Vilan i förskolan 1910-2013 : Visuella material och visuell metodologi

The study analyses and compares the social practices related to children’s nap time in kindergarten during the period 1910-2013 through the use of visual sources, such as photographs and video recordings. The research questions are: 1) How is nap time in kindergarten carried out according to visual analyses of the social interaction and physical space seen in historical and contemporary material, and how can nap time be understood in terms of continuity and change? 2) How is it possible to perform a meaningful visual analysis in an ethically sound manner when combining historical and contemporary sources? 

The analysis states that both the interaction patterns and the physical spaces that constitute nap time in the kindergarten have changed little over the past 100 years. Nap time was and is a collective activity that takes place at a certain time of day. The results show how the children, in interaction with each other and the adults, maintain, create, recreate and challenge the rules of nap time. Both the historical and contemporary data show that there have rarely been separate rooms that are adapted specifically for nap time in kindergarten. It is evident that nap time is an activity that is organised temporally as a physical place in kindergarten premises, using mattresses or folding beds. In order to process the historical visual data in an ethical manner, the researcher has used ‘The visual remake’ method, where she creates hand-drawn images in which elements from film or photography are reproduced without identifying the people involved. 

33 hours of video recording from an ethnographic study in a kindergarten in 2011 have been analysed in the study. In addition, the author has used historical data consisting of 200 photographs and 10 films, from 1910-1970, that visualise children’s nap time. Data from different historical periods were compared in order to explore how continuity and change play a role in children’s nap time over the past hundred years.

Grunditz, S. (2018). "Vilan i förskolan 1910-2013 : Visuella material och visuell metodologi".  Akademisk avhandling. Stockholms universitet.