Programming as a New Content in Swedish Preschool : What Is It and How Is It Done?

In 2017, the Swedish government decided on a new national strategy for digitalisation of the school system. The strategy resulted in a revision of the curricula for Swedish preschool in order to strengthen digitalisation. Although programming is not explicitly mentioned in the curriculum, programming and robots have become a more common feature of preschool teaching. There are intervention studies showing that children can develop programming skills and conceptions. However, studies of programming from a technology education perspective are rare, and there is a need for further research. This study aims to investigate how programming in a preschool context and what the teachers and children do. This study focuses on the interaction between children, teachers and technology. The programming activities in preschool are not a separate activity, but part of a wider context, hence we adapt a sociocultural perspective. The empirical data consist of two group interviews with preschool teachers and one video-recorded programming activity with children aged 4-5 years and their teachers. The data material was analysed using a thematic content analysis to inductively search for patterns in the actions and methods used by teachers and children. This study shows that four aspects of programming were communicated: instructions, sequences, bugs, and language. Moreover, the relationship between humans and the technological artefacts was characterized in three different ways: technology as I) anthropomorphic, II) gender coded, and III) autonomous or non-autonomous. Thus, the programming activities and robot were incorporated in a wider context. Technology (the robot) became a tool to achieve several learning objectives. The technology was not the main focus; the overall message constructed in this teaching setting is that the human controls and uses the technology to achieve specific purposes