Dokumentationssyndromet – En interaktionistisk och socialkritisk studie av förskolans dokumentations- och bedömningspraktik

The aim of the study is to investigate pedagogical documentation and evaluation practices in kindergarten. Focus is placed on everyday situations in which educators carry out various forms of documentation or evaluation, and where interaction takes place between children and adults at the same time. The purpose of the investigation is to analyse which version of reality is being documented. The two research questions are: 1) What type of interaction patterns unfold in the situations? 2) How can these be understood from a socially interactionist and socially critical perspective?

The analysis shows that the kindergarten teachers and children perceive and define the documentation situations differently. The kindergarten teachers’ definitions are task-oriented and include a predetermined goal and an expected result. He/she tries to get the children to share this definition by asking them questions. The children seem to have a more spontaneous attitude to the situation and are open to it changing. The author of the article believes that the results indicate that both children and adults adapt to the expectations and requirements of the institutional documentation and evaluation practice. The adults act as if there are no differences between the expected and the actual result. The children adapt their actions to what they think is expected of them. It is not clear what a documentation situation can or should mean. The author emphasises the necessity of assessing which aspects of everyday kindergarten life can be made visible through documentation, and calls for a reflection on how such documentation practice can promote and inhibit children’s desire to learn.

The sample consists of a total of 36 children and six kindergarten teachers at two departments in two Swedish kindergartens. The empirical data consists of video observations of situations involving a form of documentation consisting of an interaction between kindergarten teachers and children.

Nilfyr, K. (2018). ”Dokumentationssyndromet – En interaktionistisk och socialkritisk studie av förskolans dokumentations- och bedömningspraktik”. Akademisk avhandling. Linnéuniversitetet.