Att förstå förskolan: vardagslivets institutionella ansikten.

The study examines how kindergarten can be perceived, and how it is in shaped in practice. The study focuses on how children, staff and parents shape the institution through social practices and realise what we perceive as 'childhood'.

The study shows that the different practices in kindergarten help to maintain perceptions of what and how the kindergarten, the children and to some extent, the parents should be and how they should act. As different players use different resources, e.g. when they categorise and communicate with the children, different simultaneous truths are produced that are transformed into normality. For instance, the development interview includes negotiating, evaluating and categorising elements, and in practice, it serves as a room for negotiation on the normalisation of what a good parent, child carer or child is and should be.

The design of the study is ethnographic and explorative. The study is based on observations and interviews with 20 children, 27 parents and 16 employees in two public kindergartens.

Markström, A. M. (2007). Att förstå förskolan: vardagslivets institutionella ansikten. Stockholm: Studentlitteratur.