Förskolans utvecklingssamtal: Om motstridiga logiker i ett institutionaliserat möte

The study investigates how parent–teacher conferences in a kindergarten are conducted with a focus on how the kindergarten teacher and the parents relate to two conflicting discourses about quality in kindergarten. One discourse emphasises assessments of the child’s individual development and learning, while the other discourse focuses on collective learning through children’s free exploration and collaboration. 

The analysis shows that the kindergarten teacher’s account of collective learning processes is in contrast to the parents’ demands for information regarding their child’s individual performance. Kindergarten teachers have an ambition to promote the joint development and learning of the whole group of children, but they are asked about the children’s individual development in the parent–teacher conference. The author claims that the parents’ demands actualise a market logic that influences how kindergarten teachers present kindergarten. When parents act as customers in meetings with the kindergarten, the educational argument sometimes has to give way in order for the kindergarten to assert itself in a market.

The empirical material consists of observation of preparatory conversations between kindergarten coordinators and kindergarten teachers prior to parent–teacher conferences, observations from two parent–teacher conferences involving the kindergarten teacher and the parents of two five-year-old kindergarten children, as well as interviews with the two kindergarten teachers. The analysis work focuses on how the children’s development and learning are assessed and described in relation to the parents. 

Lindqvist, B. (2019). ”Förskolans utvecklingssamtal: Om motstridiga logiker i ett institutionaliserat möte”. Kulturella perspektiv – Svensk etnologisk tidskrift, 28(3-4):35–44.