Teaching in preschool : A qualitative study of how preschool teachers, preschool managers and head of operations interpret the concept of teaching

In 2011 pre-schools began reporting to the Education Department and were then subject to the school law. Pre-school’s entry into the school system meant that the concept of education became part of the pre-school’s activities. This is also to be implemented into the preschool curriculum. This study has examined how pre-school teachers, pre-school managers and heads of operations interpret the concept of "teaching" in the pre-school context. Respondents that were interviewed were familiar with the subject, due to the fact that they are part of a nationwide teaching project and they themselves work on implementing the concept of teaching in their operations. The aim has been to establish how the three professions interpret the concept and work with it in practice. The study is based on a social constructivist perspective where we chose to focus on how the concept of teaching is constructed and reconstructed using the social linguistic interaction and the interaction between respondents. As a research method, we have used qualitative group interviews. The empirical data has been analysed using the theoretical lens of social constructivism. The results showed that the term "teaching" was unclear when it is referred to pre-schools and did not have a specific definition in the pre-school context. The concept was understood differently by the three professions. The respondents argued that the implementation of the concept in the pre-schools took place in diverse ways. They confirmed that it is a long-term process that will take time to fully implement. Another conclusion that the authors drew was 2 that there was a gap between practice and theory. This was because the heads of operations and pre-school managers had a theoretical view of "teaching" while the pre-school teachers had a practical view.