Skolförberedda barn – barnförberedd skola?: Vårdnadshavares perspektiv på sina barnsövergång från förskola till förskoleklass

The study discusses Swedish parents’ expectations regarding their children’s upcoming transition from kindergarten to pre-school class (primary school). The study has two research questions: (1) How do parents describe their children before the upcoming transition from kindergarten to pre-school class? (2) How can these descriptions be understood in relation to the term ‘school readiness’?

The results indicate that parents perceive the transition from kindergarten to school as an important and critical event, both for them as parents and for the children. The event is perceived as a major first step on a new journey, which the parents describe in both positive and negative terms. Starting school is associated with the notion of entering an adult world and leaving the toddler years behind. The parents are aware that there is a boundary between kindergarten and pre-school, where kindergarten, pre-school class and Year 1 (primary and lower secondary school) are forms of school that are physically separated in different places and where there are more differences than similarities between the practices that take place. The researcher believes that these notions maintain and reproduce the dichotomy between kindergarten and school as two separate sociocultural and tradition-bound contexts.

The empirical data consists of 176 surveys answered by parents/guardians of children who were about to make the transition from kindergarten to pre-school class. 105 of the parents were about to have a child in school for the first time, while 71 of the parents already had children in school. Parents at six different schools responded to the survey a few months before the transition from kindergarten to pre-school class. The survey consisted of two different parts. The first part contained nine quantitative multiple choice questions. Part two consisted of one open-ended question: “Write the first thing that comes into your head in relation to your child starting pre-school.” The study is based on a sociocultural perspective.

Ackesjö, H. (2018). «Skolförberedda barn- barnförberedd skola?: Vårdnadshavares perspektiv på sina barns övergång från förskola till förskuleklass». Cepra-striben - tidsskrift for Evaluering i praksis, (23):2-13.