Barns ‘agency’ i lekresponsiv undervisning

Author
Lagerlöf P., Wallerstedt C., Kultti A.
Source
Forskning om undervisning och lärande, 7(1):44-63.
Year
2019

Purpose

The study problematises the relationship between children’s co-determination and teachers’ participation in connection with play-response teaching. The study contains an interaction analysis focusing on how the teacher builds scaffolding for a play activity, which contributes to children’s self-determination and learning. The aim of the study is to answer the following research questions: (1) What characterises the interaction between children and kindergarten teachers that promotes children’s co-determination? (2) How does one design support for this interaction?

Result

The findings show that the teacher legitimises the children’s contributions and invites them to be co-producers of the play. Therefore, based on the empirical analysis, the authors argue that co-determination is not something that can be taken for granted as something that evolves naturally, but that it relies on mediation. Therefore, it is argued that the teacher plays a key role in contributing to children’s development of co-determination.

The analysis shows that the kindergarten teacher contributes to the interaction through certain decisive actions. Based on empirical evidence in the study, the authors argue that play-responsive teaching can help create co-determination in children. The role of the kindergarten teacher is key to supporting children’s development of co-determination by acting as a competent participant in the play, with a focus on both the development of the play itself and the content that emerges and is actualised through the framework of the play.

Design

The kindergarten teachers have filmed themselves participating in play situations initiated by the children that the teachers have requested access to, or in play situations that the teachers have planned themselves. This lengthy project has taken place over the course of 3 years and more than 100 short play sequences have been documented. The project has had a cyclical design involving regular meetings for researchers and kindergarten teachers at the university, where analyses of collected data have been carried out, followed by a new round of data generation. How children’s co-determination is created and supported in the interaction between children and pre-school teachers is analysed with the support of the play’s dimensions of as if and as is, metacommunication and triggers.

This study is based on one of the observed play situations. 4 children, between 3 and 5 years old, and 1 kindergarten teacher participate. The play is not planned, but develops in the interaction between the children and the teacher.

References

Lagerlöf, P., Wallerstedt C., & Kultti, A. (2019). "Barns ‘agency’ i lekresponsiv undervisning". Forskning om undervisning och lärande, 7(1):44-63. 
 

Financed by

Swedish Institute for Educational Research, Sweden