Finns det några kompetenta barn här? Pedagogers gemensamma föreställningar om barn i pedagogisk dokumentation

The study sheds light on the prevailing views of Swedish pre-school teachers regarding ‘the competent child’, as expressed in pedagogical documentation. The research question is: What shared views are expressed in pre-school pedagogical documentation regarding competent children?

The analysis shows that the pre-school teachers’ views of competent children can be categorised as essential, relational and ideological, and that all of these can exist together in one and the same work group. Even if one were to believe that requirements and guidelines for quality work, which often contain elements related to performance and efficiency, would influence the educators’ perception of what competent children should be, it turns out that the opposite is the case. The pre-school teachers’ thoughts on children and competence are based more on romantic notions, underpinned by a mosaic of theoretical and ideological approaches about children and children’s learning. The researcher believes that this pluralism is not necessarily problematic, and that through documentation of pedagogical practice, it can give pre-school teachers an opportunity to deconstruct their own view of children and competence, learn from it and reconstruct their own practice.

The data material is based on documentation of learning conversations and focus group conversations from a project in which pre-school teachers from 18 Swedish pre-school departments developed a working model for pedagogical documentation. The empirical material in this study analyses written documentation from 72 of the conversations that took place in the project, focusing on what the educators consider ‘competent children’ to mean.

Olsson, Å. (2019). «Finns det några kompetenta barn här? Pedagogers gemensamma föreställningar om barn i pedagogisk dokumentation”. Tidsskrift for Nordisk Barnehageforskning, 18(1):1-12.