Färglägg utanför ramarna! : Yngsta barnens möjligheter till kommunikation och inflytande i förskolan

The purpose of the present study was to describe, analyse and improve the understanding of how preschool teachers understand the youngest childrens communication in preschool in order to create possibilites to excert influence. In the present study the youngest children are defined as children aged one to three years old. In the present study, previous research is reviewed along with the policies which forms the foundation of the preschool system. The present study takes a sociocultural perspective which suggests that a child needs to spend time in a social environment in order to develop interpersonal relationships and grow as a human being. The present study consisted of structured interviews and video recordings in two separate preschools. It is based on the theories of Kvale & Brinkman (2003) who defined qualitative research as a method of research focused at improving the understanding of different perspectives and plans of action. In the present study, a hermeneneutic approach has been applied in order to interpret and analyze the interviews and recordings. The results suggest that all of the pedagogs describe the communication of the youngest children as diverse an highly varied. However, the results indicate that the two different preschools has two different point of views as to what they describe as essential regarding how they experience the communication of the youngest children. One of them emphazise the importance of repetition and the other the value of variation. The two different points of views influences the approach the pedagogs choses, consciously or unconsciously, when they engage the children in their attempts at communication. Furthermore, it affects how the preschool teachers perceive the level of the youngest childrens influence in the preschool. The present study also address the preschool teachers need for control and how their current discourse can be of importance, since it might originate from a constructed image of the child. However, we argue that the need for control and the discourse are intertwined, which indicate that the discourses can affect how and if the pedagog can approach the child. Furthermore, we believe that it affects the childs opportunities to excert influence, since it affects how the pedagog experience the communicative ability of the youngest children. These findings are in line with previous research of Munkhammar (2001), regarding how we write, talk, think and act regarding children.Validerat; 20160222 (global_studentproject_submitter