Purpose
The purpose of the study is to investigate how kindergarten teachers understand teaching in kindergartens. The research questions are: 1) How, according to kindergarten teachers, is teaching expressed in kindergarten? 2) What appears as teaching and non-teaching in the kindergarten teachers’ descriptions and reasoning?
Result
The results show that kindergarten teachers regard teaching in kindergarten as something else or more than teaching in school. A tension exists between the kindergarten teachers’ expressed ambitions to create their own interpretive space for what teaching can mean in relation to the children, and their intentions to realise national and pre-formulated curriculum objectives.
Design
The data material was collected from conversations in a research circle in which the authors of the article and 15 kindergarten teachers from a Swedish municipality participated. The conversations were based on the participants’ questions about teaching in their own practice. The kindergarten teachers worked in different kindergartens with children between one and five years of age. The circle meetings took place about once a month over a period of two years. All the conversations were audio recorded and transcribed.
References
Olsson, M., Eneflo, E. L. & Lindqvist, G. (2020). «Undervisning i förskolan – en företeelse i rörelse». Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 25(4):30-56.