Föränderlig Tillblivelse – Figurationen av det posthumana förskolebarnet

Author
Lindgren, T.
Year
2018

Purpose

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the idea of the posthuman child in a Swedish and international context of early childhood education. The study investigates how posthumanist concepts and ideas are translated and used in political documents regarding kindergarten. The researcher asks how the image of the kindergarten child is created at the intersection of educational research, education policy and pedagogical practice.

The three research questions are:

  1. Through which constellations of issues, practices and knowledge is the idea of the posthuman child formed?
  2. What types of frictions and overlaps exist between the posthuman child and other figurations of the child in research, politics and practice?
  3. What ideas about society and the future are built into the idea of the posthuman child?

Result

The researcher describes the posthuman understanding of the child as being flexible in its dealings with a world in which both humans and the environment are mutually dependent on each other. The goal is for the posthuman child to be better adapted to a world characterised by movement, heterogeneity, rapid social change and technical development. In international posthumanist-inspired school research, the posthuman child becomes the solution to a world in social and ecological crisis. The child, with the help of the right education, will be freed from contemporary, dominant and traditional mindsets in order to rethink its position in the world, thereby changing the future. The child becomes the solution and education the means to change society. 

Design

The empirical data material is retrieved from the researcher’s doctoral thesis where she followed a group of kindergarten teachers and their work involving pedagogical documentation over the course of a year. The researcher participated in the staff’s reflective meetings, in which they addressed and analysed various documentation from learning projects involving the children.   

References

Lindgren, T. (2018). ”Föränderlig Tillblivelse – Figurationen av det posthumana förskolebarnet”. Akademisk avhandling. Universitetet i Malmö.

Financed by

Graduate School in Subject Didactics, Uppsala University, Sweden