. According to the authors, this uncertainty can either be explained by the inexplicit wording in the curriculum, or by the employees' lack of sufficient knowledge about cultural narratives with a religious connotation, because religion is not an integral part of their education. Finally, according to the authors, the uncertainty may be because the employees consider these narratives too complex to explain them in a meaningful way to the children.

The data material consists of video recordings of three circle times. During the circle times, children and employees sat in a circle and discussed the question: "Why do we celebrate ... (Easter, Christmas and Valentine's Day)? One employee was responsible for structuring the activity by asking questions and allocating speaking time, whereas another employee was responsible for writing down the children's answers on a mindmap. A total of four employees and 19 children aged 3-6 years took part in the study. The child group was diverse in terms of culture, religion and language, and the participating employees also represented diverse ethnic and professional backgrounds. The authors analysed video recordings and mindmaps using a narrative approach inspired by Mikhail M. Bakhtin's theory of dialogical meaning and addressivity as well as Robin Alexander's ideas on dialogical teaching.

Puskás, T., & Andersson, A. (2017). "Why Do We Celebrate …?" Filling Traditions with Meaning in an Ethnically Diverse Swedish Preschool. International Journal of Early Childhood, 49(1), 21-37.