Environmental work in preschool : Educators perceptions of the concept of sustainable development

The purpose of this survey is to find out how the field of sustainable development is understood in the pre-school activities and how children are involved in that work. The study has a phenomenographical approach and I have therefore used qualitative interviews. During the course of my work, I have learned from four educators different perceptions of the concept of sustainable development, their interpretation of the goals in the pre-school curriculum and their views on children's participation. Four description categories were crystallized during the analysis of the material, it was environment, society / future, knowledge and participation. The result shows that the educators had difficulty defining the concept of sustainable development. They also had difficulty explaining how they worked with sustainable development based on the curriculum. When it comes to children's participation, the children participated primarily in adult-oriented activities. Sustainable development is a concept that you need to problematize more precisely in preschool